Models-turned-actors are as common as a cold; actors-turned-directors turn up regularly, but an actor who has written a play, now that is an oddity. Immediate cynicism would make you wonder whether the actor in question wants to write the perfect part for his- or herself, or whether perhaps it's a roundabout method of getting into directing. In Pat Kinevane's case neither is true - the programme notes for The Nun's Wood, which opens at the Project @ the mint next Tuesday, list him only as playwright, not star or director. The reason for Kinevane's sabbatical from the acting world lies elsewhere.
It is not from lack of work - in the 10 years he has been in the business, he has rarely been off the stage. The breadth and variety of the parts he has played means that most people know his mobile, larger-than-life face, if not his name. From Cecil Graham in Alan Stanford's production of Lady Windemere's Fan to Matt in Tom McIntyre's play, Sheep's Milk On The Boil, Pat has been camp and macho, soft and threatening, male and female, you name it. Playwright, though, is a new role.
"I did it primarily because I was coming up to my 30th birthday. I've had the idea for the plot for a while, and I've always been scribbling, but I never wanted to push it out into the public; it was for myself. I suppose it was also because my father has been dead for 10 years now; a decade had gone by and I just wanted to get something down on paper. It's not so much a homage or dedication but it was certainly an impetus to write it."
It's not a surprise to learn that the inspiration for The Nun's Wood came from beyond the grave, as there's a deathly and slightly macabre air to the play. Even while teenagers Picus, Silvy, Jaso and Bellona are messing about in the potato fields, old Rhea Normile is talking to the dead, and the dark figure of Circe is looming in the background. The events and friendships on the island of "Tinaglasha", Co Cork go sour during the hot summer of 1974, and the rather explosive result causes aftershocks that resonate to the present day.
Pat admits that the characters and events are based on his own childhood and youth growing up in Cobh, Co Cork - "Tinaglasha" is loosely based on Great Island in Cobh - but adds with a laugh that they're all "fictionalised, of course". He also describes reading of Circe and Odysseus in The Odyssey and discovering huge parallels between the myth and the plot of his fledgling play - "So I said `Shag it, I'm going to go along with it'." The mythical structure certainly donates an air of mystery and intrigue to the play and also lends curious names to the characters, like Picus Normile, alias the Greek god of forest and field, or Bellona Barry, his girlfriend and a namesake of the goddess of war.
"The names are a scaffold to protect their nobility. I grew up surrounded by people like these characters and to me they are the lesser gods of this world. They have their own private agenda - they work hard, play hard and just get on with it. You don't sit around and talk about leaving school, or going to college or getting a job, you just get out there and survive. Anyway, I don't think there's been a play about lunatic young people in the country before - I wanted to capture that banter, that repartee."
It was the death of Pat's father, Denis Kinevane, that shunted him out of his "good pensionable job" and into acting, "because I realised I didn't have that much time to do what I wanted". After school he had started training as a psychiatric nurse but left "because I knew I wanted to do something more artistic, even though I didn't even know the word then". Nevertheless, four and a half years with An Post followed - "I sold stamps, I gave people their pensions" - before his father's death in 1988 and his subsequent move into acting.
He was given his first break by Patrick Sutton, then director of TEAM theatre company, who asked him to join the company in 1989. He stayed with them for a year and a half, learning the trade, performing in three productions and in the process, meeting his wife of four years, actor Fionnuala Murphy. Since then, he has worked consistently with the best actors and directors that Ireland has to offer on both stage and screen.
When I ask why he is an actor he gives the question some thought, smoking furiously and looking sideways through tinted contact lenses that make his already green eyes the colour of emeralds. Eventually he says "I'm very shy really and acting has given me the confidence to battle with that shyness. I know a lot of people will say; `That big loud galoote isn't shy', but really I am. I think acting is also like a two-up, two-down extension to your personality - you can say `I'm a bigger and better house for this'. Certainly, I feel physically and vocally freer when I'm on stage - I'm working constantly to get closer to the truth."
There is a true modesty to Pat Kinevane coupled with an honest enthusiasm for acting and typically, he is uncomfortable with being called a "playwright". "Writing is not something I do for a living. When I decided to write this play, I decided I had to enjoy the whole process - there was no point in getting as het up as I do before going on stage. And I really am enjoying it; it's fascinating to see how the entire machine works. "If the play's a success, it's a success and if it's not, I won't slit my wrists. As an actor I'm used to not knowing when the next job will come, but I'm not used to putting my writing on the line. I'm not freaked out, though; I just feel lucky to have the time and opportunity to do it at all."
