The National Library of Ireland presents an online event – available for seven days from Tuesday 8 December 2020 – celebrating 30 years since the first performance of Seamus Heaney’s play, The Cure at Troy, produced by the Field Day Theatre Company in 1990.
The event is hosted by Sean Rocks, presenter of RTE Radio One’s Arena arts programme, who also played Neoptolemus, one of the leading roles, in the original 1990 touring production of the play. Sean shares his recollections of that time, alongside contextual insights from Professor Chris Morash of Trinity College Dublin – the inaugural Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing – and readings from the play by actor Eleanor Methven. They are joined by the poet’s daughter, Catherine Heaney, who brings a personal perspective and remembers the opening night at Derry’s Guildhall. Together they discuss the play’s Greek origins, its reception and legacy and, of course, its most famous lines.
The event was recorded in the Reading Room of the National Library of Ireland in December 2020.