Parochial hall production to link both sides of Irish Sea

It began three years ago as several actors in search of a plot. Now, many actors and writers later, Breathing Space, a new play jointly produced by Clonmel's Galloglass Theatre Company and Theatre West Glamorgan from Wales, is about to be unveiled to audiences around the country.

It will also be part of the fringe programme at the forthcoming Dublin Theatre Festival.

Scripted by the Monasterevan writer Ken Bourke, the play is the culmination of a project first dreamed up by Galloglass manager David Teevan. He spotted the potential benefits of an EU grant scheme designed to support cross-Border initiatives.

With the Interreg II programme, as the grant scheme is known in Brussels, on his mind, David headed for Wales in the Galloglass Hiace van (which has since "passed away") to find a potential partner for a three-year collaborative project.

He found several, and Galloglass has maintained links with two other Welsh theatre companies. But West Glamorgan, which like the Clonmel outfit tours in regional towns, was identified as the most suitable partner.

The two successfully applied for the EU funding to enable them to share resources, explore ideas and, ultimately, produce a show which reflected their respective cultures.

Getting the grant, David now reflects, was the easy part. "The actual process has been very challenging. People have come and gone to the project as their lives have taken different directions."

So what did they actually do for the past three years? Lynne Jones from Wales, one of only two actors to survive the entire process, says the first gathering "seems like such a long time ago."

Personnel from both sides came together for a week and threw around various ideas about what it meant to be Irish or Welsh.

"We talked about our differences and similarities and discussed the kind of themes we would like to explore, and which ones would be boring and wouldn't hold an audience's attention," says Lynne, who plays Becky, "a compulsive liar".

After a week of such discourse, the actors performed a little devised piece together and the process which led to Breathing Space had been set in motion.

However, it was not until Easter this year and many discussions, improvisations and sketches later that Welshman Ioan Hefin and Ken Bourke were appointed director and writer respectively to put a final shape on the previous 2 1/2 years' work.

The result is a play about eight characters, four Irish and four Welsh, "and where they are in their lives at a moment in time," says Ioan.

Putting the cast through their paces at final rehearsals in the Church of Ireland parochial hall in Clonmel, Ioan is remarkably relaxed as next Tuesday's opening night approaches.

After a four-night run in Clonmel, the play will move to St Michan's Church in Dublin as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival fringe programme and then to Glenamaddy, Tullamore, Charleville, Wexford and three venues in Wales.

Despite its unorthodox origins, David Teevan hopes it will be appreciated by mainstream audiences. "I would be disappointed if there was a perception that what we did was highbrow."

Galloglass was founded in 1990 by David, his partner, Theresia Guschlbauer, and his brother, Colin Teevan, now writer in residence at Queen's University.

In the eight years the company has been touring, it has built up a clientele of about 90 venues and promoters around the country, some of them small theatres with just 80-odd seats, says David.

"There's one venue that has a stage 15 feet by 12 feet. We've also played in the Cork Opera House, and the stage there is about half a mile wide.

"A good proportion of our touring would be to inland towns, possibly the less frequented towns as well . . . The last two years have been a period of exploration for us in that we've taken on a variety of different projects.

"We've produced a number of quite different shows to assess the audience response. We've done a number of children's theatre shows and some community shows, working with amateur actors in Clonmel."

The company has also produced a couple of devised shows, where, as with Breathing Space, a number of people contribute to the final work. They included Broken Ground last year, which evolved from interviews and workshops carried out with about 100 women in Tipperary.

The play was performed in 27 Irish towns, including places such as Manister in west Limerick which are not easy to find on the map. "We had to get within five miles of Manister before anybody could tell us where it was, but we had a wonderful night there, 160 or 170 people at the show," says David.

Breathing Space opens on Tuesday, October 6th, and runs in Clonmel until October 9th. The remaining October dates in Ireland are Dublin (St Michan's Church), 13th-16th; Glenamaddy, 19th; Tullamore, 20th; Charleville, 21st; Wexford, 23rd-24th.