New play commemorates Hunger Strikes

Sometimes people experience the same event in very different ways.

A watershed in modern Irish history, the H-Block and Armagh prison protests of the early 1980's have left an indellible mark on the psyche of a nation.

The Official Version, a new play from veteran Belfast theatre company Doublejoint, examines memory and our perceptions of it. It also asks what happens to our version of events when we discover the experience of others.

Written by former H-Block Hunger Striker Laurence McKeown, the play is set in the modern day H-Blocks. It is 2006, and republican Ex-POW group 'Coiste' has organized a series of tours to Long Kesh - a large and decaying site now destined for development.

Part of the prison is to be maintained as a museum, including the prison hospital where ten republican prisoners died on Hunger Strike in 1981. During the height of the protest more than 400 republican men were "on the blanket" within these unforgiving walls. Now all that remains are disintegrating and empty concrete blocks - ravaged by the Irish damp and cold - rusting barbed wire, black crows and a myriad of rabbits.

The story is told from the perspective of four very different characters while they tour the remnants of one of the most infamous gaols in Irish history.

First there is Annie and her daughter Theresa. Annie's son Gerard had been imprisoned in the H-Blocks. Robert, an NIO official attached to the Prison Department and Julie, a mature student researching the prison.

As the four wind their way through what is left of Long Kesh they discover that each of them has a very different memory and knowledge of the place and what it means to them.

This is Lawrence McKeown's first play since the untimely death of his writing partner and comrade Brian Campbell, who died tragically of a heart attack at the age of 45 less than a year ago on 8 October 2005. Together they wrote A Cold House and The Laughter of Our Children for Dubbeljoint, as well as the acclaimed film H3.

McKeown says he could still hear his friend's gentle criticism and encouragement in his head as he worked on specific scenes.

The Official Version is a unique opportunity to see a moving and thoughtful play examining the hunger strikes by one of its actual participants.

By Aine Ni Bhriain

• Produced in honour of the 25th anniversary of that tragic yet ultimately triumphant time, it will premiere at The Rock Theatre, BIFHE, from 18 to the 23 September. After this, it will 'go on the road' and tour cities throughout the 32 counties.