Sodome, My Love

No stranger to the dark and daunting, seasoned thespian Olwen Fouéré's latest role sees her take to the stage as the sole survivor of Sodome, a city which centuries before enjoys a utopian existence of joy, excess and orgies until terror deals one fatal and devastating blow. In her solo performance in the world premiere of a play by acclaimed Frenchman Laurent Gaudé, Fouéré rises from the settled ashes encased in salt, to relay her account of the event. A provocative piece of work, Sodome, My Love, translated into English by Fouéré herself, not only poses questions about the human condition but magnifies mankind's inherent need to destroy all that he fears.

"For me, the Sodome of this play represents a state of consciousness which we have completely lost any connection to. When the last survivor of the city of Sodome speaks to us, she is speaking to the descendants of the people who eliminated her people. So it touches on a whole load of issues like ethnic cleansing and genocide, but primarily for me it represents a state of consciousness that we know nothing about".

Born in the West of Ireland of Breton parents, Fouéré's fluency in French affords her the freedom to splash about in a sea of endless literary possibilities, as opposed to the majority of Irish actors who are confined to a more restricting paddling pool of scripts and theatre work. Was it always her intention to exploit her heritage in this regard?

"It was something that happened organically. I wish that I had done so earlier. I've only twice performed in French - once was in 1986 when my first very solo show went to Avignon and we commissioned a translation of it into French so I did it one night in English, one night in French for two weeks. I think I lost about two stone in weight! It was tough but fascinating. Then a year ago I worked on a special project for the European presidency in France. I was put together with a French director and we did an adaptation in French of two of Roddy Doyle's books - Paula Spencer and The Woman Who Walked into Doors. I grabbed that experience because I thought it was a fantastic opportunity and now, more and more, I want to work with this inbetweeness."

It was in Paris almost a year ago when Fouéré first stumbled across Gaudé's script. Printed on some random publication, the title (Sodome, ma douce in French) intrigued her. Immediately she set about finding a copy of the text, read it in one sitting and decided without delay to put the piece into production. Fouéré is wary of translations since "Every act of translation is an act of interpretation. [Gaudé] writes with amazing poetic simplicity. What was difficult was to maintain this simplicity because there are certain things that you can say very directly and simply in French that you can't say in English, and vice versa."

Fouéré refers to a phobia or disinterest of Irish theatre in exploring European playwrights and the creative waves currently setting the stage of places like Paris and Germany alight. "There seems to be so little crossover and that is something that I would like to be part of rectifying". For now though, her focus is on her next few weeks at the Project Arts Centre performing what may seem like one small step on the trodden boards of the stage but is also, more significantly, a giant leap of faith for the future of theatre in Ireland.

Sodome, my love runs at the Project Arts Centre from 16 - 27 March. Tickets cost €15 - €25.

Words: Katie Gilroy

Website: http://www.projectartscentre.ie/