Cleft, 2019

Produced by Rough Magic in association with Galway International Arts Festival and Kilkenny Arts Festival

Twin sisters Fea and Caireen, living on a harsh, remote island, are raising a boy together. Abandoned by their mother at a young age and left in their teens to fend for themselves by their troubled father, the women have created their own emotional ecosystem. While Caireen embraces motherhood, Fea struggles as she watches the boy grow in the likeness of his father whose body lies buried beneath the hawthorn tree.

Cleft – a visceral story of one family’s unrelenting will to survive – and ultimately to make choices based on instinct.

“Cleft explores the realities of suffering, trauma, and existing in marginal and inhospitable spaces, be they real or imagined. The town whispers follow the sisters throughout their lives and the sound design, by Cameron Macaulay, echoes this whispering with fragments of the past emerging through his soundscape[…] The production concludes with a single glance. The ending, it seems, is up to us. Fear or bravery, what will it be?”

The Irish Times

Writer: Fergal McElherron

Director: Lynne Parker

Sound and Music: Cameron Macaulay

Lighting: Zia Bergin-Holly

Prop Design: Anthony Johnson

Stage Manager: Andrew McCarthy

Images: Eamon Ward