Irish Arts Center presents

A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

A DAN COLLEY AND RIVERBANK ARTS CENTRE PRODUCTION
U.S. PREMIERE
APRIL 28–30

Run time: 45 minutes

Based on the short story by: Gabriel García Márquez
Adapted for the stage by: Dan Colley, Manus Halligan and Genevieve Hulme-Beaman

Director: Dan Colley

Cast:
Karen McCartney
Manus Halligan

Set and props design by: Andrew Clancy
Lighting design by: Sarah Jane Shiels
Composition and sound design by: Alma Kelliher
Chief LX: Suzie Cummins
Production photography: Ste Murray
Art work: Sarah Moloney
Stage manager: Evie McGuinness
Production manager: Eoin Kilkenny
Producers for tour: Matthew Smyth
Producer for Riverbank: Caroline Williams
Head electrician: Trevor Dewy
Electricians: Peter Lopez, Will Keener, Terysa Malootian, Brian Staton, Claudia Zajic
Technical director: Michael Harbeck
Carpenters: Nicholas Santasier, Jarod Bakum
Video consultant (U.S.): Lisa Renkel
Assistant stage manager (U.S.): Sam Shapiro

Developed as part of Theatre Artist in Residency at Riverbank Arts Centre, Kildare and co-produced by Collapsing Horse Theatre. This tour is funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and co-produced and co-presented by Riverbank Arts Centre with Dan Colley and Matt Smyth.

A Note from the Director

Gabriel Garcia Márquez was born and raised in Colombia, near the Caribbean coast, in a time of violent political turbulence in the country. When he was asked about the label “magic-realism” that his work is given, and how he’s often praised for the “imagination” in his writing, he said that he finds it amusing because he never thought he was writing imaginatively – he said he was writing about Caribbean reality. Sometimes the reality we observe is more magical than the fantasies we invent. 

A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings is called “a tale for children” but it’s a story that relentlessly resists a reader’s efforts to extract a moral lesson from it—unlike in the stories by some of the giants of the genre such as Hans Christian Andersen, Oscar Wilde and the Brothers Grimm—marvelous writers though they are. It’s much more murky, emotionally complex and ambiguous than those tales. 

This is a story where we are asked to hold multiple contradictory ideas in our minds at the same time. What are we to think of Pelayo and Elisenda, whose casual cruelty towards the old man might appall us, but who also demonstrate deep parental tenderness? Should we feel pity for the man or fear him, knowing that it’s possible that he could take a child away? We are asked to embrace the ambiguity, like the doctor who examines him and says “It seems impossible for him to be alive...and yet, the logic of his wings! Now that I see them I can’t understand why other men don’t have them too.” 

It is in that ambiguous space, in the grey area between black-and-white certainties, that the conditions for magic are ripe. Because magic does exist. Also it doesn’t. These are also the ideal conditions for theatre to exist. In theatre, we’re invited to suspend our disbelief, to play the game of theatre, while knowing that it is an artifice. These contradictions, this blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality, is also the child’s reality. The world, as children encounter it for the first time, is full of the bizarre but true, and the banal but false. And often there isn’t a very good reason for what divides them. 

It may be “a tale for children” but it has as much in it for those who are no longer children, as it does for those who are currently. Our hope is to create a piece of theatre where children and adults can spend time together in that ambiguous, strange and thrillingly dark psychic space—in that Caribbean reality.

—Dan Colley

Thanks to the estate of Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Linda Geraghty, Aleksandra Rosiak, Caroline Williams, Phil Jennings and all at Riverbank Arts Centre, John Gunning, Joseph Collins, Paul Hunt, Blaise Clancy, Naas Daycare Centre, University of the Third Age Maynooth, Kildare Youth Theatre, Griese Youth Theatre, Patricio Cassinoni, Kate Ferris, Eoghan Quinn, Matt Bratko, Dublin Fringe Festival team, and Sonya Kelly.

About the Cast & Crew

Dan Colley is a theatre maker with a particular focus on devised ensemble work, theatre-for-young-audiences, and large-scale spectacle. As artistic director of Collapsing Horse (2013-19), he directed nine original productions, a series of ten radio plays, an exhibition in the National Museum, and toured to New York, London, Edinburgh, Bergen, Moscow, and 15 Irish venues. He was also co-artistic director of the Kilkenny Cat Laughs comedy festival from 2017-19. Collapsing Horse’s final production, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, was nominated for two Irish Times Theatre Awards and four Dublin Fringe Awards, including Best Production. Dan directed, and with Fionnuala Gygax, co-created TWENTY FIFTY, an online interactive theatre piece part of DUETS in Dublin Fringe 2020. Dan directed and co-wrote Lost Lear, a sold-out show in Dublin Theatre Festival 2022. Other directing credits include Me Michael by Tara McKevitt, and a short as part of Fourteen Voices From the Bloodied Field for the Abbey Theatre and Danse Macabre, a large-scale processional street theatre piece for Macnas. 

In 2015, Dan was the creative producer of TWENTY FIRST the Dublin Fringe's 21st birthday project. His dramaturgy credits include WillFredd, Sugarglass, Louise White, and Macnas. Dan trained as a youth theatre facilitator with Youth Theatre Ireland and has run workshops and classes in the Lir, Trinity College Dublin, LA LGBT Center's Homeless Youth Services, and in schools, youth theatre groups, and with communities nationally. Dan was awarded the Arts Council's Next Generation Bursary Award in 2016. He is Theatre Artist in Residence in the Riverbank Arts Centre, a member of the Project Arts Centre, and on the board of the Dublin Fringe Festival.

