CTCo Theatre Productions & Heritage Productions UK to Present ONLY OUR OWN
By: Tyler Peterson Mar. 16, 2015
Hailed by London critics, Only Our Own follows three generations of an Anglo-Irish family carving a place for themselves in modern Ireland. There is the grandmother, Lady Eliza, still haunted by atrocities witnessed in her childhood during the Irish Civil War, while her young grandson Peregrine is anxious to distance himself and make a success of the present. In between, his parents, Meg and Andrew, face a choice of remaining in their ivory tower or reaching out to build bridges across the religious divide.
Implicit in between the lines is the story of Ireland. Reflecting an imposed social system that created many innocent victims, Only Our Own follows one nation's journey from a highly polarized society to a modern integrated one, ready at last to rise above age-old bitter divisions.
"Only Our Own looks at the remnants of Anglo-Irish culture and the challenges facing the present generation in today's Ireland" says international playwright Ann Henning Jocelyn. "It is an exploration of the dilemma of living with or without a traumatic past and the inter-generational gap between people emotionally linked but faced with different life options. Ultimately it examines the need to develop and adjust to a changing world".
Director Cathryn Parker says: "Having rivers of Irish blood coursing through my oh so English veins, and being steeped in the family folklore which charted the emigration of my proud Irish forebears, I was instantly attracted to the epic story and deeply personal drama of Only Our Own. My grandparent's parents and grandparents had fled poverty and famine between 1840 and 1890, settling in Manchester and surrounding mill towns, working in factories and on railways. What struck me so forcefully about this Anglo-Irish family was the conspiracy of silence and absence of a handing down of personal history, juxtaposed with the compulsion to maintain heritage, form and tradition. Here was a family with an 800-year shared history, who chose to keep secrets and live isolated behind barriers. For me, exploring the choices these people make and the repercussions of those choices was a story worth telling. Ultimately the story is one of hope and, to paraphrase Meg, about the realisation that if you dare to ignore and come out from behind the barriers, which serve no purpose other than to keep us apart, they cease to exist."
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