For three years I watched Robert volunteer for the Dublin Theatre Festival, my eyes green with envy. I simply couldn’t devote the time. When I rushed home, picked up kids, made dinner, got them to bed there was no way I could slope off to sell programmes at a theatre.
Then there was redundancy – so as I signed up and volunteered online – I was elated. To be able to go and see plays, to interact with leading thespians of Dublin. I am booked into to sell tickets in the Box Office in Essex street in Dublin a few mornings a week and help out at a show. Laundry – the up close experience of the Magdalene Laundries.
In ‘Laundry’ there is space for just three people in the audience, and the play takes place in an actual disused Magdalene Laundry in Gloucester Street. It’s interactive and it contains nudity
http://dublintheatrefestival.com/programme/display.asp?Eventid=595
Now in normal circumstances nudity would raise a smile 🙂 But alas, this can either be nudity of the Nuns or the poor inmates. So I think its going to be nudity like the last scene in the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – which highlighted their innocence, and the mounting tension make you sit on the edge of your seat.
I am really looking forward to being transported back in time to feel what it was like to be in The Laundry. If we were living 50 years ago, we would all know someone who for one reason or another would have been imprisoned in one.
This is the most definite positive of being redundant – exploring our social history and making that disgraceful part of our Irish past come to life. So peel back your ears and wait to hear more as the festival progresses.
