Peadar de Burca
Encyclopedia
Peadar de Burca, Irish
Actor
, Playwright
, Comedian
.
Peadar de Burca is a native of Galway city
in the west of Ireland
.
He rose to fame primarily as a theatre director until he began writing comedy
shows that tour extensively around Ireland
.
His comedic style and writing has often been likened to being more 'American' than Irish and his TV and radio appearances have often been antagonistic. RTE
, Ireland's broadcaster received complaints when he described the Irish Prime Minister as 'Ireland's answer to Shrek
'. He was once punched by a female audience member during a performance of his comedy show, Why Men Cheat. The show is based on real men's stories of infidelity and there was confusion over whether de Burca had cheated himself or not.
company, MorWax Productions in 2002, with a stage version of Reservoir Dogs
. The shows success and popularity led to two other stage versions of Tarantino
scripts, Pulp Fiction
and True Romance
. All three productions were sell-out successes and were known for their youthful casts and attempted to bring a different interpretation than the film productions. De Burca always resisted requests to tour the ‘Tarantino’ shows, saying they were for ‘Galway’ audiences only’. Other adaptations include, When Harry Met Sally...
, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
and a highly regarded version of Psycho
which was produced by MorWax Productions, but directed by Frances O’Rourke.
Conversations on a Homecoming
, John B. Keane
's The Field
and O’Casey’s
The Plough and the Stars. The latter is a notoriously difficult show to produce and had never been staged in Galway
. It is always seen as a triumph for MorWax that the show sold out it’s week run at the Town Hall Theatre main stage, despite the company being non-funded and a hostile reaction from local press.
lacks the population to sustain longer theatrical runs and has a limited artistic programme. While companies visited with touring Shakespearian production, there was no theatre company producing Shakespeare in Galway
. So in 2004, De Burca mounted a successful period version of Macbeth
. The thirty strong cast was supplemented by ten musicians and was remembered for it’s thrilling sword-fights and a strong performance from Emma Daly as Lady Macbeth
. Buoyed by this success, De Burca tackled Hamlet
the following year. In this production, ten actors played all the parts in a production that included audience participation, a ladder from the stage to the audience balcony and a Player’s scene entrance where the actors cycled bikes among the audience. The production had no set, only two antique chests that were manipulated by the cast for whatever effect they desired. Playwright and novelist, John Arden
assisted with the production in what many thought was MorWax’s finest hour.
, Poitin Rock until his love of graphic novels pushed him to write an original stage version of Batman
in 2005. The show was a highly ambitious production, staged in the cavernous Black Box Theatre Galway. With only six actors playing over twenty parts, martial arts, live music, puppets, singing and a three level set, the show was a critical and commercial flop causing one blogger to write the headline, Peadar de Burca stole eighty minutes of my life! Many believe that the fall-out from this show forced him in De Burca in a new direction towards comedy.
told him to write a show with this title. It has been put to De Burca that he wrote the show form an autobiographical standpoint, an assertion he has always denied. What is known is that De Burca toured around Ireland
and England
interviewing men who cheated and women who were cheated on and collected their stories.
Many of the guys I spoke to were real losers. These guys weren’t James Bond
type characters at all, they weren’t the type of guys you’d like to hang around with. Most of them were really insecure.
The stories from these men and women were collected and condensed into a ninety minute monologue driven show that became a hit up and down Ireland
, first as a ten man show, then more famously as a five man show with each actor taking on more monologues. De Burca, initially only wanted to direct it and refused to take part, although it is said that he wasn’t confident about his abilities at delivering comedy directly to an audience. A week before the show opened in Galway
, an actor dropped out and the author was forced to take the most demanding monologue, Cheating is Good, a monologue that demanded audience participation and various amounts of improvisation and ad-libbing. The opening night, according to De Burca,
Was a disaster. I’m sitting onstage with nine other actors having to listen to all these jokes I wrote in full view of the audience. The first set of shows were two hours long but with no break and all the actors were bricking it as they had no experience doing comedy monologues. No one laughed, some people thought the show was a self-help group for men who couldn’t be faithful. And to top it all off, one of the women that I spoke to and whose monologue is the lynchpin of the show came and sat in the front row. It was horrible.
