‘A Feast of Bones’ makes for tasty Baboró treat
Judy MurphyFeatured
Arts Week with Judy Murphy
Theatre Lovett, one of Ireland’s most popular theatre companies will return Galway next month, bringing their show A Feast of Bones, to Baboró Arts Festival for Children. It’s a show that’s suitable for people aged nine to 105, according to the company’s Louis Lovett.
Actually, there is no upper age limit, it’s just that the actor’s grandmother, who lives in Galway, is almost 105 so that’s the age that springs to Louis’s mind as he’s describing the audience profile.
There’s a strong Galway connection, he adds. Louis’s father Dermod is originally from Clifden but moved to Cork, where he ran the highly regarded Lovett’s restaurant in Douglas, along with his wife Margaret, for many years
Louis reckons his own stage career, and that of his actor brother Conor, began in the restaurant where both worked as waiters and “were always on, every night”.
Louis is currently rehearsing with Dublin Company, the Corn Exchange, for a new version of Chekhov’s The Seagull that’s being staged at Gaiety for the Dublin Theatre Festival. He’ll finish that run on October 16, and the following day, will perform A Feast of Bones in Limerick, kicking off a national tour that comes to Galway from October 20-22.
“I like to keep it busy – it’s a good way to be, especially in this business,” says Louis, whose own company, Theatre Lovett, has been staging magical shows for children and adults for almost 20 years.
A Feast of Bones was first staged at the 2013 Dublin Theatre Festival and garnered a host of four- and five-star reviews, with The Sunday Times describing it as “a thoroughly enjoyable cabaret that deserves to reach audiences large and small”.
Written by Frances Kay, and based on Walter de la Mare’s 1939 version of an old folk tale, the 60-minute show tells how Henny Penny exacts revenge after a disastrous journey by her friends and herself to inform their king that the sky is falling in. Their premise is based on false evidence, and the journey ends badly for Henny Penny’s companions, including Chicken Licken, Cocky Lockey, Goosey Lucy and Drakey Lakey
The play, which is set in France in 1918, is a metaphor for the way Europe walked blindly towards World War I and still blindly walks towards war today, observes Louis.
It’s told using song, physical theatre, clowning and dark humour, as Louis Lovett plays Mr Renard, a ravenous diner who goes a French café and gets more than he bargains for from mysterious waitress Henny Penny, played by actress and singer Lisa Lambe.
There original score is written by Nico Brown, who is also musical director and performs alongside bass player, Martin Brundsen, a member of The Hothouse Flowers.
Muireann Ahern, joint artistic director of Lovett Theatre and Louis’s wife, has directed, “shaping the story, working with the actors and creating a wonderful atmosphere”, he says.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.