February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Joseph Hurley
PORTRAIT (PART ONE). Directed by Mary G. Farrell and adapted from James Joyce’s "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by Aidan Connolly. Featuring Connolly, Dan Lesho, Mary Ellen Kopp and Laura James Flynn. Presented by the Irish-American Cultural Institute’s New York Chapter. At the Irish Arts Center, 553 West 51st St., NYC. July 18-22.
Aidan Connolly graduated from Providence College in 1992 with a major in English and Drama and since then has done a good job of keeping himself occupied in his chosen field. He toured for the better part of two seasons in the Off-Broadway hit "Forever Plaid," playing Frankie, the second tenor and leader of the group at the heart of the show.
Recently, as part of his work with the New York Chapter of the Irish-American Cultural Institute, he participated in the five-performance tour of Dublin-based actor Donal O’Kelly’s celebrated solo show, "Catalpa."
Now the 30-year-old actor and writer is embarking on what is probably his most ambitious adventure. Starting tonight at the Irish Arts Center on West 51st Street, he will be one of four actors performing his own new adaptation of the first half of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," by James Joyce.
The production, which Connolly calls "Portrait (Part One)," will be performed tonight at 7:30, tomorrow at 7, with an open discussion following the show, and then Friday and Saturday at 7:30, with a final matinee at 4 on Sunday.
Sign up to The Irish Echo Newsletter
"Portrait (Part One)" whose title indicates that Connolly and his colleagues intend to follow up with a second production and then, if all goes well, to tour both halves to colleges, universities and Irish-oriented cultural groups. "Portrait (Part Two) " is planned for next summer.
The show has been conceived and realized through a faculty development grant awarded by Providence College. Since the grant is a faculty award, the honor officially went to Mary G. Farrell, an associate professor of theater and head of the acting program. In the latter capacity, Farrell taught three of the four cast members of the show, including, in addition to Connolly, Dan Lesho and Mary Ellen Kopp. The sole newcomer is Laura James Flynn, a familiar figure in productions at the Irish Arts Center.
Farrell is also the director. She received an MFA in directing from Illinois State University, where she trained with the founding members of Chicago’s celebrated Steppenwolf Theatre Company, was selected to represent the Northeast Region at the American College Theatre Festival 2000 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
The five performances of "Portrait (Part One)" are free, but the participants hope that audiences will be sufficiently impressed to make donations.
The New York Chapter of the Irish-American Cultural Institute has augmented the grant with "in kind" services, including helping with details of the five performances.
Connolly was moved to attempt his adaptation because he was so struck by the shifting narrative of the Joyce novel, its experimentation in form, and its use of stream of consciousness, that he felt the work might prove both "actable" and "stageworthy."
"I wanted to approach the material from a different point of view," Connolly said, "a little like opening a loaf of bread at the top and looking down into it."
Connolly, who, had he not become an actor and writer, would probably have entered politics, or formed a career running political campaigns. His 30th birthday found him at Gore Headquarters in Nashville, Tenn., "getting out the vote, leafleting people, letting people know how important it was that they actually go out and vote."
The actor went wrong when he tried to guess the election results from a personal point of view. "I always thought Al Gore would win," he said, "and that people would close the curtain, do a gut check, and vote for the Democrats."
Connolly is the youngest of three sons of Michael Connolly, who came to the U.S. from Galway with his brother, Tom, in the early 1960s and founded a landscaping company near Hartford, Conn. The actor’s mother, the former Mary Moore, came from Dublin’s Terenure area.
Connolly’s oldest brother, Desmond, 33, is a Navy navigator on F-14s. The middle Connolly brother, Jarlath, 32, is vice president of a company that sells media software.
Aidan Connolly recalls his Connecticut boyhood is pleasure and warmth. "I have no tortured childhood memories," he said. At the end of this week of "Portrait (Part One)" performances, he hopes to have a set of equally rewarding Joycean memories.
— Joseph Hurley