Cork actor Eileen Walsh is not afraid of a challenge. Fresh from her role in the acclaimed film which she starred in opposite her long-time friend and co-star Cillian Murphy, the 48-year-old is taking on a new theatrical feat that will test both her acting skills and her stamina.
This weekend, she takes on the role of Virginia in at Cork Opera House during Cork Midsummer Festival, playing a seven-minute scene opposite the character of Marty, an intimate moment in which their relationship has lost its spark. The twist? She has never met the man playing Marty. Also, the scene repeats with a different actor each time, some of whom have never acted before. A hundred different men. And she has to do it for 24 hours straight.
It begs the question: how can someone even prepare for that? “It’s been super intense but brilliant,” Walsh tells me after her first week of rehearsals. “It’s a total mind melt.”
She says she has been primarily rehearsing with one actor who pitches different emotions and energies for her to work with, as well as some acting students. The show’s Australian creators, Nat Randall and Anna Breckon, have been a great guide for her.
“The two women who are directing it, Anna and Nat, they’ve done it so many times before, so they know exactly how to lead you through the whole thing.
“Anna and Nat will give him a direction to come in and be scared, or totally over the top, or whatever. He’s been amazing, but nothing is like the actual people who are coming in. They have seven minutes to do their best shot. It’s mad. It’s totally mad. It’s kind of exhausting dealing with their nerves and adrenaline.”
‘Exhausting’ seems the only word for it. Sleep deprivation could be a curveball, and Walsh has resisted the urge to pull an all-nighter to see how she fares.
“I love my sleep, I don’t know why the hell I’m doing it,” laughs the actress from Quaker Road, but she points out that there are times in our lives when the adrenaline kicks in and we can power through extreme tiredness. She feels will work like that.
The actress isn’t the only member of her family preparing for a massive undertaking this month. “Ethel is my youngest, and she’s doing her Junior Cert at the moment, so it’s really full on,” she says.
Walsh thinks her experience of early motherhood will help prepare her for the physical and mental challenge of exhaustion.
“Maybe you’re meant to play it in a dream moment. I know when I had my first baby, Tippy, in particular, the first four weeks after she was born, you’re in this vortex where you’re not sleeping and you’re trying to produce milk and your body’s all over the shop. I kind of look forward to that, that out-of-body experience.”
This marathon theatrical event comes two weeks after the Cork City Marathon saw runners fill the streets, and there are obvious parallels in the preparations.
“I think it is very similar to that. By day two of rehearsals, it was four people, and then we did seven people, and then today was eight people. I think by the time we do a dress run, that’s going to be the longest we’ll do. I don’t know how long that will be, but it won’t be the full extended thing until the marathon day.”
Walsh credits exercise like yoga as essential in her preparation, and said her sister in Australia told her once about the ‘runner’s wall’, something that feels like a physical and mental barrier.
“She kept saying to me, if you can give birth, you can do anything. She was saying when you’re running, there will be a ‘wall’ and once you’re through that ‘wall’, it just gets easier. It might be hard, but then there’ll be that breakthrough.
“Particularly with Sackies [her instructor at Yoga Republic in Ballintemple, Sackies Skalkos], it’s about allowing yourself to go through that wall, which is brilliant for this as well. It just reminds you that you’re strong, that you are in the body you’re in, but actually, that can be strong too.”
In this acting undertaking of a lifetime, Walsh says her 24-hour schedule has short comfort breaks built in for about five minutes each, and when it comes to meals, she’s eating them on stage.
Once her acting marathon finishes hours are over, Walsh says she intends to meet friends who are coming to Cork to see the play before being driven up to Dublin by her Scottish husband Stuart McCaffer.
The 24-hour performance is sure to present a few challenges along the way, but Walsh seems to be relishing the experience. “I’m looking forward to the journey of it, and then I bet you afterwards, I’ll be riding on adrenaline,” she says.
- The Second Woman runs at Cork Opera House, as part of Cork Midsummer Festival, from 4pm on Saturday, June 14, to 4pm on Sunday, June 15. Tickets can be purchased for the entire 24-hour performance, or for shorter segments
