In Conversation: David Gilna

David Gilna

David Gilna is an actor and playwright who's new play about The O'Rahilly is opening in Theatre Upstairs on March 21st, coinciding with the centenary remembrances of the Dublin 1916 Easter Rising. His previous plays The Gift of Lightning and My Bedsit Window tapped into aspects of his own life, but his new piece looks at the life of this historic figure who W B Yeats wrote about in the poem The O'Rahilly. Taking time out during the last few days of rehearsal, David Gilna spoke to me about the new play, his connection to the O'Rahilly's, as well as his past work and experiences.

"I grew up around the O'Rahilly's. Isuelt O'Rahilly was my Mother's best friend," was David Gilna's opening response to my rather bland, and obvious 'Tell me about your new play' opener. "She was supposed to marry my Uncle, but she didn't marry my uncle, and so I grew up in her family. And her father was a guy called Aodogan O'Rahilly, and I used to sit on Aodogan's lap, and he had a painting in his house of The O'Rahilly. It was a beautiful painting, and I said to him one day 'Who's that?'. And he said to me 'That's my father. When I was younger than you', he says, 'my father died when I was twelve' and I wrote a letter to him, and he wrote a letter to his wife - 'Aodogan's mother '- and on the back of that letter was my letter’"

Gilna opens up about the world of The O'Rahilly, who founded the Irish Volunteers, appointing O'Neil to be the head of the organisation, and yet, according to Gilna, went around Munster urging people not to rise as he felt they would lose, but when the call came on the Monday morning, he took up arms, (driving past the location of Theatre Upstairs to get there), marching in to the GPO, and by the end of the rising becoming "acting garrison of the GPO - Commander In Chief- and then he led the charge then, for the rest of them to escape, and he died in the back of Moore Street, because he didn't die by firing squad, he's been, you know..." Gilna leaves the thought unfinished.

The O'Rahilly's life, like so many, isn't simply about his role in the Rising. "He was a self-made business man," Gilna tells me, "he travelled all over the world, met a woman from New York in a farm in Kerry, and he used to write her letters. And he fell in love from that moment. She came from a woollen mills in Philadelphia, she was very wealthy, had a house in fifth avenue... and he didn't have the money to go and visit her because she was being educated in Paris, so he backed all his money on two horses and they won. So he went to Paris. He was an adventurer, full of spirit, full of life, very well educated, they only spoke French and Irish to the kids in the house. He taught her Irish and then she became a better Gaeilgeoir [Irish Speaker] than him." It was their passion and spirit that attracted Gilna to them even more, and is evident with how he talks about them. "And then she was left with an unborn child, two kids and she was excluded from society because of her involvement with the rising."

The O'Rahilly's death took over '19 hours' Gilna explains at one point, even though he could have been treated and wasn't, he was on his own, left to die. It is this period of time that fired up Gilna's thoughts about what might be going through a person's mind "and so I have all these memories, when they first met, or skimming stones, and then we go back into the GPO and what's happening inside the GPO. And O'Rahilly's point of view on Connolly, on Pearse, on Clarke, and what he thought about these people, because I've got all the letters. And it's all there, and I wanted to tell their story. And when he died Michael Collins, De Velera, Sean T O'Ceallaigh, Markievich, they all guarded around Nannie, and that's what an incredible person she was, and the respect they had for O'Rahilly." Gilna is aware that he is only scratching the surface, and that there is more to tell about The O'Rahilly and Nannie.

For Gilna, in many ways, reading the letters not only opened a window to the past, it opened a window the the art of letter writing, the construction of them, as well as the content, from arguments, to deaths to problems with the house, sometimes all in the one correspondence.  It is a form that is perhaps if not dead today, is very close to it, and yet in this context they are both important historically, but also socially, and for the family, personally. Without them, there would be a void. In that wonderful way history can fold over on itself, The O'Rahilly's granddaughter's have been writing letters to Gilna in advance of their journeying over to see the play itself.

Before becoming a writer Gilna was an actor; one of his first jobs was touring the thirty-two counties. "I thought it was this magical thing going from hotel to B & B, until I went to some places." Acting was something Gilna got into in a somewhat different way than others, liking the escapism of film and TV. One of the first things he did with a friend was a comic take on Riverdance for a talent competition. "I did a mock on the Riverdance. I dressed up as Jean Butler, my friend dressed up as Michael Flatley and we used to imitate Riverdance. And then a guy called Bill Keating from RTE was a judge ... said you two guys should really pursue this. Then we started to dress up as Freddie Mercury, and Queen, and Tina Turner, me and my friend, and we started doing these acts, then someone said you know what, we should go this place in town called The Factory - Jill Doyle and Eamonn Farrell, The National Performing Arts School; every weekend that's where I lived. It was escapism for me. I could do anything behind these walls and not be judged. It was like a safety net." It was an environment where Gilna felt he thrived, it was a place where his imagination could run free.

During our conversation Gilna mentions an accident that placed him into coma. The accident was being struck by lightening. To be fair, Gilna doesn't say what the accident is, but when I ask, he tells me in his direct, energetic way "For me, no matter what happens in my life, the lightening will always be a part of me. Not because I'm scarred mentally or physically, it's because it's just one of those fascinating events that can happen to anybody. And it happened to me." He was in America at the time on the J1 Visa when it happened, his career was moving in the right direction with some good possibilities on the horizon when it hit. While it hit physically, it also hit in another way, making him wonder what it was he believed in, what was life, and what was important to him. Questions, perhaps, we are all good at avoiding, especially when young and ready to take on the world and life.

