Raising the kings

Seven Thirty Productions remounts a dark tale

“When I arrived here in Ottawa, this was my second play. I put it on in the upstairs of the Aulde Dubliner pub in the Market,” John Kelly’s voice lilts in a slow Irish brogue. “But of the 11 plays I’ve done here, to this day, this is the only one I feel is worth remounting.” Kelly speaks of the play with the obvious pride of a valued possession, something you hold close and feel keenly.

Kings of the Kilburn High Road was written by an Irish housepainter named Jimmy Murphy. After spending “the guts of 20 years working in and around building sites in London,” he began to write about the side of Irish life that he experienced as an emigrant.

The play’s story begins with six friends leaving Ireland, the “poorest parts of what was then a poor country,” in order to chase their fortunes working menial jobs in London. They found life hard and alienating. Estranged from people, from their culture, and from any sympathy in the English city, these men turned to each other and to drink to succour themselves.

“It’s a story many Irish don’t want to acknowledge – that of the stereotype Irish loser. They thought they’d make a fortune, but quickly learned to drink themselves silly.”

The action of the play begins almost 30 years later, at the wake of one of their gang. As they drink and laugh and joke boisterously, “the bitterness, the savageness comes through. These people are basically lonely losers. And they can’t go home because they’ll be seen for what they are.”

In rehearsal, Murphy’s dialogue is a high-speed, oiled patter of working-class voices, all twining around each other in conversation, swearing virulently, spitting insults, probing old wounds. It’s intense for a casual ear, but, as Kelly rightly points out, “how can you write a play about these characters without the way they speak?”

An interesting element of the production is the return of the entire original cast. Far from being a contrivance, the actors seem to have drifted back together organically, taking up the project again out of mutual desire.

“We get to relearn the play, and get fascinating new perspectives from John,” says actor David McCallum. Cast mate Jerome Bourgault echoes that sentiment: “I think it was my best work previously. And to revisit it with a new patina of experience on you and all the other actors makes the part fresh.”

As appeared in the Ottawa XPress – Dec. 18, 2008
http://www.ottawaxpress.ca/stage/stage.aspx?iIDArticle=16310