Seán McGinley talks to The Irish World about the new Conor McPherson play, The Brightening Air at The Old Vic. 
Seán McGinley has a face that is familiar in Irish television and film.
His film credits include The Field, Braveheart, Michael Collins, The General and The Wind That Shakes the Barley.
On television he is known for Republic of Doyle and Love/Hate among many others.
His more than forty-year-long career began on stage with Galway’s Druid Theatre Company.
He is returning to stage by starring in Conor McPherson’s The Brightening Air, the world premiere of which is a playing at The Old Vic in London.
Conor McPherson, often described as Ireland’s greatest living playwright, is directing a cast that includes McGinley, Chris O’Dowd, Brian Gleeson, Rosie Sheehy, Derbhle Crotty. Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty, Aisling Kearns and Hannah Morrish.
McGinley, 69, was part of McPherson’s The Weir at The Gate Theatre in Dublin in 2008.
This new play is McPherson’s first original drama since The Night Alive in 2013.
In 2017 McPherson created the Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country and in 2020 he adapted Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya.
The new production marks the first new play from McPherson since his Chekhov adaptation Uncle Vanya in 2020.
The new play follows a fractured family in 1980s County Sligo with three siblings fighting for the future of their family home.
Chris O’Dowd stars as Dermot, who is estranged from his siblings Steven and Billie, played by Gleeson and Sheehy, and the house they grew up in.
McGinley plays an ex-clergyman uncle.
Q: I saw the play and loved it. Are you enjoying the run?
“Yeah, very much so. It’s a great play. It’s a very audience friendly play.
“It’s got a lot of humour and it’s got weight to it as well, depth, and profundity.
“It’s a fantastic bunch of actors to be working with.
“There’s a good vibe in the company and everything about the place. Just the theatre itself, The Old Vic is beautiful – I’d never been in it before, never mind performed in it, so we’re having a good time doing it.
“It’s hard work but we’re having a good time doing it, very much so.”
Q: Was the stage your first love?
“It was. I fell into it by accident. I was in college in Galway in the ‘70s heading towards becoming a teacher and I just got involved in a one-act play in the drama group in UCG, as it was known then.
“It just so happened Druid Theatre Company had started the year before, and a couple of people from Druid happened to be in the audience at one of the three performances we did of this play and as a result, they asked me to audition for a play.
“I did, and I ended up doing that play and here we are, 40-something years later.
“I haven’t commenced my teaching career yet – and that’s probably ultimately good for the young people of Ireland, I don’t think I’d have been a very good teacher,” Seán laughs.
Q: What was your initial reaction to reading this play?
“I was familiar with Conor’s work – I was in one of his plays. He didn’t direct it himself, but he was around when we were doing it, so I got to know him a bit.
“That’s nearly 20 years ago. I’ve always liked his work and he’s a lovely man as well.
“He’s also a very, very, very good director.
“It’s a very good cast.
“At the first read-through, there was a great atmosphere, we all knew, ‘Okay, this works so we’re going to have a good time doing this’.
“The vibe in the room was very good from the outset.”
Q: I’m sure there is something special about being in a new Conor McPherson play…
“He’s one of our great writers and he’s very prolific.
“His range is incredible, from the plays like The Wei,r and this one, that are set in a specific part of West of Ireland, to Dublin, to the Bob Dylan one, The Girl from the North Country which I haven’t seen yet but it’s coming back immediately after this so hopefully I will get to see it.
“He’s a fantastic writer and it is a total privilege to be in the room with him as a director and to be part of the first production of this play of his which I’m sure will become a classic in its own right and will be done everywhere.”
Q: Let’s talk about your character, Uncle Pierre, a retired priest…
“He’s questioning his faith and he’s questioning the orthodoxy of the church as an organisation, he has his own battles.
“He’s got big ideas for where he might end up.
“The word ‘character’ isn’t a big enough word to describe him.
“One of the central characters, Billie, is extremely bright and she’s like another voice in the play, like somebody looking at it from an objective distance.
“She’s played by Rosie Sheehy who is astoundingly good, she’s so bloody good. She’s extraordinary. She’s a lovely person too and she wears her big talent very lightly.
“We’re lucky to have her in this thing as we are with Chris and Brian as well. Chris O’Dowd is another astounding actor as well. Those three are kind of leading the whole thing so we’re lucky
“The play’s very light on its feet.
“It shifts all the time and just when you think you’ve pinned it down, it shifts again so it’s very hard to pin down, in a good way, so it keeps the audience, stays ahead of the audience all the time and keeps you guessing.
“It has this incredible humour all the way through, and it has this weight also, so it’s a perfect combination.
“Our job is to deliver that every night to the audience.”
Q: A common trait of McPherson’s work is marrying the mystical and the everyday…
“Yeah, and lost love, and love that’s just out of reach. That’s a very strong drive in a lot of his plays.
“He’s such a fluent writer. He has an incredible gift with language and dialogue, the rhythm of it and the imagery he creates.
“He’s very brave, he pulls stuff from very left of field sometimes and puts it in there, but everything is considered and very deliberate.
“But he was very open in the rehearsal room in terms of adjusting stuff in the writing. Quite a lot of that happened in the rehearsal period.
“He was so generous and so supportive.
“He’s made it a really good experience for everybody.”
Q: When you get into rehearsals, even if there are A-list stars involved, are there are still no egos?
“Absolutely not. There’s no room for that at all. Everybody’s in there to work, and everybody does. That’s the atmosphere.