Manus Halligan is a graduate of the Trinity College drama and theatre department. His recent theatre work includes Staging The Treaty (Anú Productions), Lost Lear (Riverbank Arts Centre), The Cartographer’s Pen (Cavan Town Hall), Tarry Flynn (Livin Dred), A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings (Collapsing Horse and Riverbank Arts Centre), Alice and the Wolf (Barnstorm Theatre Co.), Susie and the Story Shredder (Bombinate Theatre Co.), Some Names Were Changed (15th Oak Productions), The Aeneid, Conor at the End of the Universe, Human Child and MONSTER/CLOCK (Collapsing Horse Theatre Co.), Far Away (Corcadorca), Inside The GPO (Fishamble), The Poor Little Boy With No Arms (One Duck), She Stoops To Conquer and King Lear (Abbey Theatre), Before Monsters Were Made, Reckoners and The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle (15th Oak), Five Minutes Later (Sugarglass), and The Making of ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (Project Arts Centre). His screen work includes: Obituary (RTÉ/Hulu, 2023), The Titans that Built America (History Channel, 2021), The Fear (dir. Stevie Russell, 2020), Metal Heart (dir. Hugh O’Conor, 2019), Saint Sister (music video, 2019), Kodaline (music video, 2017), Rebellion (RTÉ, 2016), Inspector Jury: The Deer Leap (German ZDF, 2017), and the short films The Cocaine Famine (dir. Sam McMullen, 2018), Back Home (dir. Diarmaid McGrath, 2017), Dig (dir. Des Creedon and John Kilkenny, 2017), and My Life For Ireland (dir. Kieron J. Walsh, 2016). Manus is also a voice-over artist represented by Voicebank Ireland.

About Riverbank Arts Centre

Riverbank Arts Centre works in partnership with international, national and local artists to deliver an accessible and consistently high quality arts program in an intimate environment. They provide a multi-disciplinary program which includes theatre, cinema, comedy, music, dance, workshops and visual arts. With a dedicated children’s gallery and programming of high quality theatre and workshops for younger audiences, Riverbank is also committed to promoting early engagement with, and access to the arts. Riverbank Arts Centre is funded by Kildare County Council and the Arts Council.

About Irish Arts Center

Irish Arts Center, founded in 1972 and based in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City, is a home for artists and audiences of all backgrounds who share a passion or appreciation for the evolving arts and culture of contemporary Ireland and Irish America. We present, develop, and celebrate work from established and emerging artists and cultural practitioners, providing audiences with emotionally and intellectually engaging experiences in an environment of Irish hospitality. Steeped in grassroots traditions, we also provide community education programs and access to the arts for people of all ages and ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds. In a historic partnership of the people of Ireland and New York, Irish Arts Center recently completed construction on a fully-funded $60MM state-of-the-art new facility to support this mission for the 21st century.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Gerrard Boyle (Capital Project Steering Committee Chair)
Andrew Breslin
Aidan Connolly
Kristine Covillo
John S. Daly
Robert M. Devlin
Celestine Donaghy
John Duffy
Kathleen Fee
Russell Gioiella
Loretta Brennan Glucksman
Shaun Kelly (Chair)
John Martin
Robert J. McCann
Eileen K. Murray
Shane Naughton (Audit Committee Chair)
Sharon Patrick
James E. Quinn
Pauline Turley

STAFF

Adam Browne (Development Assistant)
Zohra Coday (Programming and Education Assistant)
Aidan Connolly (Executive Director)
Christine Cullen (Director of Administrative Operations)
Manuel Da Silva (Associate Production Manager)
Xavier Dzielski (Grants and External Engagement Coordinator)
Fiona Farrell (Communications and Marketing Associate)
Vivian Fong (Director of Communications and Marketing)
Laney Granito (Special Events Coordinator)
Rachael W. Gilkey (Director of Programming and Education)
Anah Klate (Audience Services Manager)
Barry Ó Séanáin (Director of Development)
Ciara O'Shea (Communications and Marketing Assistant)
Victoria Provost (Executive Assistant to the Director)
Brian Ralston ( Associate Director of Development Operations and Database Administrator)
Jessie Reilly (Director of Education, Family and Community Programming)
Grace Schultz (Artist Services Manager / Resident Stage Manager)
Mac Smith (Production Manager)
Pauline Turley (Vice Chair)
Dennis Walls (Director of Facility Operations)
Kestrel Wolgemuth (Associate Director of Programming)

Tehmina Anjum (Senior Accountant, NCheng)
Desaann Legzim (Senior Accountant, NCheng)
Taylor Panetti (Graphic Designer)
Vera Wong (Senior Accountant, NCheng)
Faizan Younus (Manager, NCheng)
Blake Zidell (Public Relations Consultant, Blake Zidell & Associates)

Mia-Isabella Brea (Development Research Intern)
Keeley Heagerty (Programming and Production Intern)

BOX OFFICE

Lindsey Freeman (House Manager)
Brian Magid (Box Office Associate)
Stephen Peterson (Box Office Manager)
Tylene Soto (Box Office Associate)

FRONT OF HOUSE

Aram Krikorian, Michael Lester, Anne Marie Mascia, Kevin Molica, Sylvia Morsillo, Ronan Rogers, Francis Rosario, Anne Rutter, Joanne Sutton-Smith, Ritai “Ty” Su