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A complete press pack on The Common Will
is available by contacting info@paintedfilly.com
or ringing 087 7535402.
PRESS RELEASE
Thursday 28 August 2008
THE COMMON WILL / Dublin Fringe Festival 2008
"No one is ever as good as their lines."
Bishops are burning books, the Spanish are about to sail up the Thames, and Will Shakespeare's fellow playwrights are getting stabbed in taverns. Can our hero steal a theatre, juggle his lovers and still write a long play about a gloomy Danish prince?
Find out how in The Common Will, a short play about a desperately talented man.
Shakespeare is the least-known of our best-known writers. Genius, cultural icon, greatest poet who ever lived. But what was he like to have a pint with?
Scholars and others have been squabbling over the biographical scraps for centuries to little result. Writer and performer Phil Kingston bases his version on the man's work, Shakespeare's compassionate view that we're all far from perfect. Director Dominic Dromgoole (The Globe) sees the playwright's specialty as "the non-heroes, the confused, the human, the scrappy, and the messy," and we think this was reflected in his own life. The result is The Common Will, an intimate first-person portrait of how Will navigated the stormy waters of 1599. Using snippets of history, snatches of plays, and a healthy dose of pure imagination, Kingston lifts the mask of genius to introduce a man.
The Common Will - it's Shakespeare in Love without the Hollywood bits.
In the spirit of the Golden Age of Elizabethan Drama, Painted Filly Theatre is proud to offer another new play containing nothing but profane fables, lascivious matters, cozening devices, and scurrilous behaviours, and encourages all vagrant persons, masterless men, thieves, horse stealers, whore-mongerers, cozeners, coney-catchers, contrivers of treason, and other idle and dangerous persons to book their tickets early.
Phil Kingston is an accomplished actor and writer whose 2006 Dublin Fringe Festival one-person performance, Dr. Dillon and Ms. Georgia, received wide acclaim. In a four-star review for the Irish Times, Peter Crawley called his performance "captivating" and "inspiring." Ian Walsh, reviewing the 2006 festival for Irish Theatre Magazine, wrote this about Kingston's achievement: "He was stunning. With a bare stage and the presence of one man who seems, shaman-like, to be possessed by troubled souls, the power of theatre as a medium was revealed. In all its primal and ritualistic glory, this production screamed against the banality of daytime TV."
Painted Filly Theatre, in association with Hungry Ghost Theatre and the Dublin Fringe Festival, will present The Common Will in Bewley's Cafe Theatre, at 1PM from 9 to 13 September 2008 (preview 8 September, 1PM). Nick Johnson directs, Katherine Graham designs, and Jennifer Killelea produces. An original score was composed by Fiona Linnane, and Emily Jeffers will stage manage. Phil Kingston is the author and performer.
THE COMMON WILL by Phil Kingston
Directed by Nicholas Johnson
Produced by Jennifer Killelea
Painted Filly Theatre / Hungry Ghost Theatre
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL 2008
Bewley's Cafe Theatre, 1:00 PM
Ticket prices: €12 full, €10 concession
(€8 preview)
Please note that lunch will not be served.
See here for more information about getting tickets and getting to Bewley's Cafe Theatre. See here for more information about the production and to reserve tickets.
ENDS.
Contact: Jennifer Killelea, 087 753 5402, info@paintedfilly.com
Listings Information:
Place: Bewley's Cafe Theatre
Date: 8 September 2008 (preview), 9-13 September (run)
Time: 1 PM
Tickets: €12 full, €10 concession
€8 preview & matinee
Editor's Note:
Painted Filly Theatre connects emerging writers from around the globe with theatre practitioners in Ireland, fostering an ensemble process in which artists of diverse skills and backgrounds are supported in collaboration. It strives for an innovative, "elemental" theatre, distilling text and technique to focus on the body and the story. The company was founded in 2005 by Jennifer Killelea and Ruth Pe Palileo. It has produced six full productions, and is currently headed by Nicholas Johnson and Jennifer Killelea.
In September 2005, the company staged the world premiere of Jeremiah, by Ruth Palileo, in the International Bar. In May 2006, the inaugural production in the 100 Minutes format was a popular and critical success in Filmbase, Temple Bar. Nicholas Johnson's Noise, a new play incorporating live jazz performance, enjoyed a sold-out run in the Bewley's Cafe Theatre in the Dublin Fringe Festival 2006. The company presented another ten new plays in 100 Minutes 2007 at the Project Arts Centre, and staged the world premiere of Jesse Weaver's Biography of Bernie Ward in August 2007. The third annual 100 Minutes production, in 2008, ran for two weeks at Project this past March.
'Any worries that short topical dramas might approach the times with a truncheon are defused by such deft handling of the scalpel… [100 Minutes 2007] abides by the best principle of showmanship: always leave them wanting more.' (Peter Crawley on 100 Minutes 2007, The Irish Times)
See our archive of past productions for more details.
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