Although it’s not new, beginning Friday, PURE Theatre is presenting a recent tackle the acclaimed play, Little Gem, at its Cannon Street Arts Center.
Little Gem is Irish playwright Elaine Murphy’s raucous debut piece that was first carried out within the U.Okay. in 2008. This award-winning saga particulars the various occasions, from the magnificent to the mundane, which unfold inside a single yr for 3 generations of ladies from a (fictional) North Dublin household.
Loaded with each situational humor and timeless knowledge, that is simply the kind of sophisticated story the PURE ensemble delights in deciphering. As director Christy Landis informed the City Paper, “There is no better medium to explore the complexities of human existence — our foibles, sarcasm, wit, shame, yearnings — than the medium of live theatre.”
That mentioned, Landis and firm needed to transfer quick to carry their collective imaginative and prescient for Little Gem to fruition.
“In this instance, the show has come together relatively quickly,” she mentioned. “Sharon Graci, our artistic director, had selected the play for inclusion in our ‘Season 19: Emergence.’ But as director, I only became attached to the project in late summer and we didn’t even start rehearsals with the actors until late October.”
For another crew, such a hurried timeline would have been an intimidating activity, however Landis insisted it was comparatively straightforward to tug off, given the PURE ensemble’s long-established rapport, together with Little Gem’s trio of lead actresses: Gibson Carter (as Amber); Camille Lowman (as Lorraine); and Lynda Harvey (as Kay).
“One of the great benefits of working with our Core ensemble is that everyone fulfills their individual responsibilities with great prowess, and we’re all aware of each other’s strengths, as we have been collaborating together for so many wonderful years,” Landis mentioned.
That’s to not suggest that there weren’t challenges. Since the characters are all North Dubliners and transfer all through the play, there’s no single location the place the story unravels. As such, the scene designer Richard Heffner was tasked with creating an setting that was visually compelling alongside the way in which, however nonetheless arrange for dynamic motion.
Then there was the matter of the place to stage the manufacturing. For PURE’s performances of Leonard Pulkey final month, the crew went seeking sufficient venues that had been obtainable. Fortunately for this one, the group was capable of return to its house theater on Cannon Street for the whole run of Little Gem.
“As a company, we have always preferred smaller, more intimate performance spaces so that no one in the audience is too distant from the action and emotion of the plays,” Landis mentioned.
This cozy little place is an ideal match since, at one time or one other, every character in Little Gem shares their innermost ideas and recollections with the viewers. It is nearly as if Murphy knew her work would someday find yourself right here when she deftly, and deliberately, included such direct addresses and asides into the dialogue.
In the tip, Landis and Graci couldn’t be extra happy with the homecoming.
“During the pandemic, when the set of the last show that we produced before the lockdown was still standing where we left it, and the props were all still in the last place they were set before we went away, I would come and sit by myself in the seats and look at remnants of that interrupted show and wonder if we would ever come back,” Graci mentioned.
Not surprisingly, given all that the PURE ensemble has endured of late, the crew’s hopes round Little Gem are excessive.
“Opening Little Gem, in our home theatre, for a full run, is going to be amazing,” Graci mentioned. “It is the final lap in a very long journey home. We’ve grown a lot, we’ve learned a ton, and we’ve calibrated and recalibrated our grit time and again over these last 20 months in anticipation of being here now.”
PURE Theatre presents Little Gem on the Cannon St. Arts Center Nov. 26 – Dec. 18. For tickets and present particulars name (843) 723-4444.