Bringing unseen Irish drama to the digital airwaves – Prof Chris Morash curates new Abbey podcast

Posted on: 02 November 2021

New weekly podcast of rarely performed Irish plays curated by Prof Chris Morash for the Abbey Theatre

Reclaiming Irish plays not seen on Irish stages for decades is the focus of a new Abbey Theatre initiative which has been curated by Trinity’s Professor Chris Morash.

Featuring a collection of works that have been seldom seen (or not seen at all) on Irish stages, the new limited podcast series ‘Unseen Plays’ launched this week with a double bill featuring lesser known plays by Lady Gregory & WB Yeats.

The weekly podcast of rarely performed Irish plays is distinct from radio drama in that there is no intention to create the full auditory world of the play, with its footsteps and offstage traffic; instead, these performances are presented as readings.

The series was curated by Professor Christopher Morash, Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing, at the School of English. Commenting on the experience of engaging with the Irish canon Professor Morash said:

“Unseen Plays is an epic undertaking: nine plays, involving 68 actors and 10 directors.  On one level, this is about reclaiming plays by writers like Lady Gregory, Teresa Deevy and Maura Laverty, not seen on Irish stages for decades.  In some cases, we had to reconstruct the scripts, because they were never published.  But beyond that, it is about using audio theatre to explore the unseen in Irish life over the past century.”

The plays will be released on a weekly basis from November via Spotify, Apple Podcasts and SoundCloud. Recorded at Windmill Lane Recording Studio over the summer, Unseen Plays hosts a collection of nine plays, ten directors and sixty-eight actors:

• The Image by Lady Gregory & The Words Upon the Window Pane by W.B. Yeats, directed by Sarah Jane Scaife
• Light Falling by Teresa Deevy, directed by Caroline Byrne
• Liffey Lane by Maura Laverty, directed by Lelia Doolan
• The Wood of the Whispering by M.J. Molloy, directed by Maisie Lee
• The Evidence I Shall Give by Richard Johnson, directed by Conall Morrison
• An Triail by Máiréad Ní Ghrada, directed by Darach Ó Tuairisg
• Did You Hear the One About the Irishman? by Christina Reid, directed by Emma Jordan
• The Pentagonal Dream by Sebastian Barry, created in collaboration with Olwen Fouéré, Roger Doyle and David Heap

Head of Producing at the Abbey Theatre, Jen Coppinger added: “This project is part of Graham McLaren and Neil Murray’s final season of programming and we were delighted to work with Professor Christopher Morash on the shape and content for Unseen Plays Recorded at a time when theatres were still in extremely limited capacity, we saw the project as an opportunity to both connect audiences with lesser known plays from the Irish Canon and to engage with and provide employment for a large number of artists. The Abbey Theatre Podcast has long been a place for the public to engage with the behind the scenes of productions – there are a whole host of interviews and examinations of past programme for audiences to listen back to. We are delighted to add these audio plays to our repertoire over the next few months.”

The first two episodes of Unseen Plays were released on 1^st November and can be listened to here:Unseen Plays. The next Unseen Play will be released on 8^th November and weekly every Monday until the final release on 20^th December. The series will be available online for a period of one year.