Someone Old, Someone New My favourite movie of all time: Annie Hall. Opening Scene: an incredibly young, bespectacled Woody Allen is standing against a brown backdrop. He wears a tweed jacket with lapels so wide that a small aircraft could land on one of them. Underneath the jacket he wears a red tartan shirt, and underneath that a t-shirt. He is talking straight at camera: “There’s an old joke. Uh, two elderly women are at a Catskills mountain resort, and one of ‘em says: “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know, and such ... small portions.” Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life. Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.” Annie Hall won best picture at the Oscars in 1978. By the time I walked through the Front Gate of Trinity College in September 1978 as a fresh-faced freshman during Freshers Week, I had already seen “Annie Hall” three times. It was a fresh sunny day and in Front Square all the Societies and Clubs were pitching for new fresh members. D.U. Players were auditioning for a play called “Death” by the man-of-the- moment - Woody Allen. Auditions in the Players Theatre, Number 4 Front Square. Fame beckoned. I joined Players. The protagonist of “Death” is Kleinman, a typically compulsive Allen anti-hero, all worry and hesitation, who is awoken during the night by a group of local vigilantes who tear him from his bed as they try to track down a homicidal maniac who is running amok in New York City.That afternoon, I auditioned for “Death”. I got a part. Not that of Kleinman, which I had really wanted. But hey - I got a part. I got a script. I was “Man Number 2”. I had two lines. I seem to remember they were: MAN NUMBER TWO: “Yeah, get out of bed, Kleinman” And later on in the play; MAN NUMBER TWO: “Someone’s coming. We’d better hide” These were hardly the lines on which to build a successful stage career. I could hear Woody Allen’s voice as he tells the joke about the women in the Catskills “Yeah, I know, and such ... small portions.” But I loved being in that play. “Death”. I loved rehearsals. I loved the 6 day run. My parents came twice. They were impressed by my acting. I loved being in Trinity. I loved being in Players. And that’s how it was for the next four years. The truth is it doesn’t matter if you are playing Hamlet or Kleinman or Man Number Two, the art is in the doing of it.
Get involved. Join Players.
I promise that instead of your student days being “full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness”, those days will instead be full of camaraderie and fun and joy and happiness. Alas, however, as Woody Allen says, like life, it will all be over much too quickly. I’m basing this advice on my own personal experience:
Get a life. Join Players.
20
Gary Jermyn
So Brian McMahon-Gallagher calls me at 3am on a Tuesday. He wants me to write a piece for his magazine. Something about tips for Freshers’ Week. I say “Brian, why are you calling me at 3am? Is everything alright? Why do I hear sirens?” He tells me not to pry, and to write the damn article. I tell him I’ll do it, fantastic Freshers’ Week, yada yada, hang up. I then realise that it was all lies. What do I know about Freshers’ Week? Why is it any different to any other week? One step at a time... First day, I walk with a spring in my step and a gleam in my eye. Both spring and gleam are currently in storage and will be for the foreseeable future. Anyway, I haven’t even made it through Front Arch when I’m stopped by a guy with goodie bags. My first mistake: I talked to the guy. I’m a sucker for a goodie bag. I don’t care what’s in them. The guy eventually talks me into opening a bank account. I already had a bank account. Why did I think I’d need a second one? My advice here is if you talk to the guy, don’t get the bank account. Get his phone number, get his bank details for all I care but for a-deity-of-your-choiceor-lack-thereof’s sake (I’ve been asked to keep this P.C.) don’t open the account. For the next six months I got phone calls from the bank wondering why I wasn’t using the account. But hey, maybe you don’t have a bank account. Who am I to tell you how to manage your finances? By the way, the goodie bag was complete horse [expletive], if you hadn’t realised. Through Front Arch it’s mayhem. People everywhere trying to sign me up for this society, come to this event, buy this watch. Don’t buy the watches - they stop working after a day. And you’ll join half the societies and never show up to anything. “But Robbie, it’s worth it for the Captain America’s discount!” The same [expletive] discount that’s on every [expletive] card? That’s how they get you. It’s a vicious syndicate, they’re all in it together. Perhaps you thought this magazine was about pimping and you’re now quivering in fear at the raw feminism that is likely housed between its covers. But if you like drama, joining Players will probably benefit you. Or maybe not, I’m not a psychic, leave me alone. Newsflash: your new BFF that you met in Opium Lounge or whatever it’s called when you both said “OMG Hozier is my jam. He’s totally the bomb dot com backslash Vietnam!”, then promised to be best friends FIVEever and meet up for waffles in Lemon every Wednesday? You can bet your non-gender specific genitalia you’ll never see them again. Suck it up, you’re an adult now. You’ll have time later to join societies, lose all your money and make new friends. Freshers’ Week is for having a good time even though you don’t know anybody, getting smashed, and dancing like nobody’s watching. After the immortal Mel Brooks: “Hope for the best, expect the worst.” Give it all you’ve got. Enjoy your first Seshers’ Week! And get some sleep, don’t be a hero, think of your poor mother.
Robbie Doyle