Picture the scene: you walk into your local, only to find the owner and his son are in the middle of a blazing row. You retreat discreetly. Later, you come back, only to find the two embracing, tears running down their cheeks, with the voice of Pavarotti soaring in the background.
This anecdote was recounted by a friend to Jim Nolan, playwright and artistic director of Waterford's Red Kettle theatre company. After a long gestation period, during which Nolan's much loved father died of cancer, the play The Salvage Shop was born.
Although it centres around the difficult, many-layered relationship between a father and son - "Sylvie" and Eddie Tansey - the play is also about "the healing and consoling power of music," explains Nolan. The volatile but ailing Sylvie has been bandmaster of the local brass band for 37 years. His relationship with his son is complicated by his resentment over the fact that Eddie - a talented euphonium player - has given up playing in the band.
"I was keen to write about the important role of brass bands in small towns," says Nolan. "We have two brass bands in Waterford, and my play is a way of saying thanks to them for everything they've given us." City of Waterford Brass will play on the opening night of The Salvage Shop at Garter Lane on Monday, and the Barrack Street Band will play at its performance next Saturday. "The only problem is, all the band members think the play is about them!" Nolan laughs. He also pays tribute to his musical adviser for the play, Liam Walsh, who is the conductor of the Dungarvan Brass Band.
Noting the "potent connection" between the local brass band and its community, Nolan observes: "In Red Kettle we'd like to think we have a similar relationship with the people of Waterford: a real relationship with the community we live in. We want to reflect in a direct way something of the experience of the people of the town."
Paraphrasing a line from the play, he continues: "I'd like to see Red Kettle as a vehicle for the community to celebrate and hope."
The setting for the play incorporates another aspect of Waterford life. Nolan was inspired by the Salvage Shop on The Airport Road in Waterford: "As soon as I saw it I realised its rich potential as a setting. And I loved the redemptive potential of the idea of old timber being recycled and given new life. I fell in love with the notion of rebirth in a place like that."
Directed by Ben Barnes, the play has a strong cast, including Niall Toibin as Sylvie, John Olohan as Eddie, and Ray McBride as Stephen (another band member who also works in the Salvage Shop). Both Olohan and McBride had several training sessions in the real Salvage Shop: "So if the play gets bad reviews, they will at least have learned the skills to take up a new trade!" Niall Toibin is delighted to be playing Sylvie Tansey: "I decided about five years ago that I would stick to comedy, because the critics didn't seem to take me seriously as an actor. But when I read this play I knew I'd regret it all my life if I didn't take this part. It's a stunning play."
He recalls when he was growing up in Cork that "there were three brass bands in my parish. The brass band was part of any big occasion: elections, Corpus Christi, hurling, merry-making. When you heard the band you'd get excited and run to see what was happening."
He remembers men like Sylvie Tansey: "They were totally wrapped up in their music, and had a great appreciation of the finer things in life. This was interwoven with a personal vocabulary which I can only describe as profane! The language in the play reflects this combination of the lyrical and the down-to-earth."
He mentions the apt use of music throughout the play, and the role it plays in the central relationship between Sylvie and Eddie: "What splits them is music, but what reunites them is music too."
The Salvage Shop plays in Garter Lane from Monday January 19th to February 7th; in the Townhall Theatre, Galway, from February 9th 14th; and at the Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny, February 16th - 21st.