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Marshfield - It was exciting to begin my performing year at the
Abbey Theatre in Dublin. I loved having "Pill Hill" characters alive
at the edge of the Liffy. After that the same "Pill Hill" characters
performed in New Zealand.
I enjoyed performing at the Theatre in Newburyport as much as anything.
It's a lovely theatre. When it was time to go to the theatre, I
would walk down from my bed and breakfast along snow covered streets.
The restaurants were opened, but all the shops were closed in the
winter evenings. I'd be thinking of the characters in "The Dance".
Thinking about the passion and the poetry in the fifteen year old
narrator. About his worries, his world and his language. He says
of an old friend of his parents, "He looked like cigarette smoke
with a hat on top." Mrs. Lawrence's voice is like: "a fog creeping
over our ankles."
The moment in a high school race where the sound of a metal exit
door slamming transforms his body would often enter my mind. I would
think of the power and rhythm of that moment and how it carried
him forward.
I would think of the evening as a symphony. When I arrived at the
theatre, I'd spend half an hour on the stage doing scenes. Waiting
in the wings, I would see the house go dark, I would hear the piano
music start and I would walk onto the stage in the dark. Ah - Joy!
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"Pill Hill" at Abbey Theatre
O'Callahan performed his original one-man play, "Pill Hill Stories:
Coming Home to Someplace New", for the Fourth Annual Yeats International
Theatre Festival. This theatre run in Ireland was the start of a
hectic season that took Jay to the farthest reaches of our world.
After returning home from Dublin, Jay performed in Pennsylvania,
Virginia, Tennessee and Massachusetts before embarking on his trip
to New Zealand. In New Zealand, Jay joined a dazzling line-up of
tellers from all over the world at the "Glistening Waters Storytelling
Festival" in Masterton.
A reporter from New Zealand stated that ... "Jay's performance was
a must. If you want to learn about the craft of storytelling, there
is no person in the craft more qualified."
Traveler's Journal
Dublin - Ten years ago I left Dublin thinking, "I don't want to
return until I play at the Abbey." And so it was. The city is yours,
if you work in it. You're part of the flow. Telling stories at the
Abbey was leaping into the sea. Suddenly, I was one with it. And
I got a new story which I told as the very last story at the NAPPS
Festival. It's called, "The Graves of the Leinstermen." [This
story has now been recorded on Dancing
With Fire, as "My Wild Beauty."]
New Zealand - New Zealand was so different from Dublin. "The Glistening
Water Storytelling Festival" was magical. It reflected it's "goddess"
organizer, Liz Miller. It's a two day drive down to Invacargill.
David Campbell, a kingly Scotsman, Nan Gregory, a Canadian with
a royal sense of life, Liz Miller and I became a family and one
fine day - dashed into the roaring pacific naked as babes, happy
as clams, a good trip.
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