Playhouse to fill vacant seats with personal objects of lost loved ones

When the house lights go down for one of the Playhouse’s forthcoming productions, the theatre seats will not be empty.
The theatre is being filled with objects and images sent in from people who have lost loved ones.The theatre is being filled with objects and images sent in from people who have lost loved ones.
The theatre is being filled with objects and images sent in from people who have lost loved ones.

They will instead be filled with a series of items whose presence will become an extension of the stories and events unfolding onstage.

Kieran Griffiths, producer/director of the Playhouse said: “Like a low-laying fog, grief has sat amongst us this year. “Our plan is to honour that grief and to fight through with resilience and creativity, to simply try and make something move.”

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The new production, ‘Anything Can Happen 1972: Voices from the heart of the Troubles’ by Damian Gorman, will present previously-unheard stories about experiences in NI in 1972.

As part of the production, those who have lost people in the Troubles, due to Covid-19, or in any other circumstance were invited to contribute.

People as far as Australia sent objects and photographs of significance to be placed on the empty chairs in the theatre.

This act echoes Seamus Heaney’s famous work, Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication, in which he describes ‘a sunlit absence’.

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Damian Gorman, author of Anything Can Happen, said, “The empty chair is a very powerful symbol of loss and grief.

Participants Victor Montgomery, Susan Stanley, Siobhan Livingstone, Tom Kelly, Hazel Deeney and actor Pat Lynch.Participants Victor Montgomery, Susan Stanley, Siobhan Livingstone, Tom Kelly, Hazel Deeney and actor Pat Lynch.
Participants Victor Montgomery, Susan Stanley, Siobhan Livingstone, Tom Kelly, Hazel Deeney and actor Pat Lynch.

“Somebody defined grief to me as ‘love which has nowhere to go’. Rather than having all these empty chairs that would be housing absence, we would be housing something of significance. If all of that makes sense to you, please get in touch with us here at the Playhouse.”

The Playhouse has begun a programme of live performances inside the theatre that will also be broadcast live and online across the world.

All performances will be free to subscribers of the Playhouse’s YouTube channel. This approach will continue even once the restrictions of the pandemic are lifted.

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Kieran Griffiths said: “The Playhouse is already well known internationally, but the enforced new circumstances give us another opportunity to take our work across the world. When lockdown began, we asked ourselves, how do we change? How do we programme for our communities and keep them safe? And how do we survive when social distancing means our theatre can hold only 20 audience members? The answer was, by using technology to ensure that the show can certainly go on, both at the Playhouse and online. Now, we’re asking audiences watching from around the world, and those locally who wish to safeguard the future of their local arts, to consider donating, and help us to deliver creative, innovative and accessible arts, theatre and education to the community.”

Noirin McKinney, Director of Arts Development, Arts Council of NI, added: “The Arts Council is proud to be Principal Funder of the Playhouse and to support this innovative programme, imaginatively curated during an extremely difficult time for theatres and the Arts in general. The Playhouse has spectacularly risen to the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic and through this impressive programme, continues to reach out to audiences, helping to bring great art from their house to ours.”

‘Anything Can Happen’ will be performed and broadcast live from September 16 to September 20 nightly at 8pm.