Laoisa Sexton and John Keating in a scene from the
upcoming Rep production “The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal.”
By Orla O’Sullivan
Laoisa Sexton is doubly pleased to have John Keating play the title role of her new play, “The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal,” going into previews Nov. 16 at the Irish Repertory Theatre.
Not only was the Rep “such a legendary” place that Sexton was “scared to go there, just as a patron,” when she first came to New York for acting classes, but Keating seemed like the embodiment of an established actor there. Since that time (a decade or so ago, Sexton said) she has gone from getting a small part on the Rep stage, to starring in her own play there in 2014, “For Love,” and now her second, which will run through year’s end.
The role of the Pigeon, a maladjusted middle-aged man, living alone in a caravan on the outskirts of Kilkee, Co. Clare, was written specially for Keating. A chance conversation in the summer of 2015, in which Keating praised her growing body of work, prompted Sexton to test that praise by asking would he do a role if she wrote one for him.
“Two months later, I had the play,” she recalled. In November last year, the Rep asked her to do a reading and later agreed to produce the premiere.
In the play, locals have dubbed Keating’s misfit character “The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal” in reference to his campsite abode. There is no actual campground called Taj Mahal but Sexton said such an aspirational moniker would fit in the locality where, “They’re always called weird, over-the-top names.”
She knows Kilkee well, having spent childhood summers there and suggests it embodies a kind of clash of civilizations. “We’ve got foam parties—dance parties where people dance in bikinis—and half a mile down the road 55-year old aul’ fellas who live with their mothers. “Modern plays are vital because we’re talking about who we are now,” Sexton said, but there’s resistance, especially in the States, to depictions of Ireland that are not rural and traditional.
Modern Ireland crashes in on Pigeon, displaced after his cottage burnt down, in the form of a bachelorette party from Limerick City lost in the countryside and— without cell phone service. “They have to learn to communicate with Pigeon, who’s a bit mentally challenged," said Sexton, who is married to a cinematographer, Trevor Murphy, and has a Chihuahua named Hamlet.
“The play is about empathy, how we judge people so quickly despite our desperate need for connection.”
The failure of humans to connect was also at the core of her 2014 production, “The Last Days of Cleopatra,” and “For Love” a hit from the 2013 1st Irish festival, before it went on to the Rep.
Both were selected as New York Times’ Critics' Picks: quite a coup, especially as they are the only plays Sexton has had produced.
Yet, despite her success, Sexton revealed that her sixth play, just completed, may be her last. “I’m thinking maybe I will focus on film,” said the artist now based in Dublin and finding the scene, “very exciting with film and TV right now.”
When contacted last Thursday, Sexton had just landed in New York for Rep rehearsals, having been in Dublin for a recurring role in a TV3/ BBC UK television police series, “Red Rock.”
“I am a performer first,” she has observed. “I only ever write to perform.” Sexton happily reports that her next play, “Ave Maria; blessed art thou amongst women,” is full of great female roles (one of them the Virgin Mary). It’s about a narcissistic man surrounded by women.
Sexton became a digital poster-child of the #WakingTheFeminists movement to combat female underrepresentation in Irish theatre when a photo of her and Meryl Streep went viral a year ago. She has seen little change since #WTF.
Another challenge is the Irish, er, pigeon-hole. “I’ve played every Irish maid there is and I’ve always been asked to wear a red wig!” Sexton said. She was also the only Irish-born member of the “Shining City” cast sent to a dialogue coach because she didn’t have the received accent that passes as Irish. Conversely, Sexton faked an American accent off stage when in a Manhattan theatre company’s production directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman for fear of losing the role if she was known to be Irish.
And then there’s all the non-artistic endeavor that goes into trying to get one’s own plays produced. “Before going on stage in ‘Last Days’ I was carting ice up the street and pouring wine from the bar.”
Similarly, a tour around Ireland Sexton produced of “For Love,” using crowd-sourced funding, though critically successful, was for her highly stressful. (Being based in Ireland makes her eligible to request, at least, funding from Irish bodies that support the arts.)
She’s channeling the experience into a darkly comedic film script about a road trip in Ireland by New York-based actors.
Sexton still has a foot on both sides of the Atlantic, having kept her apartment in Dumbo in Brooklyn. “I always tell people, ‘if you’re looking for someone, I’m on the next flight!’”
She also relates to being on the road, “circus life.” Her family moved often out of financial necessity, she said, and her childhood included stints in several hotels her father managed. “That’s why I love that Eugene O’Neill line, ‘Born in a hotel room—and God damn it—died in a hotel room.’” She was adopted at age two from Quebec by an Irish couple and still holds three passports.
Sexton seems to be on her way somewhere. Her first stage role was in a Brian Friel play in her teens. Then, Pigeon got its reading at the Rep the night Friel died, and goes into production as a Friel work (“Afterplay”) concludes, she noted.
“I’m doing a very modern play and following Brian Friel into the theatre,” Sexton said.
