Mouthpieces divides into three miniature plays, each depicting a fragment of female experience, all of them in the author’s vivid, original and sharp-witted style.
In The Adminicle Exists, we hear the inner voice of a woman who saves her troubled, dangerous partner; In An Act of Violence, a woman is quizzed about her reaction to a man’s death; In The Eye Machine, the character ‘Eye’ tells of her imprisonment, flickering through a slideshow of female stereotypes.
Mouthpieces was written over the course of McBride’s Creative Fellowship at the Beckett Research Centre, University of Reading. The opening piece, The Adminicle Exists will be published in the Faber Anthology, Being Various: New Irish Short Stories, edited by Lucy Caldwell, in May 2019.
The team at RTÉ Drama On One is delighted to welcome Eimear McBride both as a writer and a performer. Eimear studied acting at The Drama Centre in London in the 1990’s and has narrated the audio books of her novels. Eimear performs in An Act of Violence and The Eye Machine.
Eimear will be joined by Aoife Duffin, who performed in Corn Exchange’s stunning theatrical adaptation of A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, directed by Annie Ryan. Aoife is currently nominated for Best Supporting Actress in the Irish Times Theatre Awards for her performance in the role of Ophelia, in The Gate’s 2018 production of Hamlet, directed by Yaël Farber. Aoife performs in The Adminicle Exists and An Act of Violence.
Eimear McBride’s debut novel A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing was published in 2013. Written in a stream of consciousness style, the novel tells the story of a young woman’s resilience in the face of punishing Catholicism, family illness, sexual abuse and self-destruction. The novel won numerous literary awards including the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2014 and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award 2014. Eimear’s second novel, The Lesser Bohemians was published in 2016. The novel tells the story of the turbulent relationship between an eighteen year old drama student and a thirty-eight year old actor. The novel won the 2017 James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
Mouthpieces will broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 at 8pm on Sunday, 31st March, and available at rte.ie/dramaonone
Performed by Eimear McBride and Aoife Duffin.
Sound Design and Sound Supervision: Gar Duffy
Dramaturg: Jesper Bergmann
Broadcast Co-ordinator: Jarlath Holland
Producer: Kevin Brew
Series Producer: Kevin Reynolds.
Group Head of Drama and Comedy, RTÉ: Shane Murphy