Kabosh Brings NY Premiere Of Acclaimed GREEN & BLUE To New York Irish Center

Belfast's trailblazing theatre company Kabosh is bringing its internationally acclaimed production of Laurence McKeown's “Green and Blue” to the NY Irish Center, 1040 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, for two nights only, Wed and Thur November 15 & 16, both at 7pm. 

The New York premiere features original cast members James Doran and Vincent Higgins and is directed by Paula McFetridge, Kabosh's artistic director.  Andrew Hume is the producer.

For tickets, which are $25, visit www.newyorkirishcenter.org.

Set in 1994, just before the IRA ceasefire, the acclaimed show springs from the real-life experiences of two police officers on either side of the Irish divide as they patrol the invisible line in the ground that splits the island in two.  Doran plays Garda officer Eddie O'Halloran, originally from West Cork, patrolling the Monaghan side of the border in the Republic of Ireland, while Higgins is David McCabe, an RUC officer whose experience of patrolling the Fermanagh side on the north is vastly different from his southern counterpart.

“Green and Blue” – a riveting and often disarmingly funny two-hander that fuses film and live theater -- is based on Diversity Challenges' ‘Voices from the Vault,' an oral history project that recorded accounts by former RUC and An Garda Síochána officers recalling their experiences as police officers during the Irish conflict.

Since its 2016 premiere at the Belfast International Arts Festival, this production -- always with Doran and Higgins in the two roles -- has toured internationally in the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Belgium, Ireland and the UK… The production is now being revived in a tour that takes it once again to England and Ireland, followed by dates (starting November 2) in Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Boston and New York.  (The US tour is presented with funding from Culture Ireland.)

Says McFetridge about the play, “‘Green & Blue' suitably sparks conversations about what we expect from our police forces. Although set on the Irish border, these conversations transcend nations and oceans.  The play is incredibly relevant at a time when high-profile cases have put police standards in NI, England, and the USA under the microscope of public opinion.  It provokes audiences across the globe to reflect on the societal structures we deserve.”

Despite their different backgrounds, Eddie and David strike up a common bond and learn more about themselves, their similarities, as well as their differences. David's experiences are harrowing, steeped in violence and the threat of violence, while Eddie's are much more ordinary except for his occasional run-ins with the local IRA commander.

But there is a brooding sense of what happens on one side of the border affects the other side. The two areas share a mutual dependence. With that air of comradeship felt by two people doing the same job, the pair meet in a farmer's field straddling the border and find out that the ‘grass is no greener' on the other side of this invisible divide.

Noted playwright and screenwriter, Laurence McKeown took part in the 1981 hunger strike in Maze Prison, in which he was pre-deceased by his six co-strikers, barely surviving on the 70th day when his family requested medical intervention. (He was released from prison in 1992, where he earned a bachelor's degree in social science.)  A co-founder of the Belfast Film Festival in the mid 1990's, and the author of two books about incarceration, he co-wrote, with Brian Campbell, the film “H3,” about the hunger strike (2001).  His plays include “Two Roads West” – a site-specific play set in a Belfast black cab, also produced by Kabosh.

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