0:00

At Highland, we're all about celebrating

0:02

little wins and

0:04

little ways to innovate digital processes.

0:07

There's no customer pain point too small for

0:09

us to help with. Maybe

0:11

that's why more than half of the Fortune

0:14

100 looks to Highland

0:16

to connect their content and data,

0:18

improve processes, and turn little efficiencies

0:20

into big wins for their customers

0:23

and clients. Highland,

0:25

intelligent content solutions for

0:27

innovators everywhere at highland.com.

0:31

The Pat Kenny Show with Aviva

0:33

Insurance on News Talk. History

0:38

repeating itself. That's how the New York

0:40

Times described the novel, The Pool of

0:42

the Stars. The book was set

0:44

at the time of the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic

0:48

and upon its release in 2020, it

0:51

was met by a pandemic world that

0:53

seemed all too familiar. Well,

0:55

it's now been adapted into a play and

0:57

it had its world premiere last week in

1:00

the Gate Theatre in Dublin. The cast includes

1:02

India Mullan, Ruth McCabe, and Sarah Morris, and

1:04

it's a direct adaptation of that 2020 book

1:07

written by Emma Dunner, who joins me now.

1:09

Emma, good morning. Good morning, Pat. Lovely

1:11

to be back. Now, you're not

1:14

that prescient that you anticipated another

1:16

pandemic while you were writing about a former

1:18

one. What can I say? At a

1:20

time of dreadful luck worldwide, I was very

1:23

lucky. But to be honest, I didn't know

1:25

that people would welcome a novel about a

1:27

pandemic during a pandemic. I thought they might

1:29

prefer escapism. But in fact, I think people

1:31

were so touched by any story that would

1:34

put frontline health care workers

1:36

in the spotlight and emphasise their

1:38

heroism and the extraordinary risks

1:40

they were taking. Now, the

1:43

book and the play, therefore,

1:45

are set at the book largely, shall

1:48

we say, in a maternity hospital. There

1:50

are some external scenes. That's right,

1:52

but it's almost all in this tiny little contained world.

1:55

I tried to give it the atmosphere of the trenches

1:57

because I thought of this as a sort of women's

1:59

war. And Flu web. women who are

2:01

pregnant at it or had just given birth

2:04

were particularly vulnerable to that Spanish Flu. So

2:06

I decided that there might be up a

2:08

plausibly a maternity flu ward where the decline

2:10

team together and and kept away from other

2:12

people with flu or other people having babies.

2:15

So I imagined one of these in a

2:17

job in hospital and I imagined am at

2:19

a dedicated nurse running as desperate for a

2:21

some kind of helper and above all am

2:23

a doctor. And I was going to make

2:26

a fictional doctor. And then in my researches

2:28

I came across Kathleen, Lynn and. Decided.

2:30

That she was unmatchable And so I had

2:32

to ensued heard the wheel kathleen than as

2:34

a as a. Car So she's the

2:36

only real person who populate your books

2:38

and the stage and the pool of

2:40

the stars. I mean people will think

2:43

the Plough under Stars was there a

2:45

deliberate of echo? That the was an

2:47

echo I grew. Up auto case he plays

2:49

and though the case he plays at the at

2:52

the Abbey of the Gays for the ones that

2:54

opened my eyes to the extraordinary history of job

2:56

done and you know that that the working class.

2:58

To you know, slum life, the horrors

3:01

of. These. Families lives to coughing their

3:03

gossip in like it old beautiful george

3:05

and houses yes but it's also m

3:07

literally import flu means influenza Delhi Stellar

3:09

the influence of the stars at the

3:12

used to believe in medieval Italy that

3:14

the that the flu was a matter

3:16

of hostile constellations you know pulling our

3:18

chains as it were just arbitrarily given

3:21

us terrible illnesses so try to capture

3:23

that sense. Of that's where the

3:25

name of influenza came from. Influenza

3:27

Delta Lemons Yes, you. Know. The website

3:29

I use most is Easy Knowledge you.com

3:32

I find the History of Words hugely

3:34

a suggestive and giving me entire story.

3:36

Lines know is that there's also some fab

3:38

folklore about the Spanish Flu and it was

3:40

a Spanish at all. As we know it

3:42

came from somewhere else entirely. And but you

3:45

have to do your research as I presumed

3:47

to to capture either Dublin of the time.

3:49

but as ever i'm all was working a

3:51

based on the work of others so dirt

3:53

and it's to extraordinarily good books about the

3:56

flu and ireland's m and m or even

3:58

even in putting on the play, they've done

4:00

further research and made the show to play

4:02

Kathleen Lin, for instance, she's been off to

4:05

see the real Kathleen Lin's houses that she

4:07

lived in, she's been to look at the

4:09

diaries which were published recently, the

4:12

dedication of the entire team at the

4:14

gate in getting every little detail right,

4:16

they've had midwives in to make the

4:18

movements and the breaths and the groans

4:20

realistic, and they have on the set,

4:22

they have a beautiful pair of old

4:24

forceps from the desk of the master

4:26

of the Rotunda. So this production has

4:28

such roots in Dublin history and is

4:31

so accurate and accountable about the real

4:34

history of hospital care in Dublin. And

4:36

again, we talk about the echo

4:38

of Sean O'Casey and the plough in

4:40

the stars and you've got the Maternity Hospital

4:43

next door to where you're playing. You know

4:45

this play happened because Roisin MacFryn,

4:47

artistic director of the gate, she looked out her

4:49

office window in her new job running the gate

4:51

and she looked at the Rotunda and thought, oh,

4:53

that book of Emmett, is there any chance we

4:55

could make a play of that? So that's how

4:57

it came about. Yep.

