outside mullingar | review quotes

OUTSIDE MULLINGAR returns tonight at 8:00 pm. Here are some review quotes and photos from the show!

outside mullingar | student & senior night

Tonight, Wednesday, May 31st is student & senior night at PT! If you're a student or senior, you get to enjoy OUTSIDE MULLINGAR for just $20.00. Call our box office at 604.731.5518 or visit our website at pacifictheatre.org. to book your tickets!

outside mullingar | photos

"Outside Mullingar holds some good surprises. One of these is really quirky; you will not see it coming and it’s guaranteed to leave you buzzing." - Jo Ledingham

outside mullingar | theatre club

Saturday, May 27th join us for Theatre Club after the matinee performance of OUTSIDE MULLINGAR! This is your chance to discuss with other patrons about PT, OUTSIDE MULLINGAR, and John Patrick Shanley plays. We can't wait to see you at Theatre Club!

outside mullingar | responses

"Under Angela Konrad’s direction, this excellent cast finds every drop of humour and heart in Shanley’s idiosyncratic characters. John Emmet Tracy’s Anthony looks fit to crawl out of his skin most of the time; his self-annihilating presence is hilarious and touching. Rebecca deBoer’s delight in Rose’s boldness is infectious. The exchanges between Ron Reed’s Tony and Erla Faye Forsyth’s Aoife are a lesson in comic rhythm...Tear yourself away from the sunshine long enough to visit this enchanted piece of the Irish countryside. Your heart will thank you." | Kathleen Oliver, The Georgia Straight

"Angela Konrad’s Pacific Theatre production oozes with charm and shines with four fine performances. The acting here is very strong. Tracy skilfully modulates Anthony’s strange aloofness and navigates Shanley’s Irish dialogue like he was born to it... And deBoer does a lovely job of balancing Rosemary’s lovelorn vulnerability with her aggressive strength. You really want these two to get together". | Jerry Wasserman, Vancouver Sun

"This is rom-com with an Irish accent that approaches fable in its magnified emotions and universal human states. Lovers of intimate theatre with classic life themes at its core will be charmed by the strong cast performances." | W. Baird Blackstone,
Broken Leg Reviews

"Pacific Theatre’s final production of the season is brave and genuine, with a well-paced flow that is skillfully acted. With many subtleties and nuances, this play keeps the audience engaged and thinking throughout and well after it has ended.... Recognition must be given to dialect coach Adam Lane Bergquist for preparing the actors, who were well near flawless with their accents. Though I’ve seen both Forsyth and Reed in other productions and knew they were not native Irish, I was kept guessing whether John Emmet Tracy and Rebecca deBoer were actually from the hills of rolling green... " | Erin Jane, Review Vancouver

"John Emmett Tracy plays Anthony and the guy is, essentially, the boy version of Meryl Streep—by which I mean that he disappears into every role he takes on. Tracy’s Anthony is wary and contained, always hovering around his painful sensitivity. But the actor also lets Anthony’s vivacity burst forth in eccentric gestures and sudden bodily contractions.
"On the largely naturalistic set by Carolyn Rapanos, the most arresting element is a corrugated tin sheet, which, in its mundane life, appears to be the wall of an outbuilding, but, in its more poetic manifestation, becomes an impressionistic window that opens onto the natural world. Thanks to Lauchlin Johnston’s lighting design, we see stars on that surface, rain, and sometimes—gloriously—sunshine. Nature herself is a significant presence in this play. Maybe that’s partly why I felt so refreshed after seeing Outside Mullingar. It’s not often that a play makes you happier to be in your body, but this one does." | Colin Thomas

"Reed is particularly good here, mining the petulance of age and misguided disappointment of a father. When paired with Tracey in what turns out to be a farewell scene, the emotions are genuine..." | Mark Robins, Vancouver Presents

AUDIENCE RESPONSES:

"I can’t hardly recall the last time I ENJOYED a show this much. Pacific Theatre's production of John Patrick Shanley's Outside Mullingar is pure, unadulterated theatrical pleasure. Stellar writing, marvellous acting by Ron Reed and the rest of the cast. Go see it. Bring a friend. They will thank you." | Tetsuro Shigematsu

"What a gift -we so enjoyed it. ... The characters were so perfectly Irish. It was one of the most enjoyable plays I have seen.. period! ... What a talented cast. Thank you so much for the amazing gift of Pacific Theatre." | C

"I didn't want to overly gush after I came out of the theatre the other day but... That was beautiful. A huge thanks to you and the rest of the cast. The whole thing reminded me of why I originally fell in love with PT. Incredible acting and beautiful stories that just get into you through your cracks and remind you what it is to be human. ... There were many tears in the audience as I looked around. The whole cast was fantastic." | Julia Siedlanowska

FACEBOOK

Some of the most throughly original and brilliant moments I have seen on stage. Definitely worth seeing!!

This us one of Pacific Theatres all time best. Poignant and Hilarious. You cannot miss this!!!

This is an awesome show. Go see.

Have to see it again. Touching. Hilarious. Heart thumpingly wonderful. See you closing night!

Unbelievably brilliant play with fabulous acting and one moving scene after another. Genius. So loved it

Best show ever. Brilliant script. Perfectly cast.

No way to judge if the writing or the acting out did which. Excellent evening of theatre. Thanks.

may 28 | outside mullingar | added matinee

Kathleen Oliver, from The Georgia Straight says, "Tear yourself away from the sunshine long enough to visit this enchanted piece of the Irish countryside. Your heart will thank you." We couldn't agree more, Kathleen! This Sunday, May 28th at 2:00pm, join us for an added matinee of OUTSIDE MULLINGAR! Book your tickets by calling 604.731.5518 or visit our website at pacifictheatre.org.

2017-2018 season artwork | emily cooper

We are so excited to share with you the 2017-2018 artwork all created by the incredibly talented, Emily Cooper! Check out the line up for next season on our season page.

may 26 | outside mullingar | talk back

Join us tomorrow, Friday, May 26th for our artist talk back night, immediately following the performance of OUTSIDE MULLINGAR. The talk back will feature PT actors Ron Reed, Erla Faye Forsyth, Rebecca deBoer, and John Emmet Tracy. Come ask them all your burning questions about the show!

outside mullingar | student & senior night

Tonight is our student & senior night at PT! What does that mean? We're so glad you asked! All students and seniors can see OUTSIDE MULLINGAR for just $20.00 tonight. Give our box office a call at 604.731.5518 or head to our website pacifictheatre.org to book your tickets. We can't wait to see you and your friends at our cozy, little theatre!

outside mullingar | opening night reception

We had a memorable opening night reception for OUTSIDE MULLINGAR! A big thank you to everyone who was able to come out and support our team! Here are some of our favourite photos from the evening.

victoria day | office closed

Our offices will be closed Monday, May 22nd for Victoria Day. We will re-open Tuesday, May 23rd to help you with all your ticketing needs. We hope you enjoy your extra day off!

may 20 | subscriber appreciation saturday | tomorrow!

Tomorrow is our last subscriber appreciation Saturday of the season! As a special thank you to all our patrons we are extending the invitation to everyone! Please join us at approximately 4:15 pm, immediately following the matinee performance of OUTSIDE MULLINGAR. The event is hosted by our fearless leader, Ron Reed, and refreshments will be served!

outside mullingar | pay-what-you-can preview

Tonight's preview performance of OUTSIDE MULLINGAR is the pay-what-you-can at the door! Advance tickets available for $14.95 by calling 604.731.5518 or by visiting pacifictheatre.org.

may 20 | the world of john patrick shanley | everyone welcome!

