Inigo: a play about Ignatius of Loyola

Jonathan Moore

Jonathan Moore is an award winning actor, writer and director. As an actor he has played leading roles at the Royal Shakespeare Co, Royal Court, Donmar, the Royal Exchange and on BBC TV. He has directed theatre and opera world premieres at the Almeida, Donmar, West End, Royal Exchange, Gate, English National Opera, Covent Garden, La Fenice in Venice and on TV among many others. He has directed world premieres by composers such as Turnage, MacMillan, Henze, Schnittke, Nyman, Copeland and more, and his early work was sponsored by Joe Strummer of The Clash. He has collaborated with members of punk band Killing Joke and on several projects with Industrial group Test Dept.

A published playwright and librettist, his work has been performed at leading theatres including the Donmar, Royal Exchange, Gate, BBC TV, radio and internationally. Jonathan was asked by Mark Rylance to direct the large scale immersive project for over fifty performers What You Will, a co-production for Shakespeare’s Globe, The Cultural Olympiad and Mayor’s Office and several subsequent Shakespeare projects. He is due to direct a large scale site specific immersive project for Ludovico Einaudi in Italy and a new opera project with Stewart Copeland. He is on the Artistic Advisory Committee of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He has had a Who’s Who entry since 2007.

www.jonathanmooreuk.com

First published in the UK in 2015 by Aurora Metro Publications Ltd 67 Grove Avenue, Twickenham, TW1 4HX

[email protected]

Inigo © 2015 Jonathan Moore

Cover graphic © 2015 Rhys Jenkins

Introduction © 2015 Mark Lawson

Painting of Ignatius of Loyola by Montserrat Gudiol used by kind permission of Cova, Manresa

Production: Simon Smith

With many thanks to: Neil Gregory, Richard Turk, Grace Thiele, Lucia Tunstall, Ellen Cheshire and Tracey Mulford.

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Printed by 4Edge, Hockley, UK

ISBN: 978-1-906582-72-2 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-906582-73-9 (ebook)

INIGO

by

JONATHAN MOORE

With love and thanks to William Billy Hewett SJ for his initiating inspiration for this play, and in recognition of his lifetime’s devotion to telling Inigo’s story through the arts.

AURORA METRO BOOKS

The intelligence of the production, and especially the vitality and versatility of the performances make for a moving, stimulating and enjoyable experience. The structure and dynamism of the play, the art with which Jonathan Moore makes Ignatius accessible to us, capturing much of the drama of the ‘Spiritual Exercises’ themselves, would also make ‘Inigo’ an excellent discovery for schools and colleges. I hope that is something we may look forward to.

James Hanvey SJ, Master of Campion Hall, Oxford University. (thinkingfaith.org)

An astonishing achievement. Jonathan Moore has honed the story with skill and passion and also a good measure of humour.

Jane Hellings, Jesuits and Friends.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

BIOGRAPHIES

INIGO

Jonathan Moore would like to thank:

Mum and Dad; special thanks to Elly Harrison; Michael Kingsbury and all at The White Bear, especially Jonathan Woodhouse and Rhys Jenkins; all the amazing actors: Ian, Carolyn, Stacie, Christine and all at BADA; Lloyd Trott for invaluable dramaturgical advice and Diane Favell at RADA; Annie Tyson and the young cast at Drama Centre in 2010; Wills at Shakespeare’s Globe; Billy Hewett, Jacob Murray, Jack Shepherd, Roger Monk and John Moffat for help with various drafts; Director Greg Hersov and great assistant Rafaella Marcus for editorial help in the rehearsal period. Mark Lawson for all his support; Jane Hellings (and all at Jesuit Media Initiatives.) Andrew Cameron-Mowat SJ, James Martin SJ, Dermot Preston SJ, and Deb Waters for her intelligence and humour and for being a genius prop maker. Chris Smyth and Amber Taylor, our stage managers at the White Bear and Pleasance respectively; Tania Azavedo, assistant director at the White Bear Theatre whose relentless optimism and efficiency lifted everyone. Julie Bergevin, Janice de Broíthe and Chloe France, brilliant assistants for the transfer production. Laura Cordery and Lily Faith Knight, our designers at White Bear and the Pleasance respectively. Ben Cowens, a lighting and sound designer of rare and brilliant gifts.

To the actor Mary D’Arcy Ryan, who was my inspirational drama teacher of genius. (She encouraged my dream when I was ten that I could be an actor). It’s all your fault Mary! Love and thanks always. The play reunited us after thirty years and led to her support for the revival; James Garriock, RIP, inspirational headmaster; Tiggy Butler, without whom the first production couldn’t have happened; Christina Potty Connolly, a major force behind Inigo Enterprises, for her support.

Thanks also to: Cova, Manresa, for granting permission to use the painting of Ignatius of Loyola by Montserrat Gudiol; and to an Anonymous Donor.

Introduction

Saints and Punks: The Theatre of Jonathan Moore

Although I accept that this will not be the case for most travelers in London, the Underground system holds two particular cultural associations for me. When arriving at a station on a particular east-to-west line with green and yellow livery, I think of Seamus Heaney’s poetry collection District and Circle. And, when catching sight of the warning printed above the door of trains to encourage fluent movement at crowded times – Obstructing the Doors Causes Delays and Is Dangerous – I think of the plays of Jonathan Moore.

With a title that captures a crucially combative aspect of both his writing and his personality, Obstruct the Doors, Cause Delay and Be Dangerous – one of Moore’s early plays – was my introduction to his work in the 1980s, along with a TV version of Treatment, his magnificently angry and distinctive piece about Liam, a young man trying to escape from the life of gang violence to which his location and background threaten to condemn him.

Transformation – social, artistic, spiritual – is the recurrent theme of Moore’s plays. Apart from Liam’s struggle between two possible lives in Treatment, the characters in Fall from Light have reached the world of opera from a London estate.

Those who know or know about Moore may dare to presume some autobiography in the latter play, as the writer grew up in an ordinary second generation Irish Catholic family and has reached places – such as directing in the grandest opera houses of Europe – that most sociologists would not have predicted to appear on his CV.

Inigo, his tremendous new play, again features a protagonist who ends up somewhere that would originally have seemed unlikely to both himself and to others. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order of Roman Catholic priests, abandoned a life of wealth, sex and violence to become a Christian pilgrim whose opposition to the