To The Lighthouse

Presented by Hatch Theatre Company and The Everyman in association with Pavilion Theatre and Cork Midsummer Festival

Written by Virginia Woolf
Adapted by Marina Carr
Directed by Annabelle Comyn

On demand video stream

This masterpiece of modernism is brought vividly to dramatic life by Ireland’s foremost playwright Marina Carr in a world premiere from award-winning director Annabelle Comyn. Filmed on The Everyman stage this digital capture of the stage production will be broadcast as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival on 25th June 2021.

The play opens on the Ramsay family and carefree days spent with friends by the sea. Children play, Mr. Carmichael reclines with a handkerchief over his face, Lily paints her picture and six year old James wants to sail to the lighthouse. Life is sweet.

But what appears tranquil on the surface, masks deep currents of longing and frustration which the characters struggle to contain.

With the promise of a trip to the lighthouse cancelled tensions in the home, and beyond, rupture violently and fling these lives into turmoil and change. The world is in transition and death becomes a footnote to a seismic global change, those who remain to try to cope in a new era and with the loss that it brings.

Woolf’s text is written in a form where thoughts and emotions are foregrounded. Marina Carr’s adaptation captures the constant flux of the characters’ inner thoughts and re-imagines them in a theatrical landscape. It recalls childhood emotions and highlights emptiness and yearning in adult relationships. Among the play’s many themes are those of loss, subjectivity, the nature of art, unity, and the problem of perception.