Leaves (2007)

Plays

leaves2“We are where we come from? That’s not true. Because if that’s true there’s no hope for any of us.”

Lori is coming home from her first term at university. Its only been a few weeks and already things have gone badly wrong. But none of the rest of the family knows, or understands, what really happened. In this fiercely observed family drama, three teenage girls struggle to define who they are, and why, and where they might be going.

LEAVES premiered in Chapel Lane, Galway, on 1st March 2007 before transferring to the Royal Court Theatre (Upstairs), London. The play won the 2006 George Devine Award and the 2007 Susan Smith Blackburn Award.

Cast:

Fiona Bell, Alana Brennan, Conor Lovett, Daisy Maguire, Penelope Maguire, Kathy Rose O’Brien Director Garry Hynes; Set Design: Francis O’Connor; Lighting Ben Ormerod; Sound: John Leonard; Music: Sam Jackson

 

French Translation of Leaves

berthFeuilles, Séverine Magois’s translation of Leaves, directed by Mélanie Leray for Theâtre des Lucioles premièred at the Théâtre National de Bretagne in Rennes on February 26, 2009.

The cast included David Jeanne-Comello and Valérie Schwarcz.

The translation, by Séverine Magois (who won a Molière in 2005 for her translation of The Browning Version), has been published by Les Editions théâtrales with the support of the Centre national du livre

Praise for “Leaves”

This is an unmissable play… This is Lucy Caldwell’s first full-length play, but it has the maturity, thoughtful compassion and controlled theatricality of experience.
John Peter, The Sunday Times

[A] highly promising first play.
Michael Billington, The Guardian

Caldwell is spectacularly good. […] Caldwell has done a remarkable job of character creation, each one a totally credible, rounded individual; she also has an extraordinary grasp of the reality of suffering, as well as the triggers of self-preserving selfishness.
Emer O’Kelly, Irish Independent

Caldwell’s evocation of the imperviousness of depression to logic, and the heartbreaking isolation which results is exceptional, as is her understanding of the relationship between siblings in their most tender and vulnerable years.
Mary Coll, Irish Independent

Leaves dramatises the stresses of this desolate situation with unblinking insight and quiet, rueful humour.
Paul Taylor, Independent

Caldwell digs deep, touches on raw pain and the result is moving.
Sarah Hemming, Financial Times

[A] strikingly mature work, both upsetting and, in the end, uplifting.
Quentin Letts, The Daily Mail

Acutely perceptive… Thoughtful and sensitive.
Sam Marlowe, The Times