" In countries where the imagination of the people, and the language they use, is rich and living, it is possible for a writer to be rich and copious in his words, " wrote Irish playwright J.M. Synge. And that’s a belief Ronan Noone endorses. His play The Lepers of Baile Baiste is having its professional premiere with Súgán Theatre Company starting next Friday. It’s the first in his " Baile Baiste " ( " Town of Rain " ) trilogy; the second installment, The Blowin of Baile Gall, will be staged at Boston Playwrights Theatre in December.
" It’s music first in the language. I listen for the cadences in language to justify where to put specific words in certain locations. " As he speaks, the 32-year-old Noone conveys a distinct musicality of his own in his gently lilting voice. That strategy, however, can get a tad tricky when you’re an Irish-born dramatist writing about everyday life in the Isle but living in America.
While writing Lepers, Noone was acclimating to American culture, taking in the jargon and, as he puts it, " learning where the priorities were, like how important sports is to a lot of male language. " But what he was hearing on these shores was not in tune with the world he was creating in Lepers. Set mainly in a bar in a fictional Connemara town, the play has a cast of eight men, five of whom are in their 30s and went to Catholic school together. The years in between have been laden with guilt and resentment over the abuse they suffered at the hands of clergy. When one of them who had been away for two years returns in the name of justice, he agitates his stuck-in-a-rut peers to come to terms with the past.
After being staged at the Boston Playwrights Theatre last October, Lepers won the 2002 National Student Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. As far as the Noone is concerned, seeing his work come this far justifies his " cheese sandwich " existence (as in " that’s what’s in the fridge " ). Since completing his MA in creative writing at Boston University last year, he’s split his time between writing at his Allston home and painting houses on Martha’s Vineyard, where he lived before coming to Boston. " There’s a lot of sweat and tears, but I could never feel more alive, because I know my purpose. "
Although the clerical-abuse theme is timely, to say the least, Noone wrote the first draft of Lepers in 1996, two years after coming to the US from Clifden (on the west Galway coast), and submitted it when he applied to BU. The play was his way of exploring the stasis in his home town, the result of high unemployment. It was the pervasive lack of ambition that drove him out, even if that meant being a stranger in new territory. " The most important thing a person has is his identity. The first thing an immigrant feels when he arrives in a new country by himself is not different from what an orphan feels, but an immigrant knows where he comes from, so he makes double effort to hang on to that. "
Noone pauses intermittently to edit his thoughts, as if constantly considering the power of the spoken word. He comes, after all, from a long line of Irish playwrights, one that includes Samuel Beckett. He continues, " The play has a despair that lends itself to exuberant comedy. Because the men’s lives are so boring, they want things to reach a climax, because there’s nothing else to do. "
Rabble rousing is another aspect of the tradition to which Noone belongs. Not that he’s aiming for riots in the streets akin to what Synge and Sean O’Casey prompted with their dramas. Yet when the curtain falls on Lepers, he predicts, " You come out with bowels moved. "
Súgán Theatre will present The Lepers of Baile Baiste November 1 through 23 at the Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street. Tickets are $24 to $29; call (617) 426-2787.
