Roscommon Arts Center To Feature EDEN, THE WHEELCHAIR ON MY FACE in November

Local actor Ben Mulhern returns home to perform in the hard-hitting EDEN at Roscommon Arts Centre from Thursday 15th – Saturday 17th November at 8pm nightly. From the writer of Pure Mule, EDEN first premiered at the Peacock theater in 2001, where it won the Steward Parker award for best new play. Eugene O Brien's hilarious, heartbreaking and disconcertingly realistic portrait of good times gone bad for two people who have promised to be together forever.

Their tenth wedding anniversary rapidly approaching, a husband and wife from a small provincial town are forced to face the fact that their marriage is in serious danger of dissolving in thia deeply introspective stage play. Billy and Breda have been married for nearly a decade, and lately their relationship has taken on an air of suffocating monotony. They have two children together, though it would seem that starting a family has pushed them each further apart as opposed to bringing them closer together. Most nights, Billy can be found at the local pub, knocking drinks back with his buddies as Breda languishes in front of the television with the children. As Billy clings to both the bottle and his reputation as a local hero while getting lost in fantasies about an attractive younger woman, Breda does her best to remain optimistic about the future. She sees their upcoming anniversary as an ideal opportunity for them to start focusing on ways of improving their bleak situation, but as the big day draws near, Billy's and Breda's disparate desires begin to come into focus not just for each other, but themselves as well. A moving piece of theatre and one not to be missed.

Tickets are priced at €16/€14 and are available through Roscommon Arts Centre's box office at 090 6625824 or online at www.roscommonartscentre.ie

Also, The New Play Company celebrate as THE WHEELCHAIR ON MY FACE is awarded accolade in Edinburgh at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Written and performed by Sonya Kelly, directed by Gina Moxley and produced by Marketa Dowling, THE WHEELCHAIR ON MY FACE is a Fishamble: The New Play Company production. This award means that Fishamble will for the second year in a row bring home this coveted award. This gem of a production will tour to Roscommon Arts Centre on Tuesday 20th November. Described as "part memoir, pArt Theatre and part stand-up comedy," this delightful story of a myopic seven year old is brought to you by actor and comedian, Sonya Kelly (The Savage Eye).

"I got my first pair of glasses when I was seven. A nurse came to the school and tested everyone's eyes. And so it was discovered why I'd thrown bread to the floating crisp packets in our local pond and walked into lamp posts and said, 'excuse me'. Until that day the world was a swirl of moving coloured blobs. I thought it was the same for everyone. How wrong I was."

Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan T.D. said 'I am delighted that Fishamble: The New Play Company has won a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the second year in a row. This prestigious award for THE WHEELCHAIR ON MY FACE by Sonya Kelly follows Fishamble's win last year for Silent by Pat Kinevane. It is an extraordinary achievement by Fishamble to win a Fringe First in two consecutive years, and a mark of how Irish theatre achieves top acclaim on the international stage.'

Tickets for THE WHEELCHAIR ON MY FACE are priced at €16/€14 and are available both through Roscommon Arts Centre's box office on 090 6625824 and online at www.roscommonartscentre.ie.

Photo Credit: M Dowling 

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