A extract from an interview with Melbourne Palywrite Tom O'Connor that I did on Australian Radio about his work entitled Heart Quest which he brough over to Belfast to perform at the West Belfast Folk Festival in 2001 .

BELFAST HAS A PLACE FOR HEART QUEST
By Paul Mc Cann

Melbourne playwrite Tom O’Connor and his latest project Heart Quest , has come to Ireland for a number of special performances during August .
After I read an article in an Australian newspaper on Tom O’Connor’s Belfast visit and his Belfast roots I contacted him for an interview .
For the readers of Horizon here are some of the things we talked about .

Tom I’d like to cast your mind back a little to a time and place to where you sat as a child listening to your father telling Irish Folk Stories .
Could you open up that scene from those early years in your life .

“ Yes , my Father and his friends all came from West Belfast and I particularly remember after Sunday mass as they all sat and had a drink the stories would all start to flow . I remember they talked about Cuchulann , who is the hero of Heart Quest . My Uncle would tell me
stories about how Cuchulann was so strong and so fast that he could hit the ball with a hurley stick from one end of the field , run up to the other end of the field hit it back and then play a game of hurley with himself running back and forward on the field . He also said that Cuchulann was so strong that he could lift his own legs up and hold himself up in the air . This made a powerful impression on me . I could envisage all this happening . It certainly was a big part of my life , listening to stories and all that . In my mind Belfast was always this mythical place ”.


Being a creative writer is almost like having a hungry child that needs constant feeding . The child’s demands require almost constant attention and so often thank you is never said. You’ve been writing and directing plays for more than twenty years but you’re also a teacher at Caroline Chisholm Catholic College . Would you say that you must become the master of one and the slave of another and is there any friction any between these two careers ?

“ For a while I was able to combine the two , but you’re right , I guess the
desire to create . I am reminded of the writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez , the
South American writer . He said that you’ve got to try and squeeze in the
creative parts about five percent of your life that you have free . Here in Australia apart from a few lucky people its very hard to make money from the arts as such and in life we do need to make a living so teaching puts the bread and butter on the table . As times gone by I’ve be able to do these other things . Its a constant challenge .”

The motto virtue survives under oppression is evident with many of the great Irish writers . The suffering and injustice that the Irish have endured over the centuries have brought about an explosion in the literary world . Today’s modern Irish writers have found a new voice and the concept of a lasting peace has encouraged this new form of expression to be heard .

“ Well I’ve done a lot of study of Irish writers and there is a strong case
to say that it was the Irish writers that saved the English language
throughout the twentieth century . Yeats with the poetry , Joyce with the
novel and Beckett in theatre reinvented all those literary forms , and really
made them modern .”

As yet I haven’t seen Heart Quest but I have this image in my mind of
scenes beyond the mists of time when Irish legends where being made .
In your own words could you open up an understanding of what
Heart Quest captures ?

“ The story of Cuchulann who as a young boy killed the hound of
Chulann which was a great act of disrespect and it also destroyed
security . So he took on the role of the hound for about seven years
protecting the family and also took the name Cuchulaan which means
Chulanns hound . Like all myths Cuchulann then needs to discover what’s
important for his heart . So he goes on a journey , a quest , to find
where his heart lies . It would be impossible to tell all the Cuchulann
stories but that journey is central to what he learns along the way .”


You will be accompanied by Michael Reed an Australian drama teacher .
How many will be in the entire cast when it goes on stage in Belfast ?

“ I went over and held auditions in West Belfast in the first week of
March and between dancers , singers , and musicians there will be thirty .
They are mainly young people , no one would be over twenty five and
every dancer has a title or an award . The amount of talent per square
foot in Belfast is staggering .”

It is amazing what is happening in Belfast today . For once people are taking notice of Belfast and its people .

“ Yes , they’re redeveloping the docklands area of Belfast like they did in
Dublin and there are some wonderful venues now for the arts .”


Like the Waterfront .

“ Yeah . I’d love to be able to perform Heart Quest there .”

On stage there is sure to be a presence of mystique charged with powerful emotion as the performance of Heart Quest will be staged in the closed Conway Linen Mill , which was the same mill your Grandmother had worked in until 1912 .

“ Its a great thing because it will be the first time it will be have been
used as a theatre . At the moment its just an empty concrete room but
the plans are to develop that as a theatrical stage . My grandmother told
me stories about going to work and how she ran around bare feet in
water up to her ankles , and all these kind of things . It must have been
horrendous at the time . I am dedicating the show to my Grandmother
Jane O’Connor and it will be a very emotional moment .”


Thanks for talking with me and I’m sure you’ll be welcomed with open arms when Heart Quest arrives in Belfast .

“ Bye for now ”



THE END