Brew #14: Galway Bay Brewing Co. Aikau Amber Ale
Pour: Opaque dark amber with a finger of white froth
Taste: Lovely pine hops upfront with a sweet mango syrup wash and finishing on a light dry bite. Caramel malt and berries in the background. A really nice ale.
Notes: Pint on draught at Tully’s Bar, Waterford.
It’s midweek and I’ve got tickets for the theatre dahling. I’m bringing my mum to see a new play at Garter Lane Arts Centre. Presented by Waterford Youth Arts, Martina Collenders One Hundred Thousand Breaths is an intrepid exploration of the mindset of young Irish people in present times. It is by turns expansive, manic, witty, insightful and unfailingly engaging albeit swerving so wildly at times as to seem unfocused. This is a script devised from workshops with the young actors involved and centered on the concerns they have in regard to growing up, their place within society and the condition of that society as they see it. So it can be forgiven its periodic lapses in attention span. The play presents two friends, May and Michael, the former a 1916 Rising obsessive who believes 2016 should see a new rising from the youth of Ireland and the latter a casually cynical observer of his generation. They are seen in a series of vignettes in the company of friends and family at various points of their school and weekend days. A large cast of surrounding characters allow tentacles of sub plots to branch out and raise themes and issues at a machine gun pace. There is no central narrative as such, beyond the younger generations worry about their place in the present and what the future holds framed in the context of the 1916 Rising 100th anniversary celebrations. Around that central premise the myriad of concerns unfurl and whip the audience in a storm of teenage hormones. One Hundred Thousand Breaths is the very essence of the folk who created it and Liam Meaghers direction allows it to run without ever getting out of control or too unwieldy for the viewer to handle. It is a riot and was a great night out at the theatre.
Afterwards my mum and I sit in Tully’s bar and talk about the play with no small degree of animation. I had forgotten how invigorating a good piece of theatre could be and resolve to go more. The Aikau goes down well and its honeyed cedar freshness has me reminiscing of my time in Waterford Youth Arts over 20 years ago and how much of a handful I was for the woman sitting across from me. It’s a group that provides kids with a safe, welcoming space within which to explore feelings and thoughts about the onslaught of the adult world and to develop creative urges and give grounding in some of the skills needed to progress in the world of arts in general. It’s also a great socializing experience and based on the play tonight it’s still all those things and more. Some of the stories from that time come into conversation and my mums warm recollections of antics by my friends and I betray the patience only a mother can possess. My own kids are still young but the future maelstrom of emotions, emerging identity and peer pressures looms before me and melts into circles of time and repeated histories and the ways we were, we are, we will be in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying in our town...
