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The Ambassadors is a play for four actors based on a historical event of 449 AD, when, in the twilight of the Western Roman Empire, a plan conceived in the Eastern capital to assassinate Attila the Hun was foiled by the barbarian ambassador complicit in the plot. The play tracks the Roman diplomats’ seemingly futile recovery efforts as, while still unaware of the plot, they struggle to regain authority and save their lives. Anticipating the loss of Roman hegemony, they embody the shifting attitudes toward negotiation and diplomacy that prefigure elements of Enlightenment thought.
The Middle Depths is a stage play and video series detailing a 1913 trip to Germany by the Irish-born British diplomat and human rights advocate Roger Casement, who, in 1916, was captured by the British and charged with treason for supporting Irish independence. A clemency appeal was derailed by the leaking of Casement’s diary, which revealed his homosexuality and undermined his popular support. The Middle Depths looks at perceived contradictions between the public and private man, Casement’s frustrations, and the complicating factors of contemporary mores and ignorance.
Frontier, a solo work, draws from John Ford's 1956 film, The Searchers. The project is an online video series and a live performance, which unfolds within a projected video landscape featuring locations derived both from the original film, animations, and realistic video footage from small town America.
The Fabulist (2011), interprets La Fontaine’s beast fables as a series of vignettes, in which a magician’s high-class magic act with animals fails, as none of them can be made to appear. Struggling to continue the show, he enacts the various animal characters as aspects of his own persona, the fables become the conversations of a menagerie within himself.
Referencing The Fables of Bidpai, the Eastern origin of the fables acknowledged by La Fontaine, which were themselves an Arabic translation of the Indian Panchatantra, the individual fables are alternately linked as a frame story through their common animal characters or common theme, or structured as autonomous tales.
Across the Road (2009), is a 55-minute solo video and performance work in which a young Irish couple face a defining conflict over inherited lands. Taking place in Ireland, action shifts between the mediums of film and live performance at specific narrative moments, with the two characters (played by a single actor) performing alternating solos.
With an orchestral score by Erin Gee, Across the Road was developed in part at The Chocolate Factory, chashama, and through a series of residencies at Daghdha Dance Company in Limerick, Ireland, with Mark Carberry and Laura Dannequin.
Dakota (2005), is a film and performance project. Performed live, Dakota begins with 25 minutes of film, at which point the action shifts from the screen to the stage for an additional 20 minutes, then returns to the screen for the conclusion of the story. This shift from stage to screen parallels a shift from the narrative tensions of the story to the psychological tensions of the character, and occurs at a moment of choice for the protagonist, related to the potential loss of his daughter. The Dakota staging was premiered at PS122 in 2005, prior to the completion of the film. The piece was shown with both film and staging at the Dublin Fringe Festival 2006, where it received the Best Actor Award.