In 2014, Red Line Productions took over the management of the beloved pub theatre at the Old Fitz.

In what feels almost like a homage, actors Andrew Henry and Sean Hawkins – Red Line’s artistic director and associate producer, respectively – are reprising their roles in one of the theatre’s favourites, Howie The Rookie, set in the city of Dublin. We chat to Henry about the play and why the Old Fitz is the ideal venue for it.

“The Irish have always been brilliant storytellers – they have a way with language that is just terrific,” he says. “This play is made up of two monologues – it’s literally a scenario where I will get up and speak for 40 minutes and then Sean will get up for 30 minutes.

“We tell the story of two characters. The one I play is the Howie and Sean is the Rookie. Essentially what happens is that I set everything up with a story about how the Rookie infected my best friend’s mattress with scabies. My task, with my mates, is to go out and find him so we can give him a bashing to teach him a lesson.”

It’s hard not to be intrigued by the idea of a narrative centring around a contagious skin infestation. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that.

“What happens along the way here is that we get introduced to a lot of characters who exist in this little town and the play itself is really funny. It’s also something that people shouldn’t actually think is just about a mattress being infected by scabies,” Henry laughs. “The writer, Mark O’Rowe, is so clever with his language and he writes it in a real Joycean style. It’s really magical and mythical. Once the vengeance is taken out on the Rookie, the story takes a lot of twists and turns. You get two days in the lives of these characters and they’re interwoven very cleverly. For an audience it’s an absolute treat because you’re getting introduced to a character in the first half and then they will reappear with the Rookie. It’s very rock’n’roll, very fast and it’s very visual.”

In this way, Howie The Rookie is a beautifully modern take on the oral storytelling tradition that permeates Ireland’s history. It feels like a return to traditional roots while remaining both relevant and straight up fun.

“Exactly, and it’s very performative when we do it in a theatre,” says Henry. “There is a lot of movement around the stage. One of the things that our director Toby Schmitz got us to do early on was to go to pubs and tell people this story.”

Being a pub theatre, this makes the Old Fitz perfect for the play. There won’t be a great deal of distinction between having a drink and a feed with your mates before the show and then watching some fellow pub-dwellers telling a few tall tales straight afterwards. After all, the entire narrative of Howie The Rookie is reminiscent of a fantastical story some old punter is recounting at his bar stool on a Friday night.

“That’s exactly right,” says Henry, “and it just so happens that the story is insane, so you think, ‘Wow, that guy has had a pretty big day.’ It fits the play perfectly and it highlights what the Fitz is brilliant for, which is actors and simple storytelling. It isn’t a gimmicky venue and you also can’t hide from the audience because they’re just there. It is a very wild ride for these characters to take in an incredibly intimate setting.”

[Howie the Rookie photo © Kathy Luu]

Howie The Rookie runsTuesday May 17 – Saturday June 11 at the Old Fitz Theatre.

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