“Everybody’s the same. Everybody’s treated the same and everybody has a responsibility to deliver their part of the story.
“That’s all that matters – just do your job, deliver your bit of the story and trust that the play itself will do the work.
“And that’s what’s happening, hopefully.”
Q: There is a lot of pain in the play, a lot of regret…
“One of the things I love about this play is that everybody’s predicament, every single one of their predicaments, whatever it is, is very real and makes you care about the characters.
“That is the real test of a play – do you care about these people? Do you care about what happens to them?
“And in every single case, I do. I care about every single one of them looking at it as an audience member.
“That’s one of the things that gets to the audience, they care about these people.”
Q: Were there a lot of laughs in the rehearsal room despite the sadness in the play?
“Plays are funny. Sometimes the darker the thing is, the funnier it is.
“Beckett says, ‘There’s nothing as funny as other people’s misfortune.
“There’s light and shade in life and we don’t do it to counteract it.
“It’s just present there, and you just allow it to come to the surface.
“It’s present in the writing and the performances. We don’t work especially hard to relieve the tension, it’s just there, you just allow it to happen.”
Q: What does the 1980s setting give the play?
“It’s pre-mobile phone.
“It’s hard to imagine the world without the internet or mobile phones but it predates that by about 10 years or more.
“It is a simpler world in so many ways.
“It’s mad to be thinking of the ‘80s as a period piece now, how quickly time passes. The early 2000s now is almost a period thing, time moves on.
“It’s an author’s choice. It’s the writer’s choice to set it there and it probably has a certain resonance for him.
“It’s certainly interesting to play, to look back.
“Our brilliant designer Ray designed the set and costumes, and seeing all that stuff again really spurs the imagination.
“You just remember how things were and how people dressed and even the music of the time.
“But it’s the writer’s choice really.”
Q: Faith is a big theme in the play…
“It asks the big questions. What happens when you’re no longer here, all that sort of stuff, all the big questions are asked and there’s no definitive answers given, but they’re asked.
“Fairies and ghost stories, all that stuff is very close.
“It’s not saying, ‘Do you believe it or not believe it?’ It’s just leaving it open to you in the world of this play.
“Some of the characters are more into it than others and some are quite cynical about it, but that’s how the world is.”
Q: Does it still change night to night?
“Yeah, little nuances shift. Somebody might deliver a line a different way and the response will be different: it keeps it interesting.
“The audience reaction is different every night so you never get settled into a fixed way of doing stuff, you must be alert to what’s going on around you with the other actors and also how the audience are responding to it.
“It keeps your interest.
“It’s by no means on automatic pilot, nor will it ever be, because we work on it every day as well by ourselves and we warm up together, all that sort of stuff, it’s important to keep it alive.”
Q: It’s about a dysfunctional family…
“Well, it’s life. I don’t see it as sad, it’s just life.
“It has the ups and downs, the black and white and how people deal with it and how ultimately, they support each other or don’t.
“There’s an inevitable end for everybody, we all know it’s coming somewhere down the line, hopefully not for a good while yet, but that overshadows everything as well.
“It reminds you the most important thing is to live in the present.”
Q: I was reminded of your character ‘Johnny’ in That They May Face the Rising Sun, an example of someone who, very sadly, couldn’t return home…
“Yeah, it’s like a lot of that generation. In the early ‘70s I spent a summer working in a pub in North London.
“It was next door to Hornsey railway station and there was a big construction job going on at the back of it at the time.
“It was nearly all Irish fellas.
“At half 12, the door of the pub would open and there would be a stampede and you would just start pulling pints.
“They would be all in there for the lunch break, and they’d have a few pints and then they’d go back to work in an hour.
“Then at the end of the day, at five o’clock or whatever time it was, they’d all be in again, a lot of them would stay there until closing time.
“They’d do that seven-days-a-week, and you got to know some of them.
“Some of them had stopped going back to Ireland, because the expectation was too much.
“My uncle was of that generation that built back the country after the war and he was involved in the traditional music scene in London all his life. He was a great mentor to me as well.
“They did a lot, those people sent money back, so I have great affection for the London Irish as they sometimes are called.
“My cousins were all Londoners.
“My first cousins all grew up here and they’re all involved in the music scene here.
“I’ve a very special place in my heart for that community in this town.”
Q: That They May Face the Rising Sun (2023) reunited you with fellow actor Barry Ward, 44, now well-known, who played your young son in the Roddy Doyle drama Family in 1994…
“That was great. I mean, I’ve been in touch with Barry over the years (but) to get to work with him again is great.
“He’s a fantastic man. He was a brilliant kid.
“In Family he was the best thing in it, he was just brilliant.
“Working with him again all those years later, he’d just matured into this really solid – more than solid – leading man, a proper leading man actor.
“He’s doing so well – I couldn’t be happier for him. He’s a lovely man.”
Q: Did your Family character ‘Charlo’ (a small-time crook and abusive and cheating husband) follow you around?
“Yes because, again, it’s such a memorable piece of writing.
“When we got the script for that, I don’t think a word was changed from when we did the first read-through, apart from a logistical thing.
“It was a brilliant piece of writing, and we had a brilliant director and producer.
“There were no compromises made, it was never going to be watered down.
“I was just lucky enough to get to play this character.
“It’s an iconic piece of character creation from Roddy Doyle and we had a great time doing it.”
- The Brightening Air at The Old Vic in London until 14 June. Click here.