5:00

Now, transferring a book to the

5:02

stage, what are the limitations? Obviously

5:04

the gate, the Fratini march is

5:07

small, the space to play on

5:09

is relatively small, so

5:11

you've got to, as playwright, you've got to

5:13

imagine how it might be presented. The real

5:15

limit is not space but time, and a

5:17

play or a film is

5:19

always going to be more compact than

5:22

a book, so you have to ruthlessly

5:24

cut. We, for instance, squashed several characters

5:26

together into one. We

5:28

decided that all the men would stay offstage,

5:30

so in the background, Nurse Julia Power is

5:32

living with a brother who's mute after his

5:34

experience at war. That doesn't make it onto

5:36

the stage but she comes in wearing a

5:38

carnation that he gave her for her birthday.

5:40

So it's ruthlessly excising, like

5:43

surgery really, and

5:45

above all, making it not last too long. It's

5:48

very intense and 100 minutes, no interval

5:50

even, and it passes like a whirlwind

5:52

because we're trying to capture that atmosphere

5:55

of a medical ward in a time of

5:57

total crisis and chaos. and

6:00

the actors are just as busy as

6:02

nurses are. They're whipping around the stage

6:04

full-time, looking after people. Now, in terms

6:07

of your medical researchers, how

6:09

different was the impact of influenza

6:11

on pregnant women compared to ordinary

6:13

women or ordinary men? Far worse.

6:15

And there's something about its effect on

6:17

the immune system. It tended to bring

6:19

on miscarriage, early birth, stillbirth, inexplicable

6:22

death just after birth. It was dreadfully dangerous

6:24

for them. And you know, the difference between

6:26

medical care now and back then is that

6:29

we had so many more tools to meet

6:31

the COVID pandemic, even before there was a

6:33

vaccine. In 1918, they had the motto for

6:35

nurses of watch and wait. It was so

6:38

much they couldn't do a thing about. And

6:40

Kathleen Lynn was working away trying to find

6:42

a vaccine because she thought, like everybody else,

6:45

that it was a bacterium. They didn't know that

6:47

there was such a thing as viruses. They didn't

6:49

have the microscopes to show them a particle that

6:51

small. So they were really working in the dark

6:55

and just doing their best to

6:57

look after these women enough that they might be

7:00

lucky enough to pull through. Now, the

7:02

period we're talking about, we

7:04

think of the Great War as an imperial

7:07

war. But yet so many Irish people joined

7:09

up because there was a living to be

7:11

made, maybe put bread on the table for

7:13

those left at home. But then we had

7:16

the devastation of the Somme and all of

7:18

that. Meantime in the background, we have a

7:21

burgeoning Irish state yet to be formed. And

7:24

I said it in Ireland, you could have

7:26

set this play in a maternity ward anywhere

7:28

in the world, but Ireland was going to

7:31

such a fascinating birth itself in those years.

7:33

And there would be such extraordinary tensions between,

7:35

you know, Julia with her brother, just back

7:37

from Gallipoli, whereas one of the patients, Mary

7:40

Tierney, her brother is involved in the rising.

7:42

So was Kathleen Lynn. So these extraordinary social

7:44

forces all meeting in this tiny little ward

7:46

where they have to pull together. And what's

7:48

lovely is to take characters who have so

7:51

much reason to quarrel with each other, but

7:53

to force them to work together because of

7:55

the imminent crisis of each birth or each

7:57

possible death and to find moments of... and

8:00

joy and even humour in that tension.

8:03

You've actually said that the

8:06

business of birth, which is so

8:08

routine because all of us got

8:10

here via that method, that for

8:12

many people it's just a crapshoot.

8:16

You know it's so unpredictable.

8:19

Birth is the most dangerous day of a baby's

8:21

life and typically of a woman's life as well.

8:23

And yes, if all goes well it can be

8:25

an utterly healthy business. So

8:28

I find it narratively irresistible,

8:30

partly because it's so little written

8:32

about. We write about murders

8:35

and wars and crimes all the time

8:37

and we rarely write about the ordinary,

8:39

extraordinary drama of how babies come out.

