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Evening Standard
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Evening Standard
Wolf Moon by Arifa Akbar review: An unsettling companion for a sleepless night
In medieval Europe, a wolf moon is the first full moon of the year. A winter night when lupine predators were at their hungriest and their howls rang out. For Akbar, an insomniac theatre critic who is afraid of the dark, the night is an uneasy place. Wolf Moon is her deeply personal voyage into the nocturnal world, as Akbar challenges herself to survive lightless nights on Sark, the world's first 'dark sky island' or last through Ruth Wilson's 24-hour play The Second Woman.
Irish Examiner
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
I was one of the men in The Second Woman. This is what it was like...
I've just arrived backstage at Cork Opera House, where I'll be taking part in the big event of the city's Midsummer Festival, indeed, the year in theatre. The Second Woman is an endurance theatre piece by Australian duo Nat Randall and Anna Breckon which pairs the redoubtable Eileen Walsh with 100 different performers for a short scene played out repeatedly over 24 hours. The mind boggles at the demands on her, the body trembles at the thought of taking part. The reassuring stage directors run us through our marks, telling us, no matter what, to have fun. One goes to the 'noodle room', as she jokingly calls it, and picks one of the dozens of small bags containing chopsticks and takeaway cartons. There are kettles there too, for the tea that'll masquerade as the whiskey being drunk in the scene. I glance at the script for the last time. I'm Martin. We all are. Walsh is Virginia. A couple at the end of an affair is the most straightforward reading, although we Martins are invited to fill in the gaps or improvise. I'm ushered down to the wings, where more jolly and reassuring stage managers await. X marks the spot behind a doorway into the unknown (we participants are not allowed see the scene before we play it). Alan O'Riordan was one of 100 people to interact with Eileen Walsh on stage in The Second Woman. After a count in, I open the door. I find a pink box of a room, narrowing the Opera House stage. Walsh stands with her back to me. She's in a red dress, hair peroxide blonde. It's like stepping into a David Lynch film. Indeed, two cameras are recording us for a screen projection, though I hardly notice. I make my way over to her and whisper my real name into her left ear, as instructed. We are now professionally acquainted. Worryingly, I detect an unmistakable look of wild mischief from the Cork actress. Uh-oh, I think, she won't be playing it straight at all! There goes my plan! My take on Martin is sincere; rather dull, if truth be told. But I try to make it about her more than myself. This works against the script somewhat, since it has Virginia asking Martin how he feels, what he thinks. It casts her as abject ('I don't deserve you', 'You don't find me attractive anymore', 'You don't think I'm good enough'), and Martin as the smug, oblivious male. I go make drinks, come back to continue our conversation. We eat the noodles that will sustain Walsh through her task. I lean in and kiss her on the cheek. She stretches her legs across and puts them in my lap. Our tete-a-tete ends with me covered in the noodles, thrown by Virginia. There's a bit of a dance. Then, sweet release, Virginia says Martin should go, offering him a €50 note for an unexplained reason. 'I love you,' I say, and I'm out the door. Done. Phew. A scene from The Second Woman. Picture: Jed Niezgoda Turns out I was last up before one of the 15-minute intervals that come every couple of hours in the 24-hours piece that ran from 4pm Saturday to 4pm Sunday. So, as I walk around from Half Moon Street to Emmet Place, I get a few 'Well dones'. Well, they can't all be lying, I say to myself, coasting on adrenaline and feeling in lively form as a result. I join the audience until about 3.30am. The cumulative effect across the hours creates a kind of intimacy, a sense of journey shared with Walsh. People in the audience are privileged to see the scene in context; none of the participants are. So differences of interpretation, in how Walsh reacts, her face in closeup on a screen, become funnier with each hour. More absurd, playful. Some participants play it for laughs, others as a comment on this whole enterprise. Still others go full douchebag: knowingly, with comic pomposity, or with an alarming 'what is he thinking?' narcissism. One such is led out by his tie, another wears a T-shirt saying 'Women are born to serve men'. Another seems to have wandered in from a Sam Shepard play, all toxic masculinity. Walsh rises to such affronts, shifting the power dynamic with undercutting mimicry, or an improvised, withering put-down, reasserting control. But often you can feel the relief and freedom that comes when she