Arts Week with Judy Murphy

Feidlim Cannon has recently become a first-time dad and is delighted to have a healthy child. The co-artistic director of Dublin theatre company Brokentalkers is also gaining first-hand experience of what’s involved in caring for eight-week old baby.

“The dynamics have shifted for us and it’s about trying to find the balance,” he says of the new reality for him and his partner.

So, his company’s new show Everything Falls, which comes to Galway’s Town Hall Theatre on Tuesday, November 26, seems particularly appropriate.

Feidlim and his co-artistic director in Brokentalkers, Gary Keegan, have joined forces with fellow theatre-maker Shaun Dunne for this production that’s based on the real-life testimonies and experiences of carers and the people they care for.

“It’s something that has or will affect us all and will be part of all our lives,” Feidlim observes, adding that the workforce in this area is projected to become the largest in the world.

“For this piece, it was important to get a sense of experience – from people who give care and people who receive it. And these are interwoven,” he says of the piece, which mixes text with song, music and movement, a creative approach that Brokentalkers is renowned for.

Shaun Dunne, who’s collaborating with the company on Everything Falls, has a similar approach, also making work that merges testimony with creative writing. It was Shaun’s experience of facilitating a writers’ group for carers that inspired this show.

“He stayed in touch with one woman who had done great writing but who also described how hard it was for her to find time, because she was a carer for her husband,” Feidlim explains.

Pictured: Brokentalkers’ Carol Connors and Lauren Larkin.