This Saturday, May 20th after the matinee performance of OUTSIDE MULLINGAR, we will be having our final Subscriber Appreciation Saturday of the season. As a special thank you to all of our patrons we are extending the invitation to everyone! If you'd like to join us, RSVP to lindsay@pacifictheatre.org

The spotlight is on the world of John Patrick Shanley, and we'll be reading scenes and viewing clips from the incredibly wide range of his plays and movies, looking for the threads that connect them all -  from Moonstruck, Doubt, and Danny & The Deep Blue Sea to Five Corners and Joe Versus The Volcano. 

outside mullingar | advance photos

Two days until OUTSIDE MULLINGAR officially opens! Check out the advance photos taken by the talented Matt Reznek. And call our box office at 604.731.5518 or head to our website, pacifictheatre.org, to book your tickets!

john patrick shanley on writing 'outside mullingar'

From left, Anthony Shanley (the playwright’s Irish cousin), 

with the director Doug Hughes and John Patrick Shanley, 

in County Westmeath.

Turns Out His Blood Runs Green
John Patrick Shanley on His Irishness and ‘Outside Mullingar’
January 9, 2014 | The New York Times


I never wanted to write about the Irish.

When I got out of the Marine Corps in 1972, I was invited to a lunch of Irish-American writers. At a table of perhaps 10, I was conspicuously underaccomplished. I’d been brought along by my old professor Terry Moran (he was perhaps 37), because I was a poet. At the table, among others, were James T. Farrell and Jimmy Breslin. Farrell had 50 books to his credit, including, most famously, the Studs Lonigan trilogy. Breslin had reinvented blue-collar New York and maybe journalism.

I had a good time. Breslin held forth about Nixon. Around dessert, Farrell, who had downed several brandies, burst into tears, pointed at me, and said, “He’s the one we should be helping.” I tried to look less in need.

A waiter appeared. There was a call. It was my then wife, Joan. I’d just gotten an acceptance letter. Two of my poems were going to be published. I was 22.

Heading home on the F train to Brooklyn, I thought about what I wanted to do, big picture. And I decided right then, I didn’t want to be helped, and I didn’t want to be labeled an Irish-American writer. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write about everybody. And for the next 30 years I did. I became a playwright and screenwriter. Italian-Americans were my particular specialty. I liked the way they talked. There was something free in it. This attraction resulted in plays and films with titles like “Italian American Reconciliation” and “Moonstruck,” and not a lot of jobs for Irish-American actors.

*

I always knew I’d have to come home eventually. I’m Irish as hell: Kelly on one side, Shanley on the other. My father had been born on a farm in the Irish Midlands. He and his brothers had been shepherds there, cattle and sheep, back in the early 1920s. I grew up surrounded by brogues and Irish music, but stayed away from the old country till I was over 40. I just couldn’t own being Irish.

Something in me hated being confined by an ethnic identity, by any family. In addition, I have often found procrastination to be an enriching exercise. Not saying increases what I have to say. Not writing about the Irish was building up a hell of a lot of pressure to do just that.

When I finally went to Ireland, I had to go. It was 1993. My father was finally too old to travel alone, and he asked me to take him home. When an old man asks you to take him home, you have to do it.

When I sat with my father in that farm kitchen, the one that he had grown up in, and listened to my Irish family talk, I recognized that this was my Atlantis, the lost and beautiful world of my poet’s heart. There was no way to write about the farm, yet I had to write about it. I listened to the amazing language these folks were speaking as if it were normal conversation, and I knew this was my territory. But it was new to me. It was a time to listen, not to write.

*

It took about 20 years. When I turned 60 and flipped out (the number, the guy in the mirror with gray hair), I felt I had nothing left to say or do. I wanted to go on vacation some place warm for the rest of my life. I was miserable, dead barren and solitary. I moved to an apartment in Williamsburg where I could see the sun and the river. My parents were dead now. It was just me and the river and the sun and time. A year went by. One quiet day, I sat down without a thought in my head and wrote a play about the farm.

