A new play by Paul Meade aims to accurately portray the migrant experience in Ireland, and, to this end, it features just one Irish actor. Sara Keatingmeets the cast

Paul Meade's new play, Mushroom, is unusual for a new Irish play: it features only one Irish character. The other characters are Polish and Romanian immigrants living and working in Monaghan.

Storytellers Theatre Company's production, which previews at the Civic Theatre, Tallaght tonight and opens tomorrow, is unusual too; it features only one Irish actor in a cast of six. The rest of the ensemble is made up of Polish and Romanian actors living and working in Dublin and London, and a Romanian actor, Dan Tudor, performing by kind permission of the National Theatre of Romania in Bucharest.

Director Liam Halligan insists, "It was crucial that we got genuine Polish and Romanian people [ to play the parts in Mushroom]. That's not to say that Irish actors can't take on different nationalities, but if we have an Irish actor playing a different nationality it is always going to be a lie. Because of the very basis of Mushroom, it is essential that we get the real deal. We embody our cultures, and with [ the Polish and Romanian actors] we don't have to write their culture into the play. It is just there. We don't have to preach about it."

Mushroom gives multiple perspectives to the story of Ireland's new migrant population. It was written by Meade after extensive field research with migrant groups in Monaghan and an intense week-long devising process with Polish and Romanian actors. Just as the presence of central and eastern European actors is crucial to the production, so Meade's workshops with actors from the region were crucial to the writing of the play.

"I talked to a lot of immigrant groups in Monaghan and Tyrone," Meade says, "but having actors from the countries we were talking about was a huge influence. On the one hand they could share their own stories and ideas about emigration. But, also, when the Polish and Romanian actors talked to the [ immigrant groups] they got an extra layer, confirming, or sometimes contradicting what I already thought."

In a round-table discussion, miraculously stage-managed by Halligan during a short rehearsal break, the Polish and Romanian actors are energised by their identification with the stories and issues in Mushroom. Two of the actors (Irish actor Carl Kennedy and Polish actor Natalia Kostrzewa) were involved in the devising process, but the other actors also feel that it taps into the multiplicities of migrants' stories. Janusz Sheagall, who has been living in England for almost three years, says, "My character is not a typical Polish character - he did not move to Ireland just for financial reasons.

"Polish people move for other reasons, sometimes just to see the world, like my character came to Ireland just to see Newgrange. My experience [ as an emigrant] was different too, because I came to England just to study at the Birmingham School of Acting." Romanian actress Christina Catalina, who has been working in London for eight years, also identifies strongly with Mushroom: "In London my Romanian gets used very often - as soon as directors hear that I'm Romanian they'll try and use the language somewhere. But this is the first time that I am in a play where I am specifically Romanian and it matters that I'm Romanian. This is the first time that I'm in a play that is particularly about emigrants and discovering that they are real human beings with all the emotions and mistakes that come with them."

This spectrum of humanity and real experience was crucial to Meade's conception of the play: "One of the things I tried to avoid was talking about an 'immigration problem'. I wanted to talk about the problems of the individuals rather than the problem of the nation, because once you start talking about the national problem you immediately make the immigrant a group rather than an individual and you stop treating them with respect."

Meade's experience from meeting different individuals during his field-work confirmed this understanding of the importance of the individual migrant's experience. "There are so many facets to the stories of immigrants, so many different reasons even for why they are here. One group we met were students, young people working in a meat factory. They were having fun. They were driving a car, and going to the pub, and having a girlfriend, all for the first time. It was a really exciting time for them. They weren't depressed. Then I met an older group of people who seemed to be lonely. There was a pressure there, a tug between home and Ireland.

"When you first emigrate, entry-level jobs are what you do - picking mushrooms, working in factories, on construction sites - and that's what everyone sees, but that's just the start for an immigrant. But when you think about it, the very nature of an emigrant, going to another country, is a huge step. Even just making the trip is entrepreneurial. And everyone we met was trying to move on [ from entry-level jobs]. They were doing a course in business or were already managing somewhere, and they had managerial experience in their own country. They were really progressive."

NATALIA KOSTRZEWA, A Polish actor living and working in Dublin, is one such entrepreneurial immigrant. Kostrzewa's experience partly reflects her character's experience in the play, in that she moved to Ireland when she was 16 to spend time with her father (the artist, Adam Kos) who has lived here for 21 years. "Of course, my father did not abandon me, like in the play. I'd like to make that clear," she says, laughing.

"When I was three years old we came to Ireland for two years, but then we went back to Poland because my mum really wanted me and my sister to be Polish, to live in Polish culture. I did not visit at all until five years ago when I came to Dublin. I tried to go to school here but it was too much of a shock. There's a huge difference between Polish and Irish schools - boys and girls are not together for one thing." Unable to settle at school, Kostrzewa joined the Gaiety School of Acting and, for the last two years, she has been working as a professional actress in both Ireland and Poland. Kostrzewa's most recent theatre project was an entrepreneurial endeavour; a one-woman show, More Light, about her experience of emigration. Co-written with Jerzy Lach and performed at Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin, it was a stressful, but ultimately satisfying project, as Kostrzewa explains.

"It was very hard to promote - the Irish media weren't interested - and I was worried, because it is hard to encourage people to go to the theatre. I was also worried that maybe the stereotype was right, that Polish people only come here to work and don't want to go to the theatre. We played for three nights, two nights in Polish, one night in English, and by the last night I had a full house, so that was a big satisfaction for me." Speaking about the demand for Polish actors in Ireland, Kostrzewa is optimistic. "Because there is such a huge amount of Polish people here, there's going to be that need to include us, and it's getting more and more popular in Ireland to cast Polish people."

But still there are obstacles to overcome in many of the specifically Polish parts she auditions for - namely "the Polish prostitute" - and she exchanges a look with Christina Catalina, who rolls her eyes in understanding at the stereotype of the central and eastern European woman.

For Meade, meanwhile, it was an impulse to subvert such stereotypes - to give greater depth to the migrant experience on stage - that was crucial to his conception of the play.

He explains: "There's a character in the play who says 'They look at me and they see a Polish man.' I wanted to do more than that." And in Mushroom he has succeeded: not just in representing the diversity of the migrant experience, but in giving migrant actors the opportunity to represent their diverse cultures on stage.

Mushroom premieres at the Civic Theatre, Tallaght tomorrow and runs until Sat. It then tours to: Glór, Ennis, June 12-13; Backstage Theatre, Longford, June 15-16; Alley Arts Centre, Strabane, June 19; Excel Centre, Tipperary, June 23; Project Arts Centre, June 26-30; Mermaid Arts Centre, July 3-4; Garage Theatre, Monaghan, July 6-7