{"id":513021,"date":"2026-06-01T13:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/513021\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T13:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:05:13","slug":"i-came-to-ireland-all-guns-blazing-i-didnt-know-that-was-the-least-cool-thing-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/513021\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I came to Ireland all guns blazing … I didn\u2019t know that was the least cool thing\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cOne of the first problems I had with the play,\u201d Annie Ryan says<\/a>, \u201cwas that it ends so badly for the girls.\u201d She\u2019s talking about The Whiteheaded Boy, by Lennox Robinson<\/a>, which was first performed at the Abbey<\/a> in 1916, and which she is directing as the national theatre\u2019s big summer production.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a comedy about a family who pin all their hopes on the mother\u2019s favourite son, the charming but useless Denis. They spend all their savings sending him to study medicine at Trinity College Dublin<\/a>, where he gambles, drifts and fritters his opportunities away while his more deserving siblings are left to live increasingly narrow lives. The play opens with news that Denis has once again failed his exams, setting in motion an intricate web of schemes.<\/p>\n

The Whiteheaded Boy may be brilliant, but it\u2019s also incredibly dated. The sisters are trapped: they can\u2019t leave home unless they find husbands; they have no work or independence; and the eldest daughter, Kate, has effectively been ignored because the family can\u2019t afford to marry her off. <\/p>\n

Ryan, who is warm and funny \u2013 and brushing leaves from a nearby park out of her hair \u2013 when we sit down to talk on a breezy Dublin day, wanted to make the play more familiar. So she decided to set it at the start of the 1980s \u2013 \u201cnot actually that long ago\u201d \u2013 which makes the play\u2019s misogyny feel recognisable rather than historical. <\/p>\n

The director, who rose to prominence as founder of Corn Exchange<\/a>, the admired Irish theatre company, points out that women had very few choices until recently: the country was impoverished, emigration was rampant and the Catholic Church was at the height of its power. If you even looked at a boy the wrong way, she says, you could be sent to the Magdalene laundries<\/a> forever. \u201cWe\u2019re still wrenching ourselves out of that patriarchal mould.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing up in the United States, she believed feminism had already solved most of these problems. \u201cI thought the battle was fought in the 1970s, and now we\u2019re all equal, grand.\u201d It wasn\u2019t until much later, she says, that she realised how often she had been dismissed as she navigated Irish theatre as a young female director.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just didn\u2019t look like a leader to the men in charge,\u201d she says. \u201cI came all guns blazing. This bolshie little Yank going, \u2018Let\u2019s do it like this.\u2019 I didn\u2019t know Ireland, so I didn\u2019t know that that was the least cool thing you could do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, she says, she is trying not to be cool at all.<\/p>\n

[\u00a02026 on stage: Twenty headline playsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She gestures towards the set, with its furniture, props and cluttered domestic realism. \u201cThere\u2019s probably a version somebody could do with no set and poured concrete,\u201d she says. \u201cSomething that looks like it\u2019s set in Berlin. But I wanted to lean into the comedy. I kind of wanted it to be ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The play is full of boiled eggs, empty whiskey bottles and slapstick comedy.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Whitehead Boy by Lennox Robinson, directed by Annie Ryan, at the Abbey Theatre from dates in June to July 2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically like a sitcom,\u201d Ryan says. \u201cLike Succession<\/a>, weirdly. Everybody wants money and power, but there\u2019s no money, so all they have is what the neighbours think. The play wants to be staccato. Fast. Percussive.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many, The Whiteheaded Boy carries another shadow. In 1997, Barabbas, the theatre company founded by Veronica Coburn, Raymond Keane and Mikel Murfi, staged a landmark production that became almost mythic within Irish theatre circles. Ryan remembers it vividly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, I can\u2019t do it, Caitr\u00edona, because Barabbas has done it already,\u201d she says, referring to the Abbey\u2019s artistic director, Caitr\u00edona McLaughlin<\/a>, who invited her to direct the revival. \u201cAnd Barabbas did such an important, iconic production of this piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLaughlin\u2019s response was simple: \u201cYeah, but it was 30 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AnnieAnnie Ryan in rehearsals at the Abbey Theatre for The Whiteheaded Boy by Lennox Robinson. Image credit: Pato Cassinoni <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I said, \u2018Okay, great\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

To understand Ryan\u2019s approach to theatre is to begin in Chicago, where she grew up immersed in the famous Piven Theatre Workshop<\/a>, an influential youth theatre founded by Byrne and Joyce Piven. The training was rigorous.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in the empty space,\u201d she says. \u201cWe could be in a car or we could be anywhere we want as long as everyone agrees to go there. It was very different to the New York schools or method-acting schools,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was all about transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the late 1980s, Chicago\u2019s theatre scene had begun spilling into film and television. Ryan became involved with New Crime, a furious, politically charged company rooted loosely in commedia dell\u2019arte and driven by anti-establishment energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was all about \u2018F**k the president,\u2019 who was [George HW] Bush at the time,\u201d she says. \u201cWe were all really privileged white kids. It was incredibly male, really full-on, very yang energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1989, she came to Trinity for a year abroad and encountered a generation of young Irish artists who would later become noted cultural figures: the writer Michael West<\/a>, whom she later married; the director Lenny Abrahamson<\/a>; the actor Dominic West<\/a>; and Gemma Bodinetz, who is now the head of the Lir<\/a>, the national academy of dramatic art.<\/p>\n

\n

Back in the day, it felt like you could see a play where no one moved their arms for the whole time<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Annie Ryan<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt was a very exciting time,\u201d Ryan says. \u201cThe job of 20-year-olds is to kick down the door and say \u2018F**k you\u2019 to the old ones and start again.\u201d<\/p>\n