"I was in intensive care for five days, a coma for let's say twenty-four hours; twenty-four hours of seeing things. I died for two minutes and forty-seven seconds, I had that kind of out of body experience, whether you believe in that or not....you're looking at yourself from a different perspective, whether its from a dream, reality, sub-conscious, self-conscious, then you're back in the world". A feeling, he says, that is surreal. Through all of the Doctors, scans, burns, being left alone to go to the darker places, seeing the fickleness of the business, and some people, and how in an instant things can go south, Gilna still has humour, a way in which he deals with things: "I look at it through the eyes of humour. I have a quirky sense of humour anyway, or a dark sense of humour." And this is best displayed by his tale of VHI calling up to send him flowers because they'd never had anyone hit by lighting before. It is told through joyous laughter, giving a refreshing slant to it all.

It was of course the beginning of a journey to writing, unplanned, but as Gilna can attest to, life has a way of hitting you with unplanned events. "I came out of the coma and I couldn't deal with people, couldn't communicate with people, so a specialist said 'I want you to document your journey, document how you're feeling'. I couldn't communicate vocally and or physically, so I started to write." It was seeing all these notes and thoughts on paper, Gilna felt that it was the basis of a play. "I didn't talk about my accident for years, then all of a sudden I had all these notes because I was writing how I felt and that's how the journey began as a writer." The process of writing was something he enjoyed absolutely - "It was a release. I felt alive. My imaginaton running wild with the thoughts and dealing with feelings, and how I couldn't express them, but I could express them on the page."

Stephen Agnew, David Gilna & Anthony Blake (My Bedsite Window)

A mention of My Bedsit Window brings us to Gilna's views of working in the arts, something he is very open about, feeling that those in the arts should be more upfront about the realities of it. Some of the themes and situations encountered by William Blake, the central character in the My Bedsit Window, are in that play, charting this newly graduated actor's emergence into the world of the arts through adventure, misadventures, acting jobs and dole offices, and the realities of touring and trying to get a job. Gilna does point out in his passionate and energetic way that it is an amazing journey to go on and people shouldn't become disheartened, but he does feel there is a dark side to it as well, and this is what people should be told about too rather than be 'molly coddled' about the reality. For him, it is all about being honest. These ideas were given voice in a humorous, almost surreal and ridiculous way, while following the young actor through his new found career.

"I had a lot to get off my chest in My Bedsit Window and I did that, and I put my heart on the page," Gilna says. In fact, talking to him you get the feeling it would be difficult for Gilna to do anything else than put his heart on the page, or even the stage. "I'd never fallen in love before, I didn't know what that felt like; I'd never known what it felt like to lose somebody. So it was raw emotion, and Michael [Scott, the director] helped me to get that out of me. Not to be frightened to put yourself out there. Not to be frightened to tell the truth of those dark places that you once reached. Let people know that. Don't build a wall."

Since receiving its first run at Theatre Upstairs, where it was received well, it toured Ireland, and was  translated into Italian (some of it, 'battered sausage, 'Fair City' and 'Dole office', were remarkably left as they were and still got the laughs!) and performed in Rome, at a avenue opposite the Coliseum, where it has returned for a second time, both to sold out runs.

It also gave Gilna a chance to see the play himself, albeit through Italian, as during the first run, he was of course in it as William Blake. In Rome he got to sit in the audience every day and see the physical element of the piece and how they interpreted in. "And they said to me, the love story in the play she has no words, so we'd like to have her on stage in the physical presence. And at the end...the girl appears in this white floral dress, and then she touches him, and then she walks off the stage. And I'm in a flood of tears going 'wow'. Because this is from what I wrote internally and they saw it completely different", highlighting how theatre can be in that moment, at that point in time, and how each incarnation can give a different perspective and interpretation.

In many ways, Gilna is not conventional: how he got into acting, and the route his first play, The Gift of Lightning, took. But then it has been said the main thing is to get your play on, not worrying about the where too much. It played the Samuel Beckett Theatre, The New Theatre, it was the first play to perform at Electric Picnic, and the first play to tour with Fossett Circus. It was then they were asked if they were interested in taking it to London as part of the Irish Theatre Festival. Naturally they went for it. That brought Gilna to the attention of the world of Hollywood: copyright law, demographics (even down to what colour a character's hair should be!), analytics, in effect the 'business of show'. It was another eye opener, that also found its way into My Bedsit Window. 

Gilna is someone who doesn't stay still, is always moving and so naturally there are other ideas to look forward to. "I have two plays that are in me to write. One is called 'A Rainy Night in Waterloo' and that's about a lock-in in a pub in London. The second one is called 'One Night In The Trocadero', it's about a father who hasn't spoken to his daughter since his wife died of cancer and he came out of the closet, and it's about their relationship". There is also a request to translate The Unsung Hero into Italian following the success of My Bedsit Window.

Gilna is a bundle of energy and belief, passionate about what he does, while looking at the industry with a healthy dose of realism. He is also very honest and open, willing to talk to me about events and feelings others would hold back on. His energy is infectious and you know he is taking life head on and enjoying this new journey.

Posters and picture courtesy of David Gilna.
Poster design: Ste Murray

The Unsung Hero runs at Theatre Upstairs, above Lannigan's Bar, Eden Quay, Dublin (www.theatreupstairs.ie) from March 21st - April 2nd) with Conor Delaney and Roseanna Purcell; Directed by Michael Scott.
For more details click here