Luckily local reviewer for the Galway City Tribune, Stephen Glennon gave the show a fierce review that set the trend and the production went from success to success around Ireland
, playing to standing ovations almost everywhere. The show is still touring, as a one-man with De Burca himself doing all the parts and is expected in the Hen and Chicken’s Theatre
, Islington
, London
, The New Theatre in Temple Bar, Dublin
and the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Peadar began writing comedies for MorWax Productions in 2004 with the comedy Why Men Cheat which toured Ireland
and was the surprise hit of the Dublin Fringe Festival
2006 where it played to packed out audiences in Andrew’s Lane theatre in Dublin. The show is set to make its debut in New York
, off-Broadway
in June 2009.
To create this show, Peadar spent almost six months travelling around both Ireland
and England
interviewing men who had cheated on their partners and transformed their stories into an explosive mix of comedy and pathos. The show received a lot of media attention and led to Peadar writing his one – man comedy show, What Men Want. Seen as a follow up to Why Men Cheat it has toured to almost every theatre in Ireland
and was written using the same interview technique that was so successful with Why Men Cheat.
Peadar has written three other plays, Like a Virgin
, another monologue driven comedy that deals with the experiences of being a virgin in Ireland
, Jane’s Hero, a play based on the real life exploits of an Irish United Nations soldier who saved orphans in Sarajevo
and How The West Was Won! which dealt with US President, Ronald Reagan’s
visit to Galway
.
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
Actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, Playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, Comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
.
Peadar de Burca is a native of Galway city
Galway
Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...
in the west of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
.
He rose to fame primarily as a theatre director until he began writing comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
shows that tour extensively around Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
.
His comedic style and writing has often been likened to being more 'American' than Irish and his TV and radio appearances have often been antagonistic. RTE
RTE
RTÉ is the abbreviation for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the public broadcasting service of the Republic of Ireland.RTE may also refer to:* Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 25th Prime Minister of Turkey...
, Ireland's broadcaster received complaints when he described the Irish Prime Minister as 'Ireland's answer to Shrek
Shrek
Shrek is a 2001 American computer-animated fantasy comedy film directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. Loosely based on William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!...
'. He was once punched by a female audience member during a performance of his comedy show, Why Men Cheat. The show is based on real men's stories of infidelity and there was confusion over whether de Burca had cheated himself or not.
Adaptations of films
Peadar de Burca started off his theatreTheatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
company, MorWax Productions in 2002, with a stage version of Reservoir Dogs
Reservoir Dogs
Reservoir Dogs is an American crime film marking debut of director and writer Quentin Tarantino. It depicts the events before and after a botched diamond heist, but not the heist itself. Reservoir Dogs stars an ensemble cast: Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, and...
. The shows success and popularity led to two other stage versions of Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
scripts, Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction (film)
Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino, who co-wrote its screenplay with Roger Avary. The film is known for its rich, eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, nonlinear storyline, and host of cinematic allusions and pop culture references...
and True Romance
True Romance
True Romance is a 1993 American romance crime film written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. The film stars Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette with an ensemble cast consisting of Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Chris Penn, Tom Sizemore, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin...
. All three productions were sell-out successes and were known for their youthful casts and attempted to bring a different interpretation than the film productions. De Burca always resisted requests to tour the ‘Tarantino’ shows, saying they were for ‘Galway’ audiences only’. Other adaptations include, When Harry Met Sally...
When Harry Met Sally...
When Harry Met Sally... is a 1989 American romantic comedy film written by Nora Ephron and directed by Rob Reiner. It stars Billy Crystal as Harry and Meg Ryan as Sally. The story follows the title characters from the time they meet just before sharing a cross-country drive, through twelve years or...
, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's book by British author Roald Dahl. The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of the eccentric chocolatier, Willy Wonka....
and a highly regarded version of Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
which was produced by MorWax Productions, but directed by Frances O’Rourke.
Irish Theatre
Parallel to adapting film works for stage, De Burca directed a string of classical Irish stage shows, keeping in line with the MorWax philosophy of offering theatre for everyone. Three initial sell-out hits included Tom Murphy'sTom Murphy (playwright)
Tom Murphy is an Irish dramatist who has worked closely with the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and with Druid Theatre, Galway. He was born in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland...
Conversations on a Homecoming
Conversations on a homecoming
Conversations on a Homecoming is a 1985 play by Irish playwright Tom Murphy. Premiered by the Druid Theatre Company, Galway, Ireland in a production directed by Garry Hynes. As one of the great Irish plays set in a pub, its influence can be seen in more recent plays such as The Weir by Conor...
, John B. Keane
John B. Keane
John Brendan Keane was an Irish playwright, novelist and essayist from Listowel, County Kerry.-Life and career:...
's The Field
The Field
The Field is a play written by John B. Keane, first performed in 1965. It tells the story of the hardened farmer "Bull" McCabe and his love for the land he rents. The play debuted at Dublin's Olympia Theatre in 1965, with Ray McAnally as "The Bull" and Eamon Keane as "The Bird" O'Donnell. The play...
and O’Casey’s
Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes.- Early life:...
The Plough and the Stars. The latter is a notoriously difficult show to produce and had never been staged in Galway
Galway
Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...
. It is always seen as a triumph for MorWax that the show sold out it’s week run at the Town Hall Theatre main stage, despite the company being non-funded and a hostile reaction from local press.
Shakespearian Tragedies
Although an artistic city, GalwayGalway
Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...
lacks the population to sustain longer theatrical runs and has a limited artistic programme. While companies visited with touring Shakespearian production, there was no theatre company producing Shakespeare in Galway
Galway
Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...
. So in 2004, De Burca mounted a successful period version of Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
. The thirty strong cast was supplemented by ten musicians and was remembered for it’s thrilling sword-fights and a strong performance from Emma Daly as Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth may refer to:*Lady Macbeth, from William Shakespeare's play Macbeth**Queen Gruoch of Scotland, the real-life Queen on whom Shakespeare based the character...
. Buoyed by this success, De Burca tackled Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
the following year. In this production, ten actors played all the parts in a production that included audience participation, a ladder from the stage to the audience balcony and a Player’s scene entrance where the actors cycled bikes among the audience. The production had no set, only two antique chests that were manipulated by the cast for whatever effect they desired. Playwright and novelist, John Arden
John Arden
John Arden is an award-winning English playwright from Barnsley . His works tend to expose social issues of personal concern. He is a member of the Royal Society of Literature....
assisted with the production in what many thought was MorWax’s finest hour.
Original Scripts
De Burca’s foray into writing did not begin promisingly. His only writing credit had been a bilingual show during the 1993 Galway Arts FestivalGalway Arts Festival
Galway Arts Festival is an annual arts festival that takes place each July in Galway, Ireland. It is Ireland’s leading arts festival and one of the most successful and influential arts enterprises in the country. The Festival is one of the key European arts festivals...
, Poitin Rock until his love of graphic novels pushed him to write an original stage version of Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
in 2005. The show was a highly ambitious production, staged in the cavernous Black Box Theatre Galway. With only six actors playing over twenty parts, martial arts, live music, puppets, singing and a three level set, the show was a critical and commercial flop causing one blogger to write the headline, Peadar de Burca stole eighty minutes of my life! Many believe that the fall-out from this show forced him in De Burca in a new direction towards comedy.
