Hva slags folk kan finne på å stjele en arabisk veddeløpshest?

– If you grew up in Ireland in the 80's, you'll know something about Shergar. Even just the name and the fact the horse was stolen. It's become part of the mythology of Ireland. It's just so crazy it ever happened.

Det forteller dramatiker Simon Kavanagh, som forbereder seg til å dykke dypt inn i sin nye tekst på Dramatikkens hus denne uken.

– For me a new play starts off with an interesting story. Some event or character inspired from real life, like the last play I did with Dramatikkens hus which was centered around Samuel Beckett, who was even a character in the play, forteller Simon.

– It starts with that and my ambition is just to tell a good story. I don't seek to moralize or drive home any major revelation in the play.

Shergar vises på Dramatikkens hus førstkommende fredag 15. september klokken 14.00. Klikk her for å lese mer og sikre deg billetter!

– About 6 months ago I came across a podcast about it - it wasn't particularly in-depth, but it got me thinking about the whole event and how crazy it was. I started thinking about the people here. Who are the people who would steal an arabian race horse? That was the seed of it.

Stykket følger ungdommene Tommy og Brendan i 1983, deres vennskap, og ikke minst miljøet de vokser opp i.

– It talks about things like what the attitude people in Ireland, who grew up in the 80's, have now, about a unified Ireland. This compared to people who were born much later and maybe have not lived through violence. The romanticization of what nowadays we call terrorists, and how they didn't get called that in the 80's. There's part of that in the play.

De neste dagene før den åpne visningen på fredag gjennomfører Simon et verksted med skuespillere og ressurser på Dramatikkens hus, for å gå enda mer i dybden på teksten.

– Workshops can go a lot of different directions. What I hope to find out more about is the personality of some of the characters. When you write, they exist only in your head! But when you get to a workshop environment and real people start to voice the words you wrote then they get characters that you didn't invent. That process is really fascinating, that's some of the black magic of playwriting.

Simon er opprinnelig fra Irland, jobber i IT-bransjen, har bodd i Oslo i over 15 år og har en noe ukonvensjonell bakgrunn som dramatiker.

– I've been writing since I was, uh, able to write i guess. I've tried lots of different things, short stories and longer novels but none of it really was any good to be honest, and it was a struggle to maintain the level of detail for creative writing in long form, like novels. I'm much more focused on dialogue, psychology of people.

– But playwriting is something I started with maybe 5-6 years ago. I just found it was a good medium for me. It allowed me to explore people and situations, their interactions with eachother, which I find very inspiring.

Stykket er utviklet med støtte fra Dramatikkens hus. Til slutt understreker Simon hvor viktig denne støtten har vært.

– The whole process that Dramatikkens hus have of supporting writers who are not established is really incredible. It's amazing. When I first contacted Dramatikkens hus some years ago i had no idea they would be so supportive. It's really a unique thing that they do.

Velkommen til arbeidsvisning fredag 15. september klokken 14!

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