Arts Week with Judy Murphy

Marion O’Dwyer, one of Ireland’s finest actresses who features regularly on the stages of the Abbey and Gate Theatres, cut her teeth in pub drama.

It was an invaluable training, away from the public gaze, she says.

And she laughs, recalling how she was delivering a heartfelt monologue one evening when she overheard a customer at the bar requesting ‘a pint of Guinness and a packet of Taytos’.

“I thought to myself, you’ve lost your audience!”

That’s unlikely to happen next month when she appears in Christian O’Reilly’s new play, Ferocity.

Produced by Magic Pill Productions in association with Decadent Theatre Company and the Town Hall Theatre, it’s directed by Decadent’s Andrew Flynn.

“My friends would say you got the perfect role, a matriarch who isn’t a mother,” Marion jokes about her part in Ferocity, which is set in the 1980s, as a family gathers on Christmas Eve in a big house in North Kerry.

This particular childless matriarch has a strong view of what ‘proper mothering’ involves.

“Family is everything to her – and people will do anything to protect family,” says Marion.

“She is protective and that ferocity would be in her DNA.”

Marion mightn’t agree with all of this matriarch’s actions, but stresses that it’s important to inhabit the character and do her justice.

“I like her, but you know how people talk about your shadow side; you can see aspects of yourself in her that you don’t like.

“Although she is measured enough and does think deeply about what’s best for the child and family,” the actress adds.

Ferocity is a new work and rehearsals are at an early stage so changes will occur, says Marion.

“It’s a real honour to be trusted with a new play. Things are being discussed and thrashed around, so it might have all changed by the time it’s on stage,” she cautions.

Marion, Clelia Murphy and Mark Lambert play siblings in Ferocity and that’s no great hardship, she says, as Clelia (best known for Fair City)  and Marion did just that recently in The Secrets of Primrose Square, directed by Mark, which premiered in Cork’s Everyman Theatre last month.

“So we already have a shorthand.”

In Ferocity, the action takes place at Christmas, often a tense time, “so not everybody’s finest points are to the fore”, Marion says with a laugh.

“There’s an estranged couple and the father comes for the child’s sake, but it’s putting petrol on the flames.”

And there’s a big-house vibe to this family.

“Molly Logan plays Cathy who works for them, and she’s happy to work on Christmas day for the excitement of watching them go at each other.”

Pictured: Marion O’Dwyer, centre, with fellow cast members in Christian O’Reilly’s latest play, Ferocity, directed by Andrew Flynn which will be staged next month.