Cameron McCauley in “Bears in Space,” which continues through the weekend at 59E59 Theaters in Manhattan.
PHOTO BY IDIL SUKAN
By Orla O’Sullivan
At a gathering on Friday evening to mark the mid-point of Origin’s 9th Annual 1st Irish Festival, founder George Heslin likened the creators of “Bears in Space” to Boyzone while Shane Cahill, Ireland’s deputy consul general, said their show was his festival favorite and he plans to see it again before the run ends on Sunday. The four handsome Irish 20-something lads from the show were at the gathering at the Irish Consul on Park Avenue, at which it was noted that several 1st Irish shows have sold out, or all but.
Whatever readers who buy the last remaining tickets for this weekend’s matinees (available, as of time of writing, for 2:15 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 1 and 3:15p.m., Sunday, Oct. 2) think of the show, they can be assured that they will not have experienced anything quite like it.
It’s the story of bear-astronauts hurtling into hostile airspace, just awaking from centuries of having been cryogenically frozen by the talking computer onboard. It’s told through talking, handheld puppets. Wrapped around this is a narrator, the keeper of all stories since the start of time and father to the hapless bears. He dips into his archives to share this story-within-a-story as he plays various musical instruments for the audience.
Asked about audience reaction in a Q&A following a recent performance, Jack Gleeson, perhaps the best known of the quartet, summed it up this way by saying that New York audiences have been the same as those everywhere else (the show debuted in Dublin in 2014 and after its success in the Edinburgh Fringe festival that year was picked up by the Soho Theatre, London, earlier this year).
“Some people are, like, ‘What the f*** is this?!’ and others are like ‘Wooh-hooh!’” Gleeson said, shaking his head like a child delighted to encounter something novel.
Aaron Heffernan, left, and Eoghan Quinn in “Bears in Space”
at 59E59 Theaters. PHOTO BY IDIL SUKAN
Gleeson’s own sense of fun prompted him to remain with Collapsing Horse, the Dublin theatre troupe he co-founded, instead of taking the movie offers presented after his role as King Joffrey in “Game of Thrones” ended last year. In an interview earlier this year, the Corkonian in the Dubliner-dominated group said, “What I enjoy most is this kind of thing, where I can have fun with my friends.”
This was evident in the Q&A with one admitting he snuck off during the performance for hits of Red Bull and another deadpanning that he prepares for shows by relaxing in a sensory deprivation tank, to which writer Eoghan Quinn said narrator “Cameron [Macaulay] has needs.” Best was an impromptu translation into Irish of some of Gleeson’s comments by two Gaeilgoiri who happened to be at the back of the theatre.
Behind the fun is very evident intellectualism. (Heaping praise on the galaxy these guys inhabit, the New York Times veteran critic Ben Brantley described them as “nerds for whom goofiness is next to godliness.”) Quinn, a doctoral student and teaching assistant in NYU’s English department, said he switched his PhD from the study of 17th century authors, such as John Donne, to “difficult language.”
Speaking after a recent performance at 59E59 Theaters, Quinn said this U.S. premiere of the play substantially revised his original. One major change: “We basically took ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’ and used it as a frame around the play.”
Also, three of the company’s four founders are on stage together, which is unusual, now that it has about 15 members and “four or five plays” produced.
Collapsing Horse was founded two years ago by Quinn, Gleeson, puppeteer and set designer Aaron Heffernan, and director Dan Colley, who was back in Dublin directing a company production of Vergil's Aeneid the night I saw “Bears.”
They met in the student drama society of Trinity College Dublin, the Players, and Quinn remains very involved though he now lives in Brooklyn.
“I feel a bit funny saying I wrote it [Bears] because it’s so improvised,” he said.
The night I saw it (when Bears by Collapsing Horse shared 59E59 Theaters with “The Birds” by Birdland, adding to the sense of being in a zoo) Heffernan estimated that that night’s show was “35 percent improvised.” Naturally, the performers disagreed among themselves, enjoying the riffing that is their stock in trade.
