County Kildare News

This time last year Crooked House Theatre staged the Irish premiere of Breathing Corpses by Laura Wade. This year they stage another acerbic and dark comedy, Mouth to Mouth by multi-award winning British playwright Kevin Elyot (author of My Night With Reg, The Day I Stood Still and Forty Winks, all for the Royal Court).

 

Crooked House tends to make work from terse, comic texts with strong narratives and richly drawn characters.  Mouth to Mouth is a modern ghost story, set among the middle class literati of London, and seen from the point-of-view of Frank, a gay playwright who wonders if he can write about the tragic events in his friends' lives to revive his flagging career in the theatre. One of his friends is obsessively doting mother, Laura, whose son Philip Frank has saved from drowning. The story revolves around a horrific event that occurs at the homecoming party for young Philip, one year ago, and from which none of the characters have been able to recover.

 

It is a timely exploration of lust masquerading as love; multiple betrayals; and the morality of generating art from the personal tragedies of friends.

 

Cast: Ian Armstrong, Jillian Bradbury, Sophia Cadogan, Nick Devlin, Steve Gunn, Patrick O'Donnell and Joseph Paul Travers.

Directed by Peter Hussey.

 

“Mouth to Mouth offers a further demonstration of the sharp, observant humour and sensitivity with which Elyot plays tragicomic variations on these elements”. The Independent

 

“This play shows Elyot's writing has an incremental power: it echoes earlier themes while taking him forward into bourgeois family life. Deft, funny and sad, this touching new play by the author of My Night With Reg contains a wealth of tragedy within a sunlit meeting in a South London kitchen.” The Guardian

 

Crooked House was founded in 1993 in Newbridge by Peter Hussey; "We premiere new work by international writers in Ireland, and develop new work by Irish writers for touring abroad. We often work in partnership with international companies. We have a popular Outreach programme, developing theatre projects with communities across the country based on the teachings of Augusto Boal and others." Crooked House manages Kildare Youth Theatre and Crooked Mice, and it supports a number of new theatre companies in its premises in The Liffey Studio in Newbridge.