I’ve got mixed feelings about sequels. I love The Godfather 2 and Terminator 2. I even love the Meg 2. But after persuading my son Cóilín to watch Final Destination 2 with me, I had to admit that he was right when he said it’s pretty much identical to the first one. We’re used to sequels to movies, but a sequel to a play is another thing entirely. And yet that’s exactly what I found myself pondering soon after Fergal McGrath commissioned me to write a new play for the Town Hall Theatre. I kept trying to talk myself out of writing Finding Sophie, because a new play is hard enough to get off the ground at the best of times without it also being a sequel. As I set out to explore the idea, I had no idea that director Andrew Flynn and Decadent Theatre Company would go on to produce it at the Town Hall Theatre.
Fergal and I had agreed that the play would be set in the world of people with intellectual disabilities (ID ), but the script I planned to write just didn’t want to be written. Instead, Larry and Sophie, the two leading characters from Sanctuary, my 2012 play for Blue Teapot Theatre Company, kept coming into my head. I told myself their story was finished, but it was an ending that felt right and yet broke my heart at the same time. In Sanctuary, Larry and Sophie sneak out of a group trip to the cinema to a hotel room across the road, finally alone together for the first time in their lives. There, they negotiate the tricky business of sex and have the time of their lives before everything goes wrong. A 2016 feature film adaptation also ends on a sad note, suggesting the two lovers may never see each other again.
I then thought of another reason to write Finding Sophie. When Blue Teapot commissioned me to write Sanctuary in 2012, its artistic director Petal Pilley told me it was illegal at the time for people with ID to have sex before marriage. Her actors with ID were angry that they were being denied the same right to relationships and sex as everyone else. But in 2017, the law was changed and now people with ID have that right. Surely this new landscape offered hope to Larry and Sophie? Or was it more likely that their dream of togetherness would be thwarted once again, due to the controlling caution of family members and carers? In the end, these questions proved impossible to resist. Larry and Sophie would have their sequel.
Once I had written the script, encouraging words from my wife Ailbhe, dramaturg Andrew Flynn and Petal at Blue Teapot persuaded me this was a story worth telling. But, would Kieran Coppinger and Charlene Kelly, the two stars of Sanctuary, want to play Larry and Sophie again all these years later?
When Andrew Flynn expressed a desire to direct Finding Sophie as a Decadent co-production with the Town Hall Theatre, it was time for Kieran and Charlene to meet him. As soon as that meeting took place, they knew they wanted to work with him. It took me no time at all to fall in love with Kieran and Charlene 13 years ago and it has been the same for everyone working on this exciting production, including Andrew and the brilliant Denis Conway and the fabulous Anna Healy, who complete our cast.
Finding Sophie is a Galway love story. But Finding Sophie isn’t just for the people of Galway – it’s for anyone with a heart. Indeed, it’s a play that’s as much for people who haven’t seen Sanctuary as those who have. If you’re curious to know if Larry and Sophie have a happy ending this time, there’s only one way to find out.
The world premiere of Finding Sophie by Christian O’Reilly is at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway from this Friday 5 September and runs until Saturday 13 September. For more see www.tht.ie
