Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Gerard Kearns, Elinor Lawless, Robbie O’ Neill, Russell Richardson.
In our act of observance, of recording the facts of a certain situation so that if justice needs to be served, it is done so without bias, without favouritism and with impartiality at the forefront of truth, we can find ourselves in the unwarranted position of being accused of being involved with the crime at hand, or finding our name being labelled as a traitor. To observe, to witness history in the eyes of the pacifist is to know that death by other’s actions is always a possibility, it might just depend which side decides to pull the trigger.
Lizzie Nunnery is a woman of many parts, a modern-day example of the Renaissance observer, no subject is unworthy, all social thought and examples are stimulating and able to become a commentary of the time and making them relatable to today’s world. Across poetry, music and theatre, Ms. Nunnery proves that observing, of patient examination of a life that is not your own, is a way to make sure that attention is brought to a historical event and lays the truth of how it affects those not normally thought of, the ordinary man and woman on the street.
To Have To Shoot Irishmen is a play in which Lizzie Nunnery’s undoubted skills as a writer are perhaps seen at their zenith so far; there will be other mountain ranges in which to conquer, to feel the icy blow tug at the ankles and the firm grip of realism hold on to the meaning of precision and dedication, but the writer, the poet, will always meet those challenges with a song in her heart.
It is in the song and the precise nature of the way that Ms. Nunnery works that To Have To Shoot Irishmen fills the Everyman Theatre with the hard hitting, but ultimately not seeking blame, candour that we should all expect from being able to bare witness and letting the words and deeds of those who have fallen, live on, to be praised, remembered.
The collaboration of music involving Vidar Norheim envelopes the air surrounding the stage, the folk songs of an Ireland in turmoil, of Dublin streets filled with the noise and bullets of insurrection, of understandably seeking freedom from Westminster; and down on those same streets the story of Frank and Hanna, two people in history with their own moral crusade and conviction, separated by the unfolding events of Easter 1916.
Audiences would not expect anything less than powerful when it comes to Ms. Nunnery placing certain moments before a theatre crowd, and To Have To Shoot Irishmen is a poignant, tender, emotionally sincere play that captures the historical drama of the time but through the eyes of those who paid the ultimate price. A drama, a story filled with music and with superb performances by the four actors involved, Lizzie Nunnery makes history with this particularly stunning production.
Ian D. Hall