HOODWINKED BY Helen Kavanagh-Ronan

Classik Attak Theatre Co presents:

HOODWINKED

A NEW MUSICAL PLAY!

This highly innovative, intelligent, tuneful, production is a unique Cork masterpiece:

A collaboration of local talent combines, to inject freshness into a classic musical format, albeit poking fun at same. The songs are catchy, lyrics provocative. This IS unique, funny and genius!

The dialogue is poetic yet colloquial: A post-modern work

The show debuted at the Pavilion, one of Cork’s foremost musical venues, last March and shall return again on the 26^th of June as part of the Midsummer festival. In the meanwhile the play makes its Dublin debut at the Button Factory, Temple Bar on the 6^th of June and will even take in two nights at The Briary Gap, Macroom on the 19^th and 20^th of June.

This is not the company’s first visit to Edinburgh: Classik Attak’s play  JUDAS derived from a Brendan Kennelly poem did very well there in 2002, receiving favourable reviews from the Scotsman and the Guardian, amongst others.

Hoodwinked is the latest work from the pen of Helen Kavanagh-Ronan, who also directs. The initial script was read by Ruth Little, literary manager of The Royal Court Theatre London and described as “an evocative and bold approach to form” having major potential. Kavanagh-Ronan, a native of Cobh, founded her company, Classik Attak in 1997 and made an immediate impact on the Irish Theatre scene with her bold adaptations of plays such as ‘Medea’ and ‘Oedipus Tyrannus’. Indeed, Kenneally himself gave the blessing to Kavanagh-Ronan to direct his translation of Medea which she turned into a one act play and took the One Act Drama Festival by storm in 1997, winning a series of awards! Kavanagh Ronan followed this feat by bringing a brave and bold version of Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ to the Half Moon Theatre, Cork Opera House, where it enjoyed a series of sell-out performances.

Now together with Cork band Exit Pursued by a Bear,(who play live during each performance) and singer songwriter FionnBarra, the company have transformed the play into a musical; appealing to all age groups!

The soundtrack has a youthful, electronica vibe, with interjections of Weimar Republic cabaret style tunes, skimmed at the sides with a little rapping. Hoodwinked stars Tadhg Hickey, Bertie Brosnan and FionnBarra.

THIS IS CORK TALENT AT ITS BEST!

HOODWINKED

BY Helen Kavanagh-Ronan

A Synopsis

Written in 2007 Hoodwinked is a Postmodern work, involving three disembodied characters, suspended between existence and oblivion:

The three characters explore the universal theme of what it means to be human, through lyrical exchanges in a surreal setting. The absurdity of Celtic Tiger Ireland is sub-textually put under the writer’s philosophical lens.

To put it quite simply; Hoodwinked is a poetic and somewhat amusing exchange of banter between three characters: one waiting to be born, one waiting to die and the third acts as a mediator or a guide. This is NOT a religious work if anything it is  a-religious.