8:41

And it can go so well or

8:43

so wrong for mother or baby or

8:45

both. And undoubtedly in the play this has

8:47

got to happen. It's not going to be

8:49

happy endings all round. But you do have

8:52

to create a narrative arc, don't you, for

8:54

any play? Absolutely. And you

8:56

have to dole out those fates, those destinies

8:58

unpredictably and yet in a way that feels

9:00

true. And you have to, what I

9:02

loved was capturing the kind of ups and downs of the

9:05

mood in the ward. You know sometimes they're

9:07

having a laugh, they're having a song even and then the

9:09

next minute there's blood on the floor. So

9:11

I love that unpredictability. It keeps it really

9:13

fresh. It saves it from being an obvious

9:16

kind of drama. What is it about

9:18

confinement? And I don't mean that

9:20

in the labour sense, in the labour ward. But

9:22

confinement that appeals to you. This

9:25

drama in one small labour ward

9:27

in one Dublin hospital or

9:30

room which be a book that became a movie as

9:32

well. I know or even, you know, Haven

9:34

the novel I've been posing for the Dublin literary

9:36

ward that would have set on Stella Michael with

9:38

only three people. So I agree. I

9:41

do this whether they're men or women, medieval or modern. I

9:43

stick them in very small situations. And

9:46

there's one literary reason which is that you

9:48

can get an increased, it's like

9:50

turning up the heat. And characters

9:53

clash with each other more if you don't give them

9:55

any way of getting away. Every line

9:57

of dialogue becomes meaningful because, you

9:59

know, they're stuck together. And similarly,

10:01

I think there's another reason which

10:03

is the lives of women have

10:05

traditionally been too small, you know,

10:07

like stuck at home or not allowed

10:10

to go to school under the Taliban

10:12

or you know, sweatshop laborers.

10:14

So I think a lot of

10:16

women have had lives of chafing

10:18

against confinement. And as you

10:20

say, confinement also meant the period around

10:22

birth, you know, it's typical of

10:25

the history of women to be stuck in a room

10:27

and wanting to get out. So that's why a lot

10:29

of my dramas have emerged. I'm sure many women

10:31

in Ireland would complain that we still haven't got

10:33

true emancipation, true equality and so on.

10:36

But when you look around the world,

10:38

there are so many places where women are

10:40

absolutely still oppressed, which is disheartening. That's so

10:42

true. And I find it very heartening that

10:44

Ireland has remade itself so much in my lifetime.

10:46

I mean, you know, I'm going in to talk

10:48

to my old school, Muckress, today. I haven't been

10:50

back since 1987. And

10:52

when I think of the different social world those

10:55

girls are emerging into than I was in 1987,

10:59

and in many ways a much

11:01

better Ireland with so many more

11:03

opportunities and freedoms for them. So

11:05

I find it thrilling to see

11:07

a modern pluralist democracy like Ireland,

11:09

you know, transform itself not without

11:11

birthing pangs, of course, not without

11:13

fights, not without, you know, terrors

11:15

of new dangers like the

11:17

rise of the far right, but to see

11:19

change happening so fast. But isn't it

11:21

interesting that at the end of the day

11:24

in the play, it's all about women, if

11:26

they want to have families never being able

11:28

to escape their biology in ways that men

11:30

can just, if they like, ignore? That's

11:33

right. All the women in this play, whether

11:35

like we have a posh patient who's been

11:37

brought in from a private from her GP,

11:39

and we have one straight from the slums,

11:41

we've one from a mother and baby home,

11:43

but in a way, they're all playing that

11:45

same, you know, roulette wheel. It's

11:48

not all determined by their class or even

11:50

their age, or whether they've got

11:52

money, there's an element of the random to it.

11:54

And they've climbed on the roller coaster. See that

11:56

it makes for great drama, I have

11:58

to say, and such a stunning production The Gate

12:00

of Mounted. Louise Lowe, our director, I have to

12:02

say is a particular genius. Working now in

12:05

so many genres, be it on the

12:07

printed page if you're writing books

12:10

or indeed you're involved in the production

12:12

of a play or writing

12:14

a screenplay for a movie which eventually goes

12:16

on the big screen, I mean

12:18

you are multifaceted now. Is there any particular

12:20

endeavour that you prefer? You

12:23

know I have to say I think theatre is

12:25

at that sweet spot between the social aspects

12:29

of theatre and film are marvellous but in film the

12:32

writer really doesn't get to call the shots and

12:34

equally at home alone I get to call the shots in

12:36

writing fiction but there's no one to have lunch with

12:38

you know. So theatre is

12:40

fantastically social and collaborative and yet they respect the

12:42

word of the writers so much. I mean in

12:44

the rehearsal room I kept saying like oh you

12:46

tripped over that bit while I changed it and

12:49

they'd be like no no no I'll get it

12:51

right and so it was a lovely lovely kind

12:53

of negotiation around that. So it's not

12:55

finished until the final rehearsal you may

12:57

tweak. Indeed sure I was tweaking till

12:59

opening nights it's a living thing a play

13:02

is you know and I'm sure it'll vary

13:04

with the audiences over the course of the

13:06

next month and that's that's a lovely thing

13:08

if you see a play several nights in

13:11

a row different audiences bring out different laughs,

13:13

different responses, different gasps. Well it's

13:15

called The Pool of the Stars it's

13:17

based on the original book by my

13:19

guest it's running on the 12th of

13:21

May in the Gate Theatre booking there

13:24

and not to be missed Emma Donoh thank you very

13:26

much for joining us on the programme. It's been a

13:28

pleasure Pat. The Pat

13:30

Kenny Show with Aviva Insurance our

13:33

News Talk