KILDARE: Book your tickets for The Night Alive, the latest show from The Moat Club

The Moat Club’s October production is director Conor McPherson’s The Night Alive, a play which has been described 'as a beautiful meditation on dependence and redemption.'

The Night Alive was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Play and won the New York Drama Critic’s Circle Award for Best Play (2014).

All-Ireland amateur drama circuit-winning director Barbara Sheridan is at the helm, and she is no stranger to McPherson’s work having previously produced The Weir for the Club.

Speaking about choosing to stage The Night Alive now, Barbara said, "Although it was written ten years ago, the play brings to mind the current housing crisis.

"The precarious nature of the characters’ living conditions is going to resonate with the audience: you have a middle-aged man living with his elderly relative, for example, and a character who regularly sleeps in a van."

Tommy (Brendan Farrell) and his buddy Doc (Gerard O'Shea) roll from one get-rich-quick scheme to the other until a stranger comes into their lives and things start to look up. Photo supplied.

She added: "It’s a play full of humour and warmth... It shows us that an act of kindness can be an act of quiet heroism, and that’s what McPherson does so brilliantly."

Conor McPherson has been described by the New York Times as 'the finest playwright of his generation.'

The Dubliner’s most recent hit was Girl from the North Country, a collaboration with folk singer Bob Dylan, which earned an Olivier nomination for Best Musical and the New York Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical.

The summary of the play reads as follows: "Tommy (Brendan Farrell) is a Jack-of-all-trades, just getting by, a middle-aged man separated from his wife and family.

"He rents a room in the crumbling Dublin home of his Uncle Maurice (Paddy Carroll) and conducts his man-with-a-van business with the help of Doc (Gerard O’Shea), who occasionally sleeps on a camp bed in the room, having no fixed abode.

"Into this trinity of unfulfilled men comes Aimée (Rossagh Cusack), a young woman whom Tommy rescues from a beating at the hands of her boyfriend.

"Dodging the mess of her own life, she brings a glimmer of hope into Tommy’s world, but her menacing boyfriend Kenneth (Brian Lyons) is hot on her heels." 

The Night Alive runs from Tuesday, October 17 to Saturday 21st October 21, at 8pm nightly at the Moat Theatre in Naas.

Tickets €15 (€12 concessions) from www.moattheatre.com or 045 883030.

FURTHER PRAISE FOR THE NIGHT ALIVE

"Plenty of wit and humour... an evening of rich enjoyment" – The Stage