Walking down some dodgy back-street in New York in 2004, I ambled across a shifty looking character selling movie scripts bound in cheap cardboard. My uncertainty of the legitimacy of this unlikely businessman fought against my overwhelming desire to bring useless trinkets back to the homeland and culminated in me hastily requesting the script to the most popular film that he had. A yellowing, but word-perfect, copy of The Shawshank Redemption’s script now adorns my coffee table. Today, fifteen years since the story was adapted for the screen from its original incarnation as Stephen King’s 1982 novella, ‘Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption’, and its popularity shows no signs of slowing. The very first stage adaptation of the story is opening at the Gaiety Theatre this May, starring Kevin Anderson and Reg Cathey. Director Peter Sheridan took some time out to talk to Totally Dublin about the relevance that The Shawshank Redemption has to the Irish people.
Hi Peter, thanks for taking the time to have a chat with us. The first ever stage adaptation of the Shawshank Redemption is almost ready to be revealed. Has it been a long time in the making?
It has a bit. The guys who wrote it had the idea to do it about four or five years ago, when they were working together. An Irish guy called Owen O’Neill and a fella he met called Dave Johns: two comics doing the circuit in the UK. They met up while they were doing Twelve Angry Men together and they discovered a mutual love of the Shawshank Redemption. They had a conversation one day where they said “isn’t it amazing nobody’s ever done that for the stage?” So they made some enquiries and discovered that the rights actually were available. They approached an Irish producer and they found Pat Moylan and Breda Cashe. Pat and Breda came on board and they secured the Irish rights for it and then the boys started to adapt it. About eight months ago I was brought into the party. I’ve worked with Pat several times over the years so she asked me to consider this thing and, of course like everybody else, I love the movie and I love the book.
It’s amazing that it hasn’t been adapted before now due to the story’s huge success in both its original written form and its screen incarnation. What do you think it is about the story that has such universal appeal?
Well the word is in the title: there is a redemption at the core of the story and I suppose there is a kind of fundamental yearning in all of us to be saved, whether that’s just on a material level or on a deeper, more spiritual level. There’s some basic, fundamental thing in all human beings – the idea of being saved. This is a story where one guy, a Jesus-like figure (Andy Dufresne), has this power. He suffers greatly: he’s been beaten up by rapists, turned over by the Governor and generally been abused. Yet throughout all of this he never loses that inner light, that hope, that sense of his own worth. On some very, very deep level his story connects to a lot of people. So I think it’s kind of a modern parable, a modern Jesus story, and I think that’s its power.
You’re well known for your depiction of life in Ireland, and in Dublin in particular. What was it about the Shawshank Redemption that caused you to veer off-course slightly and look away from your archetypal Irish subject matter?
People often ask that question. There are two parts to the answer. The first thing is that I myself have always had a huge interest in institutions, particularly in prison-type institutions in Ireland. I’ve written about St. Patrick’s prison, the juvenile prison, in a play called ‘The Liberties’ back in the late 70s and I wrote a play set in the Long Kesh during the time of the hunger strikes; I just have had this huge interest in all things penal all my life. I don’t know where it comes from; it must have been a previous existence. I must have been a prisoner or a guard or something. My grandfather spent time in prison for Republican activity after 1916, so there would have been an interest from that. But I think the thing about the Shawshank is that Ireland, in particular, has this really strange history with prisons. Prisons play a really important part in Irish history. I often say to Americans, because it’s just so different in the States, that it’s a badge of honour to have spent time in prison, especially for political activities. That would never happen in America; in America it’s more like a badge of shame. Especially the whole thing around the Republican movement, 1916 to the 1920s – you were nobody if you didn’t spend time in jail. I think when the second Dáil met, nearly everybody in the chamber had spent time in jail at one time or another. So there’s a very important connection to the Irish experience within the jail theme. And I think it’s a perfect fit. I think the fit of the Shawshank and the Irish experience are just a perfect match. I think it’s totally great that the world premiere is taking place in Dublin.
Do you feel a higher sense of pressure directing a story that is already so well-known, and so well-loved?
Yes, it is an added pressure, there’s no question about it. There’s a huge expectation. It’s a much-loved movie and it’s a much-loved book and everybody has a view on it. So many, many people will be coming to see the movie – but they aint gonna get the movie!
Have you made a lot of changes?
Yeah, we have. We’ve gone back to the original material, which is the novella. Before it was ever a movie it was scripted as a 180 page novella that Stephen King wrote in 1982, so that’s the source material for everything and we’ve gone back to that. In the original book there are things that are quite different to the film. That’s the well we’re going from. There are differences, and I think people will be surprised by the differences, but you have to trust that the material is good enough in itself. We’re not trying to do a movie, we’re trying to do a play. And a play is a different animal altogether.
You mentioned that the Shawshank Redemption was originally a novella written by horror-master, Stephen King. Are you a fan?
I think he’s an incredible storyteller. I think that the great thing that marks Stephen King apart from an awful lot of other people is that, in his books, you never cease to be surprised. Anyone who can do that in storytelling is a master. They can keep you guessing as to what’s going to happen. He’s a wonderful drawer of characters; his stories are all character-based and I love that. He’s a modern master of the genre. He is to the late 20th century what Charles Dickens was to Victorian England. And he has this thing about prison as well. So he has something in his previous existence too – maybe me and Stephen King were guards in the same prison in a past life!
Kevin Anderson and Reg Cathey have been drafted in to play the roles of Andy and Red respectively. Were they obvious choices from the outset?
I went to New York and I saw a lot of people. I had a huge range of people to choose from but they were just outstanding in terms of what they bring to the project. I couldn’t have asked for better people and I think people are going to be blown away by them.
Anderson, Cathey and yourself all have extensive experience both on stage and screen. If you had to work out your days in just one medium, which would it be?
Well I’m a child of the theatre, y’know. The theatre was my first discovery, aged 15/16, and it has remained so close to my heart. I just love the process of working on a live show; working on a show that happens in front of an audience. Obviously the audience are an important part of a live performance, they’re an essential ingredient. So I’ve never lost that love for the theatre. When it’s great it’s really great, and it’s great on a level that film can never be. I love films but the theatre’s my absolute first love.
What is your dream book to adapt for the stage?
Well I’m working on an adaption, as we speak, of a book that my son has written called ‘The Runners’, which comes out next month from New Island Books. I’ve been working on adapting that for a film with him for the past year. It’s about two young boys in inner city Dublin who are best pals and it’s kind of their coming-of-age story. They’re involved in their local boxing club and they’ve got a mentor in the club who looks after them. It’s about the relationship between the mentor and the two boys.
Sheena Madden