The farm had become a place in my imagination where I had stored up so many things. My love for my father was there. Feelings of grief. My romantic hunger, my frustration with this unpoetic world. I had held back much for a long time, and I kind of erupted with language. I felt free suddenly, free to be Irish. Family stories, family names, changed by dreaming, mixed with my own long longings for love, and impossible happiness unfurled across the page. I had turned 60, and the knife at my throat woke me to the beauty of my own people, the fleeting opportunities of life, the farce of caution. I wanted to write a love story. I wanted to find all the words I had not been able to find because what I have been unable to express has caused me anguish, even as what I have given adequate voice has lent me peace.

I found a strange relief in the play. I called it “Outside Mullingar,” a prosaic title perhaps to balance the poetry it contained. The script was a refuge and a consolation for me. Manhattan Theater Club signed on to do it, and we put a team together.

I decided to return to the farm and bring my son Nick. He drove me, as I had driven my father. He was taking me home now. And then the director, Doug Hughes, said, “I’m going to Ireland, too.” And the designer, John Lee Beatty, said, “I’m coming as well, and bringing my partner.” I announced I would make a documentary. (I always go too far.) My son, who’s a photography major at Parsons, was drafted as cinematographer. And, of course, we never got around to that, but that’s O.K.

My cousin Anthony was not perfectly delighted that I had written a play set on his farm and that the main character was named Anthony. And he was openly terrified when all these theater folk piled out of a couple of cars to photograph his home and him. But his good manners got the best of him, and he made us tea. Doug, exhibiting his considerable social skills, talked Anthony into a state of relative comfort, and we had a good chat. After, we went into the fields where my father had grown to manhood among the cattle, in the quietly overwhelming green fields.

*

I knew I was imposing. That is the artist’s way. We take the real and refashion it to our purpose. The desire is strong, and reality must give way. Anthony, me, my father, the farm, all of these things, my Uncle Tony, my Aunt Mary, all things animate and otherwise, existed only as materials for my use. I had a home being born in me, and I had to build it before the dream faded. I had written the play, but now, being on the farm, I held the script like tracing paper over the real and looked for gold in the differences. There was gold.

It was a strange week. Nothing was real to me, not the play nor this world as it is. I stumbled forward with a kind of double vision. The Irish side of my family is a patient lot and endured my interviews with grace. They trusted me, and they didn’t. They knew I wouldn’t be telling the truth about them. I’d be telling my own truth, using them. They watched as my designers photographed their stoves and sheds, their cattle and mangers.

I came back to New York and went into rehearsal. As the actors and director took the play, I watched the world I’d created leave me and felt the supreme loneliness of that. For a moment though, through the spell of storytelling, I had a home. I was Irish. And then the moment faded. That’s how it is with writers. We keep getting evicted from our own imaginations. We are wanderers, dreaming, and then our dreams become real and push us out.

The play opens in New York shortly. The lights will rise on a farmhouse kitchen in rural Ireland. If things go well, my longtime traveling companions, the audience, will share with me something of my Uncle Tony, my Aunt Mary and my cousin Anthony. I’m glad.

Outside Mullingar previews May 18, and runs May 19 to June 10, at Pacific Theatre. 

Info and tickets here

outside mullingar | set design | carolyn rapanos

Set designer, Carolyn Rapanos, shares her thoughts on the upcoming production of OUTSIDE MULLINGAR, opening this Friday!

I love Outside Mullingar's sense of place in beautiful, rural Ireland, but it also presents quite a challenge! The play is set in two cottages as well as outside, with descriptions of the fields and changing sky. To accommodate this, we split the stage with the interior on one side and the exterior on the other. In the interior space, we focused on creating a neutral setting with iconic architectural elements that provide a strong sense of place and time but not necessarily a lot of specific personality. This allows us to play with how the interior is inhabited and filled. The exterior space is grounded with another architectural element, a barn wall, that transforms into a variety of sky looks under different lighting conditions - from a starry night, to a stormy evening, to a sunny day.