It all began for Jamie O’Neill 12,000 miles from home.
He was 21 and it was in “The Crucible,” or more precisely a local amateur group’s production of Arthur Miller’s play in Wellington, New Zealand. His then girlfriend had encouraged him to audition for a part and he got it.
“I loved the experience,” said O’Neill, who is currently starring with Marie Mullen in the world stage premiere of “The Saviour” at the Irish Repertory Theatre.
When back in Dublin after a year’s traveling, he auditioned to be a full-time student at the Gaiety’s acting school, “without really knowing what I was doing,” and was accepted.
“It was a slow burner after that,” said O’Neill, who grew up in the Tenters, an area in Dublin’s south inner city where his parents still live.
An early career milestone following his Gaiety training was Sam Shepard’s “True West,” which, together with a friend from his class, he put on at Smock Alley Theatre, a space opened in 2012 on a site that had housed the Theatre Royal from 1662 through 1787.
Marie Mullen as Máire in the Irish Repertory Theatre’s world stage premiere of “The Saviour,” currently at the Irish Rep. [Photo by Carol Rosegg]
Other highlights from his first decade as an actor include Seán O’Casey’s “Shadow of a Gunman” at the Abbey, Amy Conroy’s “Luck Just Kissed You Hello,” at the Peacock last year, and the Gaiety’s production of a few years ago of Brendan Behan’s “Borstal Boy.”
Among O’Neill’s small-screen credits are episodes of “Blood,” which had Adrian Dunbar as lead actor.
“That was a great experience,” he said. “I intend to get myself into that direction more.
“It’s just that I’ve been very fortunate in recent years,” he added, in reference to his theatre work.
“I’ve worked a lot with Louise Lowe, the director of this show [‘The Saviour’] and her company Anu. She’s been creating, in my opinion, the most interesting theatre work in Dublin over the last decade or so.”
O’Neill has done several shows with Lowe since first joining forces with her on a production in Manchester a few years ago.
“That’s been great because, there’s not just the production when you’re working with Anu,” he said, “there’s so much research and development and it’s such a collaborative, creative thing, you’re not really starting with a script a lot of the time.”
Many of Lowe’s projects have been built around events in the revolutionary period, as each centenary year passed from 2013 through 2023.
“It was fascinating. I’ve a big interest in history and Irish history anyway, so it was a dream for me to be in a room and working with all these great people,” O’Neill said, “and getting the chance to research things and dream things up.
“It’s a small city,” the actor said of Dublin. “There’s no shortage of really excellent actors, writers, directors. There is a lot of talent in the city. There’s a lot going on. There always is.”
These have been difficult years in Irish theatre in some ways, though, because of cutbacks in funding and the shuttering of some theatre and rehearsal spaces. “But, certainly, there’s no shortage of people doing it,” O’Neill said. “I’m always amazed.”
He recalled about a recent Anu production, a recreation of the Anglo-Irish Treaty debates of a century ago: “There were over 40 actors in the room. I just couldn’t believe it, I was looking around – the standard of acting, the sheer number of people involved in it.”
Rather fewer numbers of people, however, are required for his current project, playwright Deirdre Kinahan’s “The Saviour.”
“It follows Máire,” O’Neill said, “who the audience will meet at the start of the show.
“Máire is an older woman who has embarked on a sexual relationship with a younger man.”
Something is reignited in her and indeed she may even be feeling things she never felt before.
“It’s been a big change in her,” O’Neill said. “But also, when Máire speaks about the man, she speaks about her past and incidents in her life. It’s not exactly clear what happened, but there’s trauma there.
“And then midway through the show, a man enters onto the stage. You’re not sure who it is and it pretty soon becomes clear it’s Mel, her son.
“There’s a lot of love between these two but there’s a very a complicated relationship, let’s say,” he said.
“And Mel is carrying some news that the man his mother is having a relationship with maybe is not exactly who he had appeared to be and has a bit of a shadier past than she was aware of.”
O’Neill had been rehearsing for three weeks in Dublin, the day of the Echo interview, and the cast had just done a full in-costume performance with some people in New York looking on via Zoom. The team was due to fly out a few days later for technical rehearsals followed by previews.
“It will be very exciting to finally get in there on the stage and feel it for real,” he said.
O’Neill was also then looking forward more generally to a return to New York; he visited some years ago for what was supposed to a six-day stay, but opted to extend it.
“So, I love the city,” O’Neill said, “but it’s only the second time to visit.”
“The Saviour”, a presentation by Landmark Productions, written by Deirdre Kinahan and directed by Louise Lowe, is playing at the Irish Repertory Theatre through Aug. 13. For tickets and other information, go to the Irish Rep's website here.
