Surviving in your soul

Pin the little green room at the Gate, with its tall Georgian windows scarcely muffling the shrieks of bus traffic, I talked to three of the cast of Lady Windermere's Fan, all in their early 30s and well-established in their careers: Hilary Reynolds (back from London to play Lady Windermere), Claudia Carroll (Lady Plymdale) aka the traumatised Nicola from Fair City and Pat Kinevane (Cecil Graham), sucking tightly on blue Silk Cuts and speaking with that spanking, almost camp Cork accent.

Reynolds, who worked in the Royal Court and the National, came more easily to the job than the other two, as her mother and grandmother both worked in the Gate. "I don't think I ever wanted to do anything else. I drifted into it, the same as if you come from a family of doctors, you'll go to medical school."

Claudia Carroll started with Feis performances at the age of five alongside Fishamble director Jim Culleton and actress Karen Ardiff. "I don't think acting was really a decision - but then again, I did accountancy in college." She laughs. Does she ever feel constrained by Fair City? "The character just seems to involve one tragedy after another - so it's a major relief to be doing comedy."

Pat Kinevane is a another Feis veteran but was always determined. "I gave other things a lash after I left school - I was a nurse and worked with the Department of Post and Telegraphs, but I used to travel up and down at weekends to train in Dublin. Coming from a rural part of the world, it was an escape, a ticket to the city if you like."

Reynolds's experience is different to the other two in that, after working for some years, she moved to London and had two children. Does that balance out the highs and lows? "Well, being rejected for a part actually gets harder as you get older, but you have to remain very fierce with yourself. You're so optimistic when you start off, and as you do bigger and more challenging roles, you can't really be seen to go back."

"Your perspective changes," says Kinevane. "I guess you lose that strange, frantic, enigmatic energy that you have when you start off - you'll work for nothing at that stage, because any job is worth money on your CV".

"It's that blind ambition that whatever happens, you're going to make it," says Reynolds. "And life's not like that. You'll find other survival methods in the meantime. I've dabbled in journalism and I really enjoyed that."

"Give me the theatre any day," says Kinevane, "working on a good show to build up an ensemble. There's no doubt egos have to be satisfied, but maybe it is a maturity or something you eventually realise, that the play's the thing."

With the general insecurity of the job, how do they feel about facing into mortgages and having kids? "You just have to take a chance," says Kinevane. "I suppose if you thought about it, you'd never do it. With my missus (Fionnuala Murphy) being an actress, the chances are that she's working. But I suppose you always say to yourself, you'll survive this for a few more years.

"If you've got the money you just go for it, and I suppose it depends on the relationship you re in," says Reynolds, whose husband Mark Long is also an actor - although nowadays, he's devoting more of his time to writing. "Sometimes I worry that we don't even have a pension," she says.

So, how long would an actor be "resting" before you start getting nervous? "A day," laughs Reynolds, "but then again with two kids - now aged three and seven - "there isn't much time to sit down and get too depressed or anxious."

I know quite a few actors, and if they're not working they're totally depressed, and that's really dangerous," says Reynolds. "It's really useful if you can do something else, not necessarily another job but either to make money, or to survive in your soul."