July 21st – 25th, 2016

STRANGE SHORE: Dublin & Galway

SUNDRY LAND: The Republic of Ireland

WANDERING WAY: The Galway International Arts Festival

Has there been an aching hole in your life for the last five days? Have you been thinking, “Where oh where is Sharon? Wherever could she be?”

Galway!

That’s right. Partying in Galway turned into a full-time job the minute that I stepped into the best city by the most beautiful bay, and updating “Strange and Sundry” was quickly shunted to the side in favor of the fabulous conversation, delicious food, fantastic music, and excellent theatre of The Galway International Arts Festival.

I can tell that you’re still whining, “But couldn’t you have blogged about these Galway antics on the train back to Dublin? How could you keep me waiting so long?” Well, let me say this: When concluding the first month of a three-month+ journey abroad, it’s important to take a little rest. Don’t you agree? It would just be silly to overexert myself when I need to keep up my strength to lug, tug, and lift suitcases on the Continent in two days’ time. Think of my poor shoulders.

Happily, this morning I felt so refreshed after a week of Irish hospitality that I found the energy to do important things like brush my teeth, put on makeup, drop off drycleaning, and make my way to the Irish Film Institute (certainly the most pleasant place to write in Dublin - http://www.ifi.ie) to update this travelogue. In short, order has been restored to the universe, and you needn’t mourn my absence another minute.

Galway Doppelgängers (Part 1) – My American Mirror Image, Denise

Any train journey longer than two hours necessitates nourishment upon debarkation – my delayed train to Galway took three. There is a reason that the average play or concert will give its audience a break after (at most) two hours – a human must stretch, feed, and pee at regular intervals, and everyone knows it. Given this biological imperative, I found myself lurching around the picturesque streets of Galway moaning for food, much like Frankenstein’s Creature, and my typical hems and haws in deducing the precise latitude and longitude of any locale’s best trough were cut short in favor of proximity.

So, it was quite by happenstance when I fell into “Hooked”(http://thisisgalway.ie/eat-galway/hooked/) – too hungry to examine the menu in any detail, I bawled out, “FISH CHIPS,” giving a line delivery much like Boris Karloff’s immortal “ALONE BAD. FRIEND GOOD.” It was pure luck that I’d tripped upon on the best seafood joint in town.

By the time “yummy sounds” were floating up from my corner of the restaurant, I’d regained enough of my mental faculties to detect an American accent floating up from the only other occupied table in the small storefront to think, “Hey, that girl’s from the States.”

A curious truth arises when you’ve been traveling alone for a month – anyone from home is an automatic candidate to become your new best friend.

To repeat the invaluable insight of Mr. Karloff, “ALONE BAD. FRIEND GOOD.”

For example, two years ago when I was traveling alone in Paris, I found myself on a bench in Père Lachaise, wilting in the midday heat, and a middle-aged woman sat next to me on the same bench. When she asked for directions, my heart leapt when I heard her American accent. Over the course of forty-five minutes, I gave her precise directions to every sight she wanted to see in Père Lachaise, heard all about her son’s new baby, and learned everything there was to know about her little hometown in Minnesota; in return, she commented on my dissertation, friends in New York City, and the European itinerary. It was only the burning sun that caused us to part tearfully, wishing each other well in the vast foreign metropolis.

In “Hooked” that late afternoon in Galway, I actually discovered my Californian doppelgänger in the person of Denise. (As many of my readers will know, my beloved sister is also named Denise; meeting a second Denise so far away from home turned out to be quite a good omen.)

Why a doppelgänger?

1. Denise and I are both 35.

2. This spring, we both made the big decision to change careers – as Denise moves from marketing to entrepreneurship, I move from teaching full-time to writing full-time (when I’m not partying in Galway, of course).

3. In leaving our jobs this spring, we both found ourselves free for the summer, which prompted month(s)-long journeys through Europe.

4. Denise and I are both foodies who spend a considerable amount of time cooking, baking, and seeking out good grub.

5. Denise and I are both gregarious, talkative types.

These coincidences make me wonder how many other 35 year-old American women there are flitting around Europe this summer. Is it possible that the female chicks of 1981 have flown the proverbial coop to spread their wings, shake their tail feathers, and soar across the Atlantic’s briny blue? Only time and air miles will tell.

It took one late lunch to make me realize that I’ve always needed a friend from Santa Monica. Californian Denise’s aspiration to launch a line of bikinis, like the ones found in Brazil (whence her parents hail), to flatter full-figured ladies may not sound much like my New Yorker ambition to write a novel. Once you consider that I’m writing a satirical “beach read” however, it’s perfectly clear that the women wearing Denise’s bikinis in a year or two will be reading my novel at the same time. Yo world, get ready for Summer 2018!

Without further ado, we planned to have a late dinner. Lo and behold, Denise offered to make a reservation at Kai (http://kaicaferestaurant.com), the very restaurant that had been recommended by my chef friend Tom. Would the coincidences ever stop? Apparently not!

