Everything I Do is a show written and performed by Zoe Ní Riordáin with direction by Maud Lee as part of One Two, One Two performance company. The performance will be on the 26th-27th of July in the Project Arts Centre, Dublin and heading to Edinburgh Festival Fringe at SummerHall from 31st July— 25th August.
Larissa Brigatti spoke to both Maud and Zoe about their show coming back to life after it’s appearance on Dublin Fringe Festival, 2018.
Zoe Ní Riordáin:
Zoe said that she wrote and directed the show before and Maud was the performer, this time the roles are reversed and she shared a bit about the experience of going from the directorial role to the performance:
ZNR: It was the first show that I performed solo, but the material is quite personal to me so I was probably the only person who could do it. It doesn’t feel like it was a choice. I think it has given me a lot more confidence doing it, first of all. By the end of that run I was getting more confident on stage. It’s not an acting performance—
It’s kind of performance art
ZNR: Yeah, yeah, live performance, performance art. I think that that’s the challenge… find that energy for the fringe again.
You said the material is very personal, what were the inspirations to write Everything I Do?
ZNR: I am musician, that’s what I’m trained in and a theatre director. The reason why I write songs is to try to process things that are going on in my own head. And this show— I guess, I was going through somethings in my own personal life and I tried to find authenticity through lyric. So connecting my own experiences of loss, relationship and that kind of thing to the lyrics. So it took me a while to find the right words for it. In the albu, there are a few other songs that have lyrics from Sinéad O’Connor songs, and other artists.
In One Two, One Two we were in a band together and we wanted to make a show that is accessible to people on an emotional level. So I think the lyrics are to me, I guess it had to have an effect on me. That was my kind of rule to myself and translate into the audience.
Yeah that would resonate with Irish audiences and abroad since it’s about more general human feelings. So, you performed in Dublin in 2018 with this show, did you tour anywhere else?
ZNR: We were invited to do one performance at The Gate Theatre in April as part of the Late at The Gate series, that was me performing songs from the show as opposed to the show itself. It was more like a gig. Then we went to the Cork Midsummer Festival in June with the show as well. So yeah we haven’t been outside of Ireland with this show yet, so I’m really looking forward to getting to Edinburgh and for the show to be seen by a diverse audience.
The last question is about form: what’s your opinion about this contemporary tendency of bringing more diverse performances into the Irish scenario?
ZNR: I think that we are a non-text driven company as well, we are not writing plays so we are not working in the traditional format either. I guess we started off writing albums, and staging the albums. So yeah, it can be challenging in Ireland sometimes for people to accept it just as a piece of performance, a piece of art, without having to categorize it. We’ve been asked a lot about our work and my answers is always like it happens in a theatre, the pieces that we make have to happen in a theatre. There are very specific conditions that are there that allow the audience to feel something in a particular way. It’s not purely music, or purely performance. We don’t have a strong history of performance art in Ireland—
It’s more European Theatre, I suppose
ZNR: Yeah, European theatre. I feel like here things need to be given a label like: theatre, music, poetry or whatever. Things are changing, inevitably. Globalization and people bringing new things to Ireland now, so I think there’s more appetite among new generations. Things are shifting a little bit but I guess we are just trying to do the work that we want to do and hoping that the audience will follow it.
Maud Lee:
I spoke to Zoe earlier on and she said you’re a performer but directing this show. Could you tell us about how you’d apply some performative skills into the directorial role?
ML: Zoe and I have worked collaboratively on creative projects for many years now. We founded a band – Maud in Cahoots together in 2009 and Everything I Do is the 3rd theatre piece we have made together. In our first 2 pieces for theatre – The Well Rested Terrorist and Recovery, Zoe directed and I performed. All my professional experience is as a performer, not a director but we both felt it was important for Zoe to perform this show. We have a unique and idiosyncratic development process and I think it would have been difficult for somebody else to come in and direct Zoe in this piece. Our collaborations have always been quite fluid in the roles we fulfil in the devising of the work and I really wanted to draw out the performer in Zoe. My performance experience is what I had to offer Zoe as a director. I wanted to provoke an excitement in her about the opportunity to make a connection with a live audience.
In terms of forms and considering that the performance and style of this theatre company is not traditional, could you tell us how it is received amongst Irish audiences? And abroad?
ML: As a company, I think we have quite an international outlook. As in, I don’t think we make work with any particular place or people in mind. Our work is concerned with human behaviour and emotion. It is universal and I would like to think that it could be received and absorbed in a profound way all over the world. That is the intention anyway. Of course the work is always going to influenced by our experience as Irish people and we have received incredible support from our peers and audiences in Ireland. Our ambition is to tour internationally as Irish artists and continue to make work in Ireland.
Could you describe the role of theatre maker in the contemporary Irish zeitgeist in 5 words?
ML: Inspire. Support. Provoke. Connect. Love
Everything I Do: Project Arts Centre, Dublin 26 – 27 July projectartscentre.ie
