“When I think about it, Paul is Australia’s poet, he is like Yeats. When I came to Australia they’re all on about him, and when I saw him play, everywhere people were crying,”
Ancient Rain sees the Irish/French actress and singer pair with Kelly and Feargel Murray to breathe life into Irish poems of old, in a song cycle of original compositions, creating a bold, emotional narrative. W. B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, and Patrick Kavanagh are just some of the great Irish poets whose influential work will receive new life in the show.
Known for her mesmerising and dramatic stage performances of narrative songs, Ancient Rain follows on from O’Sullivan’s acclaimed performance of Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece, which O’Sullivan and Murray wrote the music for. In the same way she took on that show, she and Kelly have been putting music to poems, composing the way to best represent the themes and emotions of each story.
“Sometimes you sing them, sometimes you speak them. Some of them will be more melodious, some will be darker. The whole piece, I don’t see it as poem after poem, neither does Paul or Feargel, it’s more the links to make it a theatre piece, like it’s a dream that has happened before you.”
Growing up in Ireland, Camille was surrounded by poetry, with the words of poets playing an intrinsic role in people’s lives, their versions of history resonating for their authenticity and emotion.
“Poems are so revered here, and music, it’s a way of life. It was a repressed culture for how many hundreds of years, poetry was the silent connection, it was a very subtle way of being able to express who you were, as a nation under someone else’s rule, and now we wear it like a badge of honour. It’s not seen as something from the past, it’s part of who we are.”
Kelly has also delved into the art of adapting poetry with music, particularly that of W.B. Yeats, and their differing approaches have made for a brilliant contrast.
“We don’t want these things to be reverential. Poems should be emotional and real and mean something to people today, even if they’re 100 years old.
“I love storytelling, and I’ve learned so much from Paul. Paul’s way of songwriting is very different. When he’s playing the guitar, it’s like it’s part of his body. Everything comes so naturally. He likes to be no nonsense, whereas I want to get my personality into my music more, and if I want to inhabit a song, I now have to make the audience feel that this poem is mine.”
With no preview shows booked in, these heavy emotions that O’Sullivan and Kelly are tapping into and moulding into music are going to be preserved. O’Sullivan’s words are filled with an understanding of the weight of the poems, and the knowledge of the privilege she has to embody and share them on stage.
“It’s about moving people, whether it’s laughing or crying, or becoming angry, when you feel the music, to become those emotions, then you can better inhabit the song. It’s important to go there, otherwise it wouldn’t have the same effect.”
BY CLAIRE VARLEY