Later as we strolled into the artfully decorated Kai, Denise commented, “Hey, I didn’t know this place was Michelin rated?!” If only every dinner could begin with a similar realization. The gin apéritif, crab, the wine, the halibut, and the pavlova –a delicate balance of flavors danced as Denise and I chatted about food, men, Europe, and the inevitability of our future success. It’s laughably easy to be optimistic when toasting over divine victuals at the most delicious meal of the trip so far. In classic Californian style, Denise suggested that I’d find a bigger market if I pitched my story as a television pilot rather than a novel. She may have a point, but I’ll stick to my fusty old-timey New York ways for the present.

With starry eyes, Denise told me all about her beau back in California, and she became convinced that we must visit a nearby pub to find me an Irishman. (A charming trait of the starry-eyed is to see auspicious stars on every street corner.) During the Galway International Arts Festival (http://www.giaf.ie), every pub in Galway burst its seams with music, and the celebratory clamor ratcheted up to a particularly high pitch since Galway had been designated the “European Capital of Culture 2020” that very week (https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/jul/20/galway-festival-international-arts-festival-2016-ideas-innovation). It’s quite a big deal because the EU will be pouring €39 million into Galway in preparation for 2020. (To put it another way, visiting Galway as it celebrated its European inclusion was the opposite of visiting a depressed, befuddled post-BREXIT London: https://www.facebook.com/GalwayInternationalArtsFest/videos/10157130842200082/). 

Denise, energized by vino, soon declared us to be the “best looking girls in this place” as she chatted up the tech guys on my behalf. 

In recent years, Dublin and Galway have been doing their upmost to foster tech start-ups with amenable economic and tax policies, and Europeans from all over the Continent have been flocking to Ireland. As it became obvious that almost everyone in the pub worked in tech, Galway reminded me of a Celtic version of San Francisco. When the late-night summer light finally seeped out of the sky, I asked the crowd , “Don’t you guys have to go to work tomorrow morning?”

A loud, laughing, “Ya! Where’s the next round?” resounded around the room.

Tech guys, worldwide, appear to indulge in strikingly similar behavior. (Wink to the techie contingents back home.)

As I waddled home full of fancy food and Irish cider, I felt happy that I’d met a friend if not the ideal Irish lad. With stars rising over Galway Bay, it’s difficult to feel anything but grateful.

Galway Doppelgängers (Part 2) – “Waiting for Godot,” produced by the Druid Theatre Company (with Marty Rea, Aaron Monaghan, Rory Nolan, and Garrett Lombard, directed by Garry Hynes)

The brilliant Druid Theatre Company (http://druid.ie) was co-founded by Garry Hynes (the first woman to ever win a Tony Award for Direction of a Play, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Hynes), and I first became acquainted with Druid when it mounted with the three-play cycle DruidMurphy (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/theater/reviews/druidmurphy-plays-by-tom-murphy-at-lincoln-center.html?_r=0) and four-play cycle DruidShakespeare (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/14/theater/review-druidshakespeare-the-history-plays-is-complete-with-a-crown-fit-for-many-kings.html) at the Lincoln Center Festival. Seeing seven superb plays performed by the same company is enough to prompt any theatre devotee to fly straight to Galway for the latest offering.

Sometimes there are good decisions, and then some decisions are so flippin’ excellent that you pat yourself on the back for several days in a row, congratulating your own manifest brilliance and perspicacity.

It’s fairly rare for a play to garner a five star review, and Druid’s “Waiting for Godot” has not only garnered multiple five-star reviews, but it’s prompted the (admittedly fawning) Irish Times to hail the production as “the best production [of the Beckett classic] in twenty-five years”: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/stage/waiting-for-godot-review-the-best-production-for-25-years-1.2720505. I concur.

A lucky alchemy snaps, crackles, and pops when a company of actors performs repertory over a four-year period, and Garry Hynes consented to mount “Godot” when “some of her ensemble told her they would like to do it”(http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/festivals/stage-waiting-for-meaning-and-godot-knows-what-else-34865889.html). Hear, hear for actors’ choice!

What makes this production special? I’ve seen several different performances of this play, and I was most struck with the way Marty Rea and Aaron Monaghan inflected each of Didi’s and Gogo’s repetitive lines with multivalent meaning – a play that often feels like a broken record felt more like a concerto with fine-tuned variations on a plaintive leitmotif. This double-act managed to convey comic and tragic emotion (often simultaneously) like two old friends who bicker over an in-joke that’s always and never funny. 

In addition to this inspired interplay, Rory Nolan’s Pozzo struck such a desolate chord in his last speech that the whole play descended into the twilight with which Hynes lighted the finale of each act, and I felt wrung out with the realization that these characters’ desperation might never fade to black.  

Afterwards, Druid had stationed a camera crew outside the theatre to interview departing audience members, asking for their reactions to the performance. I shudder to a standstill whenever called on to perform (particularly on camera), and I fell on myself in the attempt to say something intelligible without stammering. If memory serves, I might’ve uttered something stupid about the performance being an “existential Olympiad” – if this recording ever comes to light, I beg nobody to watch it. Thalia and Melpomene do not grace us all.

But off the theatre I go again -- tonight it's Tom Murphy's "The Wake" at The Abbey Theatre, founded in 1904 by W.B. Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory. Tah for now!