We caught up with the award-winning actress who tells us how she knew from the first time she read the script that it was a very special show. Fíonna said: “It’s the only time I've ever read a script from cover to cover and gone back and read it straight away a second time. I was looking for flaws, but there weren’t any and I thought it was actually too good to be true.”
The show, which was written by Brian Foster, features 16 characters all portrayed by Fíonna in a skilfully crafted retrospective account of Myra’s life.
“It's very cleverly written in the sense that; people might identify with one part of a character.” She goes on to explain how she came to find each individual personality: “All of the characters needed to be special. They needed to be individual, and they needed to be specific, so I had to visualise them and then I had to find their voices.”
Writer, Brian Foster, based the central character on several street drinkers he was familiar with in his native Derry, Northern Ireland. His creation is a middle-aged alcoholic living on the streets of Dublin. With a mix of dark humour and the desperate woe that accompanies addiction and homelessness, the play takes the audience on a rollercoaster ride but never shies away from reality.
“The big thing that I have [found] about the whole Myra’s Story journey is that people take a different perspective on homelessness and that, to me, is magic.” Fíonna explains: “Three weeks later, if somebody is still thinking about it and reflecting on it, you know it’s had an impact.”
Over the course of the play, Myra imparts her worldly knowledge in a humorous, but at times heart-breaking narration. For Fíonna, finding Myra’s voice was about delving deeply into what her back story might be and it has evolved through careful curation over the last few years and hundreds of performances.
“First of all, you have to find what makes her heart beat and then you have to find the strength of the woman. But then you have to find the comedy and as an Irish woman, I think we do that well, in that, even in the blackest of situations, we find comedy. And while she's telling us her story, you can hear the comedy in what she's telling, but you can also hear how she’s covering her pain, and I think that's an integral part of who Myra is. She can smile through the tears.”
The importance of highlighting the plight of the homeless is something that both Fíonna and writer Brian are acutely aware of. They ensure they have links with local charities in every city they visit, and Fíonna tries to spend time with people living on the streets.
Fíonna tells us: “We have to make sure that we give back because these people need to feel that they're not invisible.” She continues: “I think unless you sit down on a piece of cardboard that's dead and dirty with somebody that is homeless, you never have a perception of who they really are and what their back story is. Most people forget that they had a life too. They have family, they may have had children, they may have had a home, they may have had a job and the twist of fate just happened. All of a sudden, they found themselves unable to deal or cope.”
Myra’s Story tickets are now available!
Myra’s Story will be playing a strictly limited run at the Trafalgar Theatre this autumn. Book your tickets now!