recognises a fellow professional: Marty Rea, for instance, with whom the dance gets wild, and horizontal. Or Laurence Kinlan, in a tearful, gentle scene. Eileen Walsh receives a standing ovation at the end of The Second Woman. There's a handful of women too, while a charming turn by the septuagenarian Welsh actor Karl Johnson shows you don't have to come off like a jerk. More familiar faces included Glanmire actor Eanna Hardwicke, Jack Gleeson of Game Of Thrones, and dance maestro Luke Murphy, or local notables like Gerry Kelly, of the Cork Pops Orchestra. There are hoots of delight when Walsh's Scottish husband, Stuart McCaffer, comes through the door. It's this variety that makes it all so addictive, that makes the hours fly by. It's dramatic roulette. You never know what's coming next. But really, it's all about Walsh. This is a masterclass of her craft. You can only marvel at her responsiveness and creativity. As for weariness, that, too, becomes her weapon. A heaviness of eye, a roll of the neck, or a slow-limbed gesture: these become simply more tools to be used, before she startles you again with wild energy. It's an astounding achievement. Cork Midsummer Festival runs June 13-22. See
Irish Times
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
The Second Woman review: Eileen Walsh's 24-hour performance reveals something astonishing about us
The Second Woman Cork Opera House ★★★★★ I go into Cork Opera House to see The Second Woman braced for a punishing experience. The premise is that Eileen Walsh performs the same break-up scene on a loop for 24 hours, with 100 different men, mostly nonactors selected through a public call-out. They've read the script but haven't rehearsed it. This might suggest the play is trying to say that our entrapment in gendered roles protects us from the frightening – and potentially redemptive – experience of real intimacy. That we cast others in tired romantic scripts, re-enacting familiar patterns that obscure our ability to truly see one another. Fear of love disguised as its performance. [ Eileen Walsh: Women actors 'are like avocados. You're nearly ready, nearly ready - then you're ripe, then you've gone off' Opens in new window ] Or perhaps it's making a broader point, not just about gender but about the compulsions of private suffering: how we return, again and again, to the primal scene of our own hurt, condemned to repeat it without ever resolving or transcending it. In short, I expect something boring and depressing. Endurance theatre may be admirable, but it's rarely much fun. READ MORE Happily, I am wrong. To begin with, The Second Woman, which is being staged as part of Cork Midsummer Festival , is incredibly stylish. Onstage is a glowing pink box with gauze walls, inside which sits a brightly lit livingroom with a neon sign and vintage wooden furniture. Walsh enters pushing a trolley of whiskey bottles and glasses. She's in a red dress and strappy heels, her hair platinum-blond and voluminous in a very Hollywood way. The whole aesthetic nods to John Cassavetes ' Opening Night – the source of the script – but also evokes films such as Paris, Texas and Mulholland Drive. More than any one film, though, it recalls the voyeurism of early reality dating shows such as Love Connection, where private loves and humiliations were first made public. A camera crew circles the gauze box, filming close-ups projected live on to a large screen, amplifying the cinematic, self-aware atmosphere. The Second Woman: Eileen Walsh during her 24-hour theatrical marathon. Photograph: Jed Niezgoda The Second Woman: Eileen Walsh during her 24-hour theatrical marathon. Photograph: Jed Niezgoda The Second Woman: Eileen Walsh during her 24-hour theatrical marathon. Photograph: Jed Niezgoda The structure of the piece, which is directed by its creators, Nat Randall and Anna Breckon, is simple: Walsh waits while melancholic piano music plays. A man arrives with takeaway. They share noodles, a drink, a song, a dance, and break up. He leaves, saying either 'I love you' or 'I never loved you.' The piano starts again. The scene resets. Far from being a bleak comment on the replaceability of romantic partners, what emerges is the astonishing range of human difference. The fixed script throws each man's interpretation into relief. Some play it angry, others earnest. The funniest ones go meta: 'Are we really doing this again?' Some guys are so sexy: tender and knowing and playful. Some guys are just assholes, spilling their noodles. Such is life. What truly shines is Walsh's intelligence, responsiveness and flexibility. She's up for anything, alive to each variation. She can switch from mischief to abjection in a blink. Repetition, counterintuitively, deepens. Attend to anything closely enough and it opens like a flower to the light. As John Cage said, 'If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If it's still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.'
