Candlelit Theatre is a multidisciplinary theatre company based in Dublin.  It draws inspiration from the Irish mythological cycles and brings these stories to life in thrilling and original ways. Their shows supplement Irish mythic material with original music, dance, physical theatre, and visual art. 

Connla’s Wave is the tragic story of Connla, the son of Cuchulainn: his youth and how he eventually meets a tragic end at the hands of his own father. To frame this story in the present, Candlelit use two of the immortal Tuatha de Danann: Angus Óg, the god of love from Brú na Boinne, and the Morrígan, goddess of war. Then there is the endless Fintan Mac Bocera (shapeshifting shaman and the first man in Ireland). 

The Tuatha Dé are fading from existence. To perpetuate they must fix Fintan, the living, breathing personification of Ireland’s history. They will achieve this by pushing Fintan through a recounting of this story of fierce loss, grief, and guilt; maybe through this he (and we as a nation) can come to terms with letting go of the past and step forward into a new identity with fresh challenges awaiting in the 21st century.

Participating in the SHOW festival will allow us to solidify concepts we have worked on for a long time.  It will allow us to begin to build up an audience in Cork and network with theatre practitioners we have become distanced from by being based in Dublin.  We would like to use SHOW as an opportunity to engage in conversations with our audience and practitioners about where we can bring this piece and who might be interested in seeing it in 2020 and 2021. We want to figure out how best to produce it in the coming year and gauge peoples reactions to the material.