Photo Flash: First Look at QUIETLY by Owen McCafferty from Corrib Theatre

Corrib Theatre presents Owen McCafferty's Quietly, directed by Artistic Director Gemma Whelan, a play that grapples with the carnage, consequences and hope for healing following Ireland's decades-long, bloody conflict referred to as the Troubles. The production features Ted Rooney, Tim Blough and Murri Lazaroff-Babin and runs for four weeks, April 13 through May 6, at New Expressive Works.

Two middle-aged men meet in the very Belfast bar where a horrific event transformed their lives over 30 years before. They share a few pints, a football match between Northern Ireland and Poland is playing on the TV, and as the Polish bartender bears witness these men unload their disparate stories of a day ever-etched in their psyches. Quietly is a powerful story of violence and forgiveness in the aftermath of the Troubles.

The Good Friday or Belfast Agreement of 1998 brought an end to over 30 years of violent conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles. With the agreement a commission was created to outline a forum for reconciliation-a complex task in such a tangled history, involving the examination of wrongs committed by communities on both sides of the divide - republican and unionist. According to the BBC: "The political deal which aimed to form the lasting settlement following the 1994 paramilitary ceasefires in Northern Ireland, known as the Good Friday Agreement, was signed on 10 April 1998. The proposals included plans for a Northern Ireland assembly with a power-sharing executive, new cross-border institutions involving the Irish Republic and a body linking devolved assemblies across the UK with Westminster and Dublin. The Irish Republic also dropped its constitutional claim to the six counties which form Northern Ireland."

In Quietly, the two Irish characters take the matter of reconciling their shared past into their own hands. They meet, they talk, they remember, they listen, and their Polish immigrant bartender is a spectator to their enlightening exchange.

"I am delighted Corrib Theatre is doing Quietly - the first production in America outside New York - I hope it is a success," said playwright Owen McCafferty. "Regarding truth and reconciliation, sad to say it's same as it ever was."

"When I first read Owen McCafferty's Quietly, I was struck by the immediacy of the dialogue, the truths laid bare, the power of words spoken, the depth of listening," said play director Gemma Whelan, Corrib Theatre's artistic director. "It's the story of two human beings reaching across a seemingly impossible-to-bridge chasm and doing so in the presence of another who bears witness. It's a story of Northern Ireland, of the aftermath of 30 years of guerilla warfare, and hundreds of years of hate and oppression. And though it was written in 2008 and set in Ireland, it's the story of the U.S. today in 2018. It's a story resonate of our political divisions that seem insurmountable because of a build-up of distrust, of resentment, of seemingly impossible-to-overcome obstacles."

Tickets are $25 regular price; $20 student/group

Call Brown Paper Tickets at 800-838-3006 or visit https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3046122

Photo Credit: Adam Liberman