WEST Belfast actress Katie Tumelty is back on the Lyric stage this month reprising a role she first played seven years ago.
The Marie Jones play Dear Arabella tells the story of three women living in post-Second World War Belfast. When it first appeared on stage the production consisted of three monologues as the women told their own personal stories. However, under director Matthew McElhinney, the three stories are now intertwined making for a “much fuller performance”.
Speaking during a break in rehearsal, Katie said she is delighted to be back playing the character Jean.
“She’s a spinster, she’s the one who has been left at home to care for the mother,” she says. “She lives in a very ordinary street, it’s a very ordinary day, but the extraordinary happens that catapults her into this journey and on the way she meets two women and it’s just a gentle reminder that small acts of kindness can change somebody’s trajectory or their narrative, and it’s nothing major but it does impact and every single one of them are affected by each other.”
Katie says that even though it is a role that she has played previously, this production is “like a new play to me”.
“The writing is the same obviously but we have changed the format and there’s been a lot of input from Matthew. There’s a lot more movement, it’s much more physical bringing the characters to life. When we did it originally it was focused on the words and it could have been a very good radio play but because we now have the playing space and we now don’t have our arms pinned to our side there is so much more we can do with it. We have come alive. Because the writing is interspliced now – they were three stand-alone monologues initially – I think it makes a much more fuller performance from all of us.”
Although the main vein that runs through the play is loneliness, Katie says the humour is never far away.
“What I think is beautiful about this is the writing. You’ve got your comedy, of course you’ve got the comedy because it’s Marie Jones, but it’s quite close to the tragedy and I always say she gets you in an emotional headlock and tickles you into submission. That’s what she does to an audience. It’s a beautiful piece of writing.”
Marie Jones says the play is about a time when people didn’t speak about their problems, particularly after the trauma of the Second World War.
CAST AND CREW: Marie Jones, Katie Tumelty, Joane Crawford, Jayne Wisener, Ian McElhinney and Matthew McElhinney
“It was an era when women after a certain age, say 25, if they weren’t married they were a spinster,” she says. “And it was also a generation where they didn’t put old people into care homes. The daughter who was left at home looked after them. So that’s our first woman, she came from that background where this is her life, she’s been with her mother forever and then one day something happens and she says, ‘I need to get away, I just need to go to the sea, and just have space, just to be me for one day’. It’s that journey that she makes that she meets these other two characters who are going through similar things and are feeling trapped in their lives. And I think a lot of people will relate to that.”
Matthew, who is Marie’s son, but has made a name for himself as a director, brings a fresh perspective to this production of Dear Arabella.
“This is a different venture this time out because originally it was three monologues and it was very static,” he says. “It was great because it is such great story-telling and writing and it was very moving and powerful but this time if you want to put it on the stage it has to be much more theatrical, you’ve got to give people something to watch as well as hear.
“The difference this time around is that the monologues have now been interweaved so the story begins with just the one character who has a ten minute monologue, but then the other two characters arrive, but then the monologues start to piece together and we suddenly realise that these three women that we’ve been introduced to that they are all talking about the same day.
“What it means now, is that it is very visually interesting and it allows for a lot of moments."
Dear Arabella runs from September 24-October 12 at the Lyric Theatre. Tickets available here
