'Dream ticket' - Brendan Gleeson on returning to stage after ten years

RTÉ News​

2 days ago

After a ten-year absence from the stage, Brendan Gleeson is returning to the stage for The Weir, describing the opportunity as a "dream ticket".
The Olivier Award winning play, directed for the first time by its writer Conor McPherson, will have a three-week run at the 3Olympia in Dublin before opening in London's West End.
Final touches were being put to the play and stage today ahead of the official opening tomorrow night.
Gleeson plays Jack in the play about four regulars in a Co Leitrim pub, who tell tales of folklore, ghosts and fairies with a young woman recently arrived from Dublin, before she tells a story, which leaves them shaken.
The actor said The Weir is the reason he has returned to the stage after a decade, saying: "It's kind of a dream ticket for me, it really is, to be back here with this particular play, at this time with these actors, it's just thrilling."
Joining him on stage are Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Owen McDonnell, Sean McGinley and Kate Phillips as Valerie in the play produced by Landmark Productions and Kate Horton Productions.
Gleeson said the cast have been having great fun with McPherson directing, almost three decades since he wrote it.
"We're having fun with it, and he's having fun with it. But ultimately, you know, the bulk of the play is the kind of emotional content of it and all those vulnerabilities…I mean, we're all vulnerable," he said.
He said it is an important and "very profound" play about communication and people talking to each other, not being on mobile phones and supporting each other.
McPherson said: "It feels like a real privilege to be able to get to revisit an old play like this and just direct it for the first time with such an amazing cast, kind of discovering it in a whole new way after all this time."
He said it was a pleasure to work with such an experienced cast, saying he "couldn't be happier and I feel very blessed, because everywhere I look in the rehearsal room or on the stage, there's just somebody doing something really interesting and with lovely depth and lovely humour and great comedy and great timing, and also lovely sentiment and emotion".
The writer said when the play was originally performed in 1997 it was only supposed to run for three weeks, but went on to win the Olivier Award for best new play two years later.
Gleeson also paid tribute to RTÉ broadcaster Sean Rocks, who died following a brief illness recently, saying he showed extraordinary support for the arts.
He said he would love to see a dedicated arts section as part of RTÉ's Six One News.
He said: "Wouldn't it be great testament to [Sean Rocks] and to Michael D who's going to finish up this year, if there was a dedicated section in the six o'clock news for an artistic segment the same way as there is for sport.
"Everybody thinks of us as an artistic people, we are, but I think for young people looking at the news, to see something as a section like that….would be fantastic."
The Weir runs in the 3Olympia from 13 August until 6 September.
The production will then transfer to London's West End at the Harold Pinter Theatre from 12 September to 6 December marking Gleeson's West End debut.