Why Men Cheat
There are many different theories as to where the idea for Why Men Cheat came from. De Burca himself has said on record that the idea to write the show came to him in a dream, where former U.S. President Bill ClintonBill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
told him to write a show with this title. It has been put to De Burca that he wrote the show form an autobiographical standpoint, an assertion he has always denied. What is known is that De Burca toured around Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
interviewing men who cheated and women who were cheated on and collected their stories.
Many of the guys I spoke to were real losers. These guys weren’t James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
type characters at all, they weren’t the type of guys you’d like to hang around with. Most of them were really insecure.
The stories from these men and women were collected and condensed into a ninety minute monologue driven show that became a hit up and down Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, first as a ten man show, then more famously as a five man show with each actor taking on more monologues. De Burca, initially only wanted to direct it and refused to take part, although it is said that he wasn’t confident about his abilities at delivering comedy directly to an audience. A week before the show opened in Galway
Galway
Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...
, an actor dropped out and the author was forced to take the most demanding monologue, Cheating is Good, a monologue that demanded audience participation and various amounts of improvisation and ad-libbing. The opening night, according to De Burca,
Was a disaster. I’m sitting onstage with nine other actors having to listen to all these jokes I wrote in full view of the audience. The first set of shows were two hours long but with no break and all the actors were bricking it as they had no experience doing comedy monologues. No one laughed, some people thought the show was a self-help group for men who couldn’t be faithful. And to top it all off, one of the women that I spoke to and whose monologue is the lynchpin of the show came and sat in the front row. It was horrible.
Luckily local reviewer for the Galway City Tribune, Stephen Glennon gave the show a fierce review that set the trend and the production went from success to success around Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, playing to standing ovations almost everywhere. The show is still touring, as a one-man with De Burca himself doing all the parts and is expected in the Hen and Chicken’s Theatre
Hen and Chickens Theatre
The Hen and Chickens Theatre is a fringe venue for theatre and comedy situated above a pub at Highbury in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre management was awarded to actress Felicity Wren in 1999.-External links:*...
, Islington
Islington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, The New Theatre in Temple Bar, Dublin
Temple Bar, Dublin
Temple Bar is an area on the south bank of the River Liffey in central Dublin, Ireland. Unlike the areas surrounding it, Temple Bar has preserved its medieval street pattern, with many narrow cobbled streets. It is promoted as "Dublin's cultural quarter" and has a lively nightlife that is popular...
and the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Peadar began writing comedies for MorWax Productions in 2004 with the comedy Why Men Cheat which toured Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and was the surprise hit of the Dublin Fringe Festival
Dublin Fringe Festival
The Dublin Fringe Festival allows artists to develop and present their work by submitting their application which is subsequently reviewed by the programme manager. The festival is open to both Irish and international participants....
2006 where it played to packed out audiences in Andrew’s Lane theatre in Dublin. The show is set to make its debut in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
in June 2009.
To create this show, Peadar spent almost six months travelling around both Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
interviewing men who had cheated on their partners and transformed their stories into an explosive mix of comedy and pathos. The show received a lot of media attention and led to Peadar writing his one – man comedy show, What Men Want. Seen as a follow up to Why Men Cheat it has toured to almost every theatre in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and was written using the same interview technique that was so successful with Why Men Cheat.
Peadar has written three other plays, Like a Virgin
Like a Virgin
Like a Virgin is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released on November 12, 1984 by Sire Records. It was re-released worldwide in 1985, with the inclusion of the bonus track "Into the Groove". In 2001, Warner Bros. Records released a remastered version with two bonus...
, another monologue driven comedy that deals with the experiences of being a virgin in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, Jane’s Hero, a play based on the real life exploits of an Irish United Nations soldier who saved orphans in Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
and How The West Was Won! which dealt with US President, Ronald Reagan’s
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
visit to Galway
Galway
Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...
.
External links
- http://www.facebook.com/Peadar.deBurcaPeadar de Burca on FacebookFacebookFacebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
] - http://www.galwayindependent.com/profiles/profiles/peadar-de-burca-%11-actor%10playwright%10director/
- Interview with Daily Mail