A PLAY by a “star in the making” from Ogonnelloe has received critical acclaim after its performance at the world renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival recently.

Twenty-year-old Eva O’Connor, a student of English literature and German in the University of Edinburgh, and a past pupil of St Anne’s Secondary School in Killaloe, recently performed her own play, Clinical Lies at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world’s largest theatre festival. “I’m really delighted with how well the play was received,” Eva said.
Reviews about the play described it as a “tour de force” and as a playwright, she was said to be “a star in the making”, a “raw natural talent” and a “stand-out performer”. Earlier this year, Eva was nominated for best supporting actress in the Irish Times Theatre Awards for her performance in Broken Croí Heart Briste in the 2010 Dublin Fringe Theatre Festival. Broken Croí Heart Briste is a bilingual play in Irish and English, written by Manchán Magan and has since enjoyed success around the country.
Eva explained that she wrote Clinical Lies for a student theatre festival earlier this year and one of the organisers was impressed by it and asked her to stage it at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She said that her play explores the trials and tribulations of teenage life through the medium of a dark, witty monologue and contains strong physicality and dance.
“When I wrote the play, I never imagined it would go so well. It has been a fantastic experience and I’m very excited about touring it,” she added.
The young talent has since been invited to present her play on Scottish radio, and to bring the show to New York City. She also hopes to perform Clinical Lies closer to home in the near future.
Eva is currently finalising her second play, which is called My Best Friend Drowned in a Swimming Pool.
“This play is based on the lives of six young people, whose friend drowns in a swimming pool. I describe it as dark but with witty elements. I’ll be holding auditions for my new play once I return to Edinburgh next week and I already have people in mind for roles, including myself. My last play was based on a 19-year-old girl, so while it isn’t in any way autobiographical, there are elements of my life in it because I was 19 when I wrote it but the main theme has no elements of my life in it,” she said.
Eva’s performance background is in dance and as child, she completed all of her grades in ballet dancing.
“I danced with the National Youth Dance Company based in Longford. I moved from there on to physical drama and theatre and my teacher suggested I should focus on that, as she felt I was a strong drama performer. Locally, I played Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in St Anne’s in Killaloe and I also won the school talent competition. As a teenager, I also went to dance classes in Limerick and I loved dance of all kind. I went to Dublin to do transition year in Inchicore College, which has a dance department, so I could concentrate on performing and dance. I did my Leaving Cert through Wesley College in Dublin and during that year, I played the lead role in the school’s production of Grease,” she explained.
She got to know Manchán Magan, a journalist with The Irish Times.
“He does book readings and he asked me to do interpretative dance to make the readings more interesting. After that, I performed at Electric Picnic for three years. I also performed in one of Manchán’s plays, Broken Croi Heart Briste. I couldn’t believe that I was nominated for best supporting actress as I was up against actresses from the Abbey. I performed in that again during Seachtain na Gaeilge in March,” Eva said.
Eva brought Clinical Lies to Dublin in June and was featured on the RTÉ Radio 1 Arena arts programme. She spent the rest of the summer in New York and while there, she got some work as an extra on comedy series, Curb Your Enthusiasm, just for fun, she added.
Eva said she knows now that she wants to focus on writing and performing drama.
“I love to write because it provides me with pieces that I’d like to perform in. I’m hoping it will be feasible as a career because right now, I can’t see myself doing anything else. I think I will finish my degree, while working away on plays in the meantime and when I graduate, really progress my writing and acting,” she remarked.
It certainly seems like Eva O’Connor is a name to watch out for in drama circles in the years to come.