Smashing Times are delighted to present an interdisciplinary event titled The Woman is Present: Women’s Stories of WWII as part of the Festival of Theatre for Social Change to mark 25 Years of the work of Sole Purpose.
The Woman is Present: Women’s Stories of WWII is a creative re-imagining of moments from the lives of two women during WWII recalling stories of bravery, sacrifice and love amidst the horror of war.
The event features a twenty-minute performance of At Summer’s End by writer Féilim James. This dramatic monologue is told from the perspective of a Jewish-Irish citizen murdered in the Holocaust. Her name was Ettie Steinberg (1914-42). We learn how at a young age her family left Eastern Europe for Dublin, before love led her away to the European mainland. This by turns tender and harrowing portrait of love, loss, and the brutality of war tells one ordinary woman’s extraordinary, and often forgotten, story.
At Summer’s End is followed by a short film screening of The Shoah: A Survivor’s Memory – The World’s Legacy, recounting the story of French woman Simone Veil (1927-2017). The Shoah is adapted by writer, theatre and film-maker Mary Moynihan from a speech delivered by Simone Veil for the second International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, United Nations General Assembly Hall, 28 January 2007. Simone Veil was a French lawyer, politician and feminist, Holocaust survivor and first female President of the European Parliament.
The performance and film are intercut with discussion by the artists with the event followed by a Q and A with the audience to explore the role of the arts in highlighting women’s stories in history and gender equality today.
Sole Purpose makes theatre on social and public issues that contributes to social change, explores the dynamics of human relationships and promotes good relations. The company have toured work throughout Ireland, the UK and the USA. Sole Purpose won the Special Jury Prize at Origin Theatre’s 1st Irish Festival in 2019 in New York for its production of ‘Blinkered’ by Patricia Byrne.
The Festival of Theatre for Social Change will run from 14th ‐ 20th February 2022 to celebrate the company’s 25 years and to coincide with the annual United Nations World Day of Social Justice on 20th February.
The festival will build on the twin features of Derry’s identity: both as a place of culture as recognised in the City of Culture year 2013 and as a site of historic importance in the struggles for Social Change.
For more information on the festival go to www.solepurpose.org
The Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality, incorporating Smashing Times Theatre and Film Company and Smashing Times Youth Arts Ensemble, is dedicated to the promotion, study and practice of the arts and equality.
The centre operates as a world class arts space and digital hub for artists, activists, communities and the general public across Ireland and internationally, providing a resource service and a training and networking agency in relation to using high quality creative processes and collaborative arts practice to promote human rights and equality for all.
Smashing Times was originally established in 1991 by a group of women artists who met at the Focus Theatre Dublin. The company was set up as a professional theatre company producing plays and outreach programmes in Ireland and Northern Ireland and later, across Europe. In 2015 the company expanded to incorporate professional film practice and new digital technologies, promoting an interdisciplinary approach to performance and participation. In 2017 the company was delighted to be awarded the daa Arts Award at the Allianz Business to Arts Award Ceremony at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin presented by Pascal Donohoe TD, Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform. We were also honoured to have been awarded a GSK Ireland Impact Award and a Dublin Bus Community Spirit Award.
www.smashingtimes.ie
At Summer’s End is performed by Sadhbh McLoughlin and directed by Eric Weitz.
Sadhbh McLoughlin performed in "GATHERING ON THE POND" in the grounds of Rathfarnham Castle with Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality as part of the Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival. Funded by the Arts Council In the Open | Faoin Spéir.
Her acting work includes "BLAST FROM THE PAST" and "BRAIN HACK" both for RTE Television. She currently voices 'Dr. Dotty' in RTE Television's young people's show "THE IMAGINATION MACHINE" directed by Ian Benjamin Kenny and Hugh Farley. The show features an incredible mix of live-action and CGI.
Eric Weitz is Associate Director of the Gaiety School of Acting: The National Theatre School of Ireland and Adjunct Associate Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at Trinity College Dublin, having previously served in the TCD Drama Department as Convenor for the Bachelor in Acting Studies and Head of Drama.
Eric Weitz is currently Book Review Editor for Humor, the scholarly journal for the International Society for Humor Studies; he sits on the International Advisory Board for the European Journal of Humour Research and the Hungarian Journal for English and American Studies. He is series co-editor of the recently published Bloomsbury Cultural History of Comedy (Methuen, 2020) and contributor of the Vol. 6 chapter, ‘Laughter in the Modern Age’; he is co-editor and contributor for the Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Irish Theatre & Performance (2018). His single-author works include Theatre & Laughter (2016) and the Cambridge Introduction to Comedy (2009), plus widely cited articles in books and journals.