Irish Examiner
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Street spectacle, theatre, music... 10 highlights of Cork Midsummer Festival
1. Les Girafes: An Animal Operetta Outside Dunnes Stores, Patrick's Street, June 22 at 2pm and 9pm French street theatre company Compagnie OFF will show off their towering red giraffes during a parade through Cork city, accompanied by performers and musicians. The parade will blend circus arts, opera, and street theatre into a display of colour and sound. 2. The Second Woman Cork Opera House, June 14 to June 15 Eileen Walsh stars in The Second Woman, a film that features 100 different men opposite Walsh over 24 hours, as she repeatedly performs a scene about a relationship that has lost its creativity and romance. 3. Helios by Luke Jerram St. Fin Barre's Cathedral, June 9 to June 21 from 9am to 5pm Light and sound combine to create an immersive opportunity as Helios invites people to explore the sun up close through a new artwork by UK artist Luke Jerram. Each centimetre of the six-metre sculpture represents 2,300km of the real Sun's surface. 4. Caught In The Furze Cork Centre for Architectural Education, June 14 and 15 and June 17 to June 21 from 12pm to 5pm Caught in the Furze is a seven-day performance within an immersive installation of furze (gorse) bushes. The performance sees Coogan navigate the spaces between history and memory, myth and modernity by drawing on ancient folk traditions. 5. Cork Girl!, Camille O'Sullivan The Everyman, June 21 at 8.30pm On the evening of the summer solstice, Camille O'Sullivan presents a brand-new show which celebrates her hometown and its music through a mix of favourite songs and new gems. 6. Escaped Alone The Everyman, June 12 to June 14 at 8pm Directed by Annabelle Comyn, this new work from Hatch Theatre Company and The Everyman, in association with Once Off Productions, satirises contemporary capitalist culture and celebrates the voices of aging women. 7. Stitch J. Nolan Stationary, Shandon Street, June 13 to June 15 and June 18 to June 22 at 5pm and 9pm (9pm and midnight on June 14) Set on Shandon Street in 1989, Stitch digs deep into a world where the past lingers and the walls whisper. Described as sinister and unsettling, audiences are warned that this play is not for the faint of heart. 8. Burnout Paradise, by Pony Cam Dance Firkin Crane, June 19 at 8pm, June 20 at 9pm and June 21 at 4pm Known for their bold, high-energy performances, Pony Cam is set to bring an exhilarating and chaotic performance that exposes a system that demands more than we can give through pushes bodies, minds, and spirits to their limits. 9. Theatre for One: Made In Cork Emmet Place, June 14, 15, 17 and 22 The Theatre for One booth returns to Emmet Place as part of Cork Midsummer Festival, with a special instalment of five-minute plays performed by one actor for one audience member at a time. Pieces by Cónal Creedan, Katie Holly, John McCarthy, Michael John McCarthy, Gina Moxley and Louise O'Neill. 10. Songs and Souls by Deirdre Kinahan and Steve Wickham The Pav, June 14 at 2.30pm A celebration of music and storytelling, Songs and Souls features voices from the plays of Deirdre Kinahan and live music from fiddler Steve Wickham, bringing Kinahan's funny and fragile characters to life.
