Cork woman: ‘I thought people would laugh at me if I told them I wanted to act’

When writer and actor Ciara Ní Tuathaigh was in her final year at school, and all the talk was of what she and her classmates would do after the Leaving Certificate, she was too embarrassed to state her ambition.

Ciara, who grew up in Little Island and Glounthaune and went to St Aloysius secondary school in Carrigtwohill followed by Bruce College, wanted to act. “But it sounded like a silly thing to say,” says Ciara. “I thought people would laugh at me. I was encouraged to go into journalism or politics because I loved English and history. I’d have been good at lecturing.”

Ciara’s one-woman show, The Scent Of A Mock Orange, is being staged at the Cork Arts Theatre after its debut at the inaugural Cork Fringe Festival last year. She wrote the play and performs it. Described as a raw and darkly humorous exploration of grief, sexuality, and emotional survival, the play is one girl’s reckoning with her life on the tenth anniversary of her mother’s suicide.

After leaving school, Ciara knew she wanted to get some life experience so she deferred studying for a degree for a few years, working at various jobs such as waitressing and acting in a few amateur plays.

“I decided I wanted to go to drama school and looked at various options. I did the BA in theatre and drama studies at MTU Cork School of Music and loved it. I think actors have mixed feelings about drama school. There were definitely aspects of it I didn’t like and aspects of it that I loved. Overall, I wouldn’t be the actor or the writer I am, or have the ability to create theatre the way I do today, had I not gone to drama school. I started at 23.”

Glad that she went out into the world before studying for her degree, Ciara says it enhanced her ability to write.

“I was watching an interview with Jessie Buckley, who we all love at the moment. She was asked if she could go back to the girl auditioning for drama school, what would she tell herself? She said she’d advise herself to go out and live. As an artist, you need to have experiences. No amount of time spent in a room, even with the greatest directors or lecturers in the world, is going to give you what you need.”

From a very young age, Ciara has been writing. “I started off doing little stories in copybooks when I was small. As I got older, I became interested in writing which tends to lean towards the exploration of womanhood, although not solely.

“I wanted to create stories like Dennis Kelly’s one woman play, Girls & Boys. It’s one of my favourite plays with Carey Mulligan in.”

After graduating, Ciara thought she would take the traditional path of going to London to work in theatre. But that didn’t happen.

“I graduated during covid so all the theatres were shutting down. I always had a plan on the long finger to have a production company of my own one day. I guess covid taught us all to re-evaluate how we were engaging with our work. We had no other choice.”

Ciara didn’t want to announce the establishment of sassyCOW, a female-led production company, until she had something to produce. When she had written a first draft of The Scent Of A Mock Orange, she wondered what to do with it.

“I was researching one night and opened the Instagram app and I saw the announcement of the Cork Fringe. So I sent them a cheeky little DM (direct message). They got back to me and invited me to the launch last year. I had a chat with the directors and did a pitch of my play.”

Ciara says that fringe festivals tend to put on experimental plays. While she doesn’t think her play is particularly experimental, it was accepted.

“I am very interested in female collaboration. I have a fabulous director on board, Sinead Crowley, who’s directing my play. She and I went to drama school together and did a module together. We definitely know we can work together. Sinead is one of those people who was born to direct. When you watch her explain something to someone in a way that is so tangible, it’s amazing. I hope to expand and have more women on board.”

The meaning behind the title of the play is hinted at in the text. It’s 90-minutes long, a monologue with interjections from other voices. Ciara as Mara has the stage to herself.

“It’s Mara’s reflection on her relationship with her mother, which was tumultuous to say the least. It’s about what has brought her to a very dark and lonely place. I’m very interested in exploring those kinds of characters.

“Someone asked me recently what I’d like people to take away after seeing the play. I know it may be a weird thing to say but the last thing I want is someone walking out of the theatre saying it was ‘nice’. The plays I really love challenge me, make me feel uncomfortable and perceive something a little bit differently. They ask me to reflect on something in myself or in society. I like plays that do that without being moralistic, judgemental or wagging the fingers. The idea is to hold up a mirror to people, inviting them to look into it. Whether or not they do is ultimately up to them.”

The Scent Of A Mock Orange is at the Cork Arts Theatre from today until April 11.