Tale Of Daring And Sacrifice Makes A Comeback
The Age
Thursday May 8, 2008
An award-winning play explores a little-known chapter of Australian-Irish history, reports Jo Roberts.
IN 1997, Ireland's Gate Theatre Company performed at the Melbourne International Arts Festival. Its season, which won The Age Critics Award for the most outstanding festival production, comprised a suite of Beckett works and one other: a one-man show about a little-known chapter in Irish-Australian history, Catalpa.The Catalpa was a whaling ship used in the daring rescue of six Irish political prisoners from Fremantle jail in 1876, in a mission planned across the globe. In 1992, Irish actor Donal O'Kelly heard about the story while in Perth performing another one-man show for that city's arts festival. Five years later he was performing his self-penned Catalpa story with Gate Theatre.That same year, a young Irish acting student, Des Fleming, saw O'Kelly in the same production in Dublin. The performance stayed with him for years."What stood out for me was the power of the creative imagination, and the ability for one man to present the story in such an effective and thrilling way was mind-blowing for me," he says.When he relocated to Australia six years ago, the Irish-Australian story of the Catalpa took on a fresh resonance for Fleming. So much so that from tonight he will present and perform the first production of Catalpa in Australia since its 1997 Melbourne debut.Fleming, 37, says his decision to perform Catalpa - as the debut production for his new theatre company, Itch - was very much influenced by the serendipity of him being an Irish actor living in Australia.As stories go, Catalpa is a doozy. The Irish political prisoners had sworn allegiance to the British Army but were recruited by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret Irish organisation devoted to the overthrow of British rule. They were convicted of treason against the British Army and sentenced to a lifetime of penal servitude in Fremantle.One of the prisoners got a letter out to John Devoy, who had recruited them to the IRB and who took it upon himself to organise their rescue. Raising the funds for the rescue took between three and five years, calling on the benevolence - and silence - of more than 3000 members of the Clann nGael political movement, which had chapters in American cities, New Zealand and NSW. "The fascinating thing about that was, not one of them leaked the story," marvels Fleming.An American ship captain, George Anthony, was lured out of retirement to sail the Catalpa, breaking a promise to his wife and daughter. The Catalpa travelled from Massachusetts to Fremantle, while another Irish operative, John Breslin, sailed from San Francisco to Sydney, then crossed Australia to Fremantle to connect the prisoners with the Catalpa.With the play featuring almost 30 characters, O'Kelly used the device of an insomniac screenwriter to tell the story, sitting in his bedsit as he goes over what he should have said in his failed movie pitch.This production is being directed by Alice Bishop, with live music and sound performed by Wally Gunn and lighting by Brownyn Pringle, who last month won a Green Room award for best lighting design in independent theatre for Here Theatre's Letters from Animals.Catalpa explores the ambiguous, complex notions of heroism coexisting with being human, which isn't always evident in Hollywood "simplification", says Fleming. "Life for me is lived in the grey areas, and we're bombarded with messages that it shouldn't be, that it should all be black and white. Well . . . life is grey and it's possible to be human and heroic, and to celebrate that."Catalpa, from tonight until May 18, Mechanics Institute Performing Arts Centre, corner Sydney and Glenlyon roads, Brunswick, Tuesdays to Saturdays at 8pm, with matinees at 2pm Saturday and 5pm Sunday.Bookings: 0432 313 613 or bookings@catalpa.com.au
© 2008 The Age