Irish Examiner
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
'A total mind melt': Eileen Walsh on her 24-hour play at Cork Midsummer Festival
Cork actor Eileen Walsh is not afraid of a challenge. Fresh from her role in the acclaimed film Small Things Like These, which she starred in opposite her long-time friend and co-star Cillian Murphy, the 48-year-old is taking on a new theatrical feat that will test both her acting skills and her stamina. This weekend, she takes on the role of Virginia in The Second Woman at Cork Opera House during Cork Midsummer Festival, playing a seven-minute scene opposite the character of Marty, an intimate moment in which their relationship has lost its spark. The twist? She has never met the man playing Marty. Also, the scene repeats with a different actor each time, some of whom have never acted before. A hundred different men. And she has to do it for 24 hours straight. It begs the question: how can someone even prepare for that? 'It's been super intense but brilliant,' Walsh tells me after her first week of rehearsals. 'It's a total mind melt.' She says she has been primarily rehearsing with one actor who pitches different emotions and energies for her to work with, as well as some acting students. The show's Australian creators, Nat Randall and Anna Breckon, have been a great guide for her. 'The two women who are directing it, Anna and Nat, they've done it so many times before, so they know exactly how to lead you through the whole thing. 'Anna and Nat will give him a direction to come in and be scared, or totally over the top, or whatever. He's been amazing, but nothing is like the actual people who are coming in. They have seven minutes to do their best shot. It's mad. It's totally mad. It's kind of exhausting dealing with their nerves and adrenaline." 'Exhausting' seems the only word for it. Sleep deprivation could be a curveball, and Walsh has resisted the urge to pull an all-nighter to see how she fares. 'I love my sleep, I don't know why the hell I'm doing it,' laughs the actress from Quaker Road, but she points out that there are times in our lives when the adrenaline kicks in and we can power through extreme tiredness. She feels The Second Woman will work like that. The actress isn't the only member of her family preparing for a massive undertaking this month. 'Ethel is my youngest, and she's doing her Junior Cert at the moment, so it's really full on,' she says. Walsh thinks her experience of early motherhood will help prepare her for the physical and mental challenge of exhaustion. 'Maybe you're meant to play it in a dream moment. I know when I had my first baby, Tippy, in particular, the first four weeks after she was born, you're in this vortex where you're not sleeping and you're trying to produce milk and your body's all over the shop. I kind of look forward to that, that out-of-body experience.' This marathon theatrical event comes two weeks after the Cork City Marathon saw runners fill the streets, and there are obvious parallels in the preparations. 'I think it is very similar to that. By day two of rehearsals, it was four people, and then we did seven people, and then today was eight people. I think by the time we do a dress run, that's going to be the longest we'll do. I don't know how long that will be, but it won't be the full extended thing until the marathon day.' Cork Midsummer Festival 2025 Walsh credits exercise like yoga as essential in her preparation, and said her sister in Australia told her once about the 'runner's wall', something that feels like a physical and mental barrier. 'She kept saying to me, if you can give birth, you can do anything. She was saying when you're running, there will be a 'wall' and once you're through that 'wall', it just gets easier. It might be hard, but then there'll be that breakthrough. 'Particularly with Sackies [her instructor at Yoga Republic in Ballintemple, Sackies Skalkos], it's about allowing yourself to go through that wall, which is brilliant for this as well. It just reminds you that you're strong, that you are in the body you're in, but actually, that can be strong too.' In this acting undertaking of a lifetime, Walsh says her 24-hour schedule has short comfort breaks built in for about five minutes each, and when it comes to meals, she's eating them on stage. Once her acting marathon finishes hours are over, Walsh says she intends to meet friends who are coming to Cork to see the play before being driven up to Dublin by her Scottish husband Stuart McCaffer. The 24-hour performance is sure to present a few challenges along the way, but Walsh seems to be relishing the experience. 'I'm looking forward to the journey of it, and then I bet you afterwards, I'll be riding on adrenaline,' she says. The Second Woman runs at Cork Opera House, as part of Cork Midsummer Festival, from 4pm on Saturday, June 14, to 4pm on Sunday, June 15. Tickets can be purchased for the entire 24-hour performance, or for shorter segments Read More Louise O'Neill among writers pushing the boundaries of theatre at Cork Midsummer Festival
