Spinning (NHB Modern Plays)

By Deirdre Kinahan

A devastating new play about loss and families, by Deirdre Kinahan, one of Ireland's most exciting playwrights.
What does it feel like to lose everything? To explain? What does it take to forgive the unforgivable?
In small-town Ireland, father-of-one Conor is desperate to hold on to a life that is disintegrating before his eyes. Susan is a mother searching for reason in the darkness of her teenage daughter's killing. When they finally meet, a contemporary tragedy comes to light.
Spinning was first performed by Fishamble: The New Play Company as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2014.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Oct 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780015064

Deirdre Kinahan

Deirdre Kinahan is an award-winning playwright and a member of Aosdána, Ireland's elected body of outstanding artists. Her plays include: An Old Song, Half Forgotten (Abbey Theatre, 2023); Outrage (Fishamble, 2022); The Visit (Draiocht, Dublin Theatre Festival 2021); The Saviour (Landmark Productions, 2021); In the Middle of the Fields (Solas Nua DC, 2021); Embargo (Fishamble 2020); Dear Ireland (Abbey Theatre, 2020); The Bloodied Field (Abbey Theatre 2020); Rathmines Road (Fishamble and Abbey Theatre, 2018); Crossings (Pentabus Theatre, 2018); The Unmanageable Sisters, an adaptation of Michel Tremblay's Les Belles Soeurs (Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 2018); Wild Sky (Dublin, 2016); Spinning (Fishamble, 2014); Halcyon Days (Solstice Arts Centre, Co. Meath, and Dublin Theatre Festival, 2012); and Moment (Solstice Arts Centre, Co. Meath, 2009; Bush Theatre, London, 2011).

Book preview

Deirdre Kinahan

SPINNING

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

Characters and Author’s Note

Spinning

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Spinning was first produced by Fishamble: The New Play Company and performed at the Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin, as part of Dublin Theatre Festival, on 3 October 2014, with the following cast:

Characters

CONOR, forty-two in present day

SUSAN, forty-four in present day

ANNIE, sixteen always

JEN, thirty-nine in present day

The present day for this play is 2014.

The incident at the pier took place in February 2010.

Author’s Note

I see a very fluid impressionistic set. The actors walk through to scenes as we leap through timeline and story. Projections and the occasional prop and a strong soundscape create the world. The world is shifting, unreliable, it is defined by memory. The developing connection between Conor and Susan is the present: it is the spine of the play, the present reality. The past encroaches on it. Surrounds it. The past insists on being played. It spins constantly through the consciousness of these two characters in their quest for peace and/or understanding.

D.K.

This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

Present day.

CONOR stands downstage. It is early morning and he is on a small pier in a seaside village. He is looking into the sea. Beat.

Lights come up on a floor-to-ceiling café window with door attached. It is standalone and upstage of the audience with a table and two chairs standing in front… In the world of the play it faces the pier. A woman, SUSAN, stands in the window looking out at CONOR.

CONOR turns to see her standing there. Beat.

SUSAN opens the door setting off a small bell. She stands outside the café.