What struck her immediately was the appetite among young Irish performers for physical theatre. \u201cI noticed this was a very literary tradition,\u201d she says. \u201cBack in the day, it felt like you could see a play where no one moved their arms for the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corn Exchange emerged from that climate: a company dedicated to ensemble-based creation and physical storytelling.<\/p>\n

Her rehearsals always begin with yoga. \u201cWhat I try to do is create an atmosphere of safety and nurture,\u201d she says. \u201cBring people really deep inside themselves and into the body. Because our material is the body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan recently trained as an intimacy co-ordinator, partly, she says, as \u201ca side hustle\u201d because of how difficult it has become to survive financially in theatre. But the training unexpectedly aligned with her approach to directing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about safety and agreement,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s about relaxing and stepping into something collective. I almost wonder if the creative impulse that we cherish and feel is \u2018my creative impulse\u2019, or maybe it\u2019s just \u2018the creative impulse\u2019. Like a river everybody has access to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

There are lots of nerves among actors. But one thing I like to remind everyone of is that we\u2019re here because we love it<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Annie Ryan<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So how do rehearsals work? \u201cI generally lie them all on the ground. Very gentle practice. Bring them into their breath. Their real connection with what\u2019s true right now. Bring them back into their bodies. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are lots of nerves among actors. But one thing I like to remind everyone of is that we\u2019re here because we love it. We want to be here. And we\u2019re glad we don\u2019t have to be doing something we don\u2019t want to do for a job, driving a bus, or in an office.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MichaelMichael Tient and Andrew Bennett in rehearsals for The Whiteheaded Boy. Photo: Pato Cassinoni <\/p>\n

In the rehearsal room, Ryan\u2019s philosophy is visible in practice. The cast drift in and out. The atmosphere is loose, noisy and jokey, more like a crowded family kitchen than a work environment. When it comes to practising, there are still glitches in scenes, moments when actors fumble their lines or come in too soon, when certain gestures don\u2019t land. <\/p>\n

The response is relaxed and good natured. One actor lightly ribs another for their misuse of an imaginary object. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn our line of work, we become adept at handling imaginary objects,\u201d Ryan says to me as an aside.<\/p>\n

At another point, she stops a scene to say: \u201cThat\u2019s good, but try to put it into your feet.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"FionnualaFionnuala Gygax and Genevieve Hulme-Beaman in rehearsals at the Abbey Theatre for The Whiteheaded Boy. Photo: Pato Cassinoni <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not really sure what that means, but Peter McGann, who plays Denis\u2019s older brother, George, seems to understand immediately. \u201cI\u2019m trying, but my feet won\u2019t listen!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been very lucky,\u201d McGann tells me later. \u201cIt became familial very quickly.\u201d He describes The Whiteheaded Boy as \u201cFrasier with Tipperary farmers. There\u2019s so much shenanigans going on. People running in doors, hiding things, lying to each other. But it\u2019s all rooted in real family stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sense of recognisable dysfunction comes up repeatedly in conversation with the cast. Teddy Moore, who plays the titular \u201cwhiteheaded boy\u201d, Denis, says they were surprised by how contemporary the play felt despite being 110 years old. \u201cYou understand those family dynamics immediately,\u201d they say. \u201cYou see them everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TeddyTeddy Moore and Clare Barrett in rehearsals for The Whiteheaded Boy. Photo: Pato Cassinoni <\/p>\n

For Genevieve Hulme-Beaman<\/a>, who plays the eldest sister, Kate, one of the points of their production is to take the characters on the margins of the original play and place them at the emotional centre. Kate, unmarried at 36, has effectively been written off by her family and absorbed into the household as unpaid labour. <\/p>\n

Ryan\u2019s staging reframes her role, allowing Kate to act as a chorus or commentator.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s sort of become the housekeeper,\u201d Hulme-Beaman says. \u201cAnd Annie is really turning the lens on to how mad that situation actually was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clare Barrett<\/a>, who plays the matriarch, Mrs Geoghegan, believes the play works because it doesn\u2019t flatten its characters too much. \u201cThe mother could just be this woman saying awful things all the time,\u201d she says. \u201cBut nobody is all bad or all good. There\u2019s truth underneath all the madness.\u201d<\/p>\n

McGann compares watching the play unravel to playing Kerplunk. \u201cEvery character pulls one of the sticks,\u201d he says, \u201cand eventually all the marbles start falling.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a point similar to something that comes up again and again in conversation with Ryan: the importance of making space for playfulness, for the childlike, anarchic spirit. After all, The Whiteheaded Boy debuted onstage at a time of extreme political upheaval and social anxiety, yet the script makes no mention of its context.<\/p>\n

Ryan suggests that in times of difficulty and stress, when the future looks uncertain, it\u2019s important to have moments of respite. \u201cIt\u2019s a summer play, and we want it to be fun. We\u2019re having fun making it, as you can see, and we just hope that the audience will have as much fun watching.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Whiteheaded Boy previews at the Abbey Theatre<\/a>, Dublin, on Wednesday, June 3rd; it then runs from Tuesday, June 9th, until Saturday, July 25th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOne of the first problems I had with the play,\u201d Annie Ryan says, \u201cwas that it ends so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[112771,222322,160842,222327,222324,160454,18,117,222326,19,17,222323,123319,127508,113951,222325],"class_list":["post-513021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-abbey-theatre","tag-annie-ryan","tag-caitriona-mclaughlin","tag-clare-barrett","tag-corn-exchange","tag-dominic-west","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-genevieve-hulme-beaman","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lennox-robinson","tag-lenny-abrahamson","tag-lir-academy","tag-magdalene-laundries","tag-michael-west"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116675001582564028","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}