The Boy: A Two-Play Theatrical Event, is finally opening in Dublin after a five year delay. Carr’s brilliant retelling of old Greek myths finally gets to be shown on Ireland’s national stage. The official opening night is Wednesday, October 1^st and it is already sold out.

The two-play spectacle is based on three Greek myths – Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone, written by Sophocles. The audience is encouraged to see the plays back-to-back, but they can also see them individually. Carr has spoken about these plays trying to “marry the ancient with the contemporary”.

The two actors taking centre stage are Frank Blake and Eileen Walsh, who are playing Oedipus and Jocasta, respectively.

The staging is deliberately basic, forcing the audience to focus on the actors and not their surroundings. For most of The Boy, the stage only has a dining table on it. Above the stage there is a projection of what is being shown on the stage from above; this represents the gods always looking down over the action – they are ever-present in this world. There is a thick plastic curtain that comes and goes throughout both plays, acting as a barrier between the audience and stage. The sound-heavy plastic whooshing across the stage gives an eerie feeling to the audience, almost like we were watching a crime scene.

The Boy

The first play The Boy surrounds the life of Oedipus from birth to after he fulfils his curse. It is based on the Greek myth, Oedipus Rex. The play is set in the kingdom of Thebes, where Oedipus’ father Laius is king.

The audience finds out that Oedipus has been cursed from when he was a child, or more so that his father, Laius, was cursed. He gets confronted by The Shee (played by Olwen Fouére) after he captures and rapes a young boy, Chrysippus (played by Noah Behan and Harley Cullen Walsh). Laius’ curse is that he must not have a child for if he does, his child would grow up to kill him and marry his wife, Jocasta.

The God and His Daughter

The second play opens with the exact same dialogue as the first but the context has shifted. The audience knows about the crimes Oedipus and Jocasta have committed together; we also know that in comparison to the first play Thebes is suffering under new kings and its crops are failing.

This play is based on the Greek myths, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. The play follows Oedipus in the final stages of his life and how his curse has continued onto his children, particularly his daughter, Antigone.

The star of the show is Éilish McLaughlin who plays Antigone. Though she is only on the stage for the first half of the play she is what the audience is drawn to the most. Her presence and monologues are incredible, it was impossible to take your eyes off her.

TheCity got the chance to talk to Fionnuala Maher, a costume supervisor assistant. Though Maher was mainly working in the background of the costume department, she did give us an insight to what it is like to prepare for a show. Maher mentioned how the decisions were made by the designer, Catherine Fay, and the main costume makers, Tara Mulvihill and Breege Fahy. She would then go out with a brief and grab samples or photos of items she deemed appropriate. She said: “Sometimes we had to make sure there were doubles available of everything in case they were used in any scenes with blood, [amongst other things].”

She went onto explain how like with a lot of shows, a lot of the costume changes would come down to the practicality of the clothes. She continued: “Something could look perfect on the hanger and even on the actor but might not sit correctly on them in the action of a scene.”