TERESA DEEVY'S Wife to James Whelan opens at the Jermyn Street Theatre this week.
Fiach Kunz, who plays the eponymous James, told the Irish Post why it’s a play he simply had to get involved in…
What drew you to this play?
First of all, Teresa Deevy is a playwright that so few people have heard about, and it is kind of shock that that is the case.
As soon as this came in and I was telling different friends about it, and even after I booked the role too, they’d say they had never heard of her.
But as soon as you read the material there is such a vitality to it which means you have to get involved. You have to try and get her voice heard.
It’s set in 1930s Ireland, how does it translate for today?
Although it is set back in late 30s and 40s in Ireland, the themes and messages are going to be relatable to anyone in the audience today.
It is about love, it is about pride, it is about the cost of the choices that we make, the cost of ambition, the cost of staying in the one place.
So I think that is hopefully going to make it relatable for contemporary audiences.
Fiach Kunz in rehearsals for Wife to James Whelan (Pics: Harry Elletson)Deevy’s play tackles themes such as sexual inequality, how hard is it to get her messages across?
In terms of bringing the play’s messages forward from back then, that’s what has been lovely to work with our director Jonathan (Bank) on.
He has just got such passion about Teresa Deevy, he really is a scholar on her work.
So, getting to work with him and hearing his insight into the details of her work allows us to do that.
He also is very good at encouraging us to never trust the character’s words at surface level, to never oversimplify what the character is thinking and to keep on digging to keep on finding the subtext.
You play James Whelan, can you tell us about your character?
We are introduced to James when he is 25 years old, it’s a day in Kilbeggan where there is a group in from Dublin who are going to give a position to a young person from the town who they deem the most ambitious man.
Word has got around that it is James Whlean, and sure enough James comes in and announces to everyone that he is leaving for Dublin.
There is going to be a cost to that as he is in a relationship with a young, desired woman of the town.
So we learn that James has gone off and then seven years later we are back in Kilbeggan and we are going to see the repercussions of his decision to leave and how it impacts everybody that he has left behind.
Is James a hero or a villain?
He is a hard one to put your finger on. He is human in the most complex sense of the word.
He does heroic acts, he does brutal acts, he is kind and dutiful towards other people, but he is also completely single-minded, ambitious and self-serving.
He has moments of humour and he has moments of being an absolute cantankerous shut-off man.
So he is a hard one to place. I think I will have to leave that one up to the audience.
He sounds fun to play?
He is good fun to play. I had to spend a good bit of time with him before coming over here for rehearsals, and there is only so much exploring a text that you can do on your own in a room.
Since getting into a rehearsal room and working with others and getting to live the lines, it's been much more fun.
Did the character change for you once you began rehearsing with others?
He did change for me as a character when I began working with the cast, and also due to having Jonathan there too.
Jonathan was very good at encouraging me to, you know, maybe soften it or pull in the reins at bit.
My instincts are often to rev the engine, but once you have another human in front of you, you can be revving the engine all you want but if you are not being affected by your scene partner, well then the story is not being told.
So it definitely changed with having others around.
The Jermyn Street Theatre stage is a small space, how do you feel about performing there?
I’m used to small spaces, some of the the shows I have done back in Dublin have been in some very intimate spaces.
I think this small space is going to really lend itself to this play as so much of the play is about what is not being said.
You have characters that kind of mean what they don’t say and say what they don’t mean and I think having that kind of intimacy will give the audience a chance to pick up on all that, which may not necessarily be received well in a wider auditorium.
Kunz plays James Whelan in the production at the Jermyn Street TheatreAnd this production will be your first performance in London?
Yes it is. It’s lovely actually to be making my London debut.
I lived here for two years from 2022 to 2024, but I found it difficult to get my foot in the door, so I moved back to Ireland.
Now, with a pregnant wife at home and a six-month-old puppy, this came up.
It came at a time when I probably would not have ordinarily have left for a few months but the material is very very good and the people are great and it is a lovely opportunity to get to tell this story.
So, with the generous blessing of my wife, I was given the go-ahead to come over.
Where is home for you in Ireland?
I live in Kilcoole in Co. Wicklow, about five minutes from the sea, and 20 minutes from the mountains. It is a very different way of life than that of London.
I lived in Hornsey near Crouch End and I loved London, but I am blessed in that I now feel like both places are home.
Wicklow is where I always see myself in the long run, but every time I come back to London there is a sigh of ‘ok, this feels like home’.
I love the madness, the unpredictability, the diversity, the creativity of it, the unexpectedness that London brings, but it is also nice to go back home and jump in the cold sea or climb a mountain.
So, you were born and raised in Kilcoole?
Yes I was. When myself and my wife moved back to Ireland from London we converted a space in my family home there.
So my parents are close by, my brother is building close by, we have some aunties and uncles around.
It’s kind of like a commune of family members, because my dad is the eldest of 13 so there are almost a village of us Kunz around there.
Kunz is a lovely surname, where does that come from?
It’s a Hungarian surname. My grandfather was Hungarian, he left Hungary as a Red Cross refugee in the 20s I think and was brought up in a foster home in Belgium.
He made his way to Ireland in the 1940s. Then he got involved in the glasshouse business and market gardening and eventually moved to Co. Wicklow, married my granny and 13 children later we have this unlikely family name in Kilcoole.
Will many family members come over to see you in Wife to James Whelan?
I have the most incredible supportive family, so I am sure there will be lots of aunties, and cousins popping over. I have a cousin in London too and am sure they will come and watch.
I am very very lucky to have good people around me who are willing to come and see me.
How are you feeling about opening this week?
I am excited for opening. We are at a good place within the rehearsal process, we've added depth, complexity and truth to the piece, the work has been really deep.
Now it is a matter of trusting all the work we have done and putting it out there and hoping the audience can resonate with the story and the characters in the same way that we have.
How would you describe the play for anyone thinking of coming along?
The first thing I thought when I first read it was that it has the scope of an epic but in a small Irish town.
Set in the earlier part of the 20th century, it's got love, pride and its got ambition. It's got so many characters who are unable to get what they want or articulate what they want or feel.
The audience really wants them to go down a particular route but their fundamental nature stops them from getting what they want.
It is tragic, but beautiful and it is human.
Wife to James Whelan runs at the Jermyn Street Theatre from June 25 to July 25. For tickets click here.
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