The Visiting Hour

Description

You used to swing me on our garden gate. In and out, in and out - out and in,me, on top of the gate, safe because I was in your arms, my father's big strongarms. Recalling events that may or may not have happened, people he may or maynot have known, an elderly father weaves his life, funny, angry, poignant, as ifin a dream. His daughter, perched outside his window, as close as the pandemicallows, responds with conflicting memories. They sing and argue, theybroach dangerous ground, their profound love apparent despite themselves,until the visiting hour is up. Written during the Covid-19 lockdown of 2020, Frank McGuinness's The VisitingHour premiered in April 2021 at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, in the firstonline Gate At Home production.

Frank McGuinness was born in Buncrana, Co. Donegal, and now lives in Dublin and lectures in English at University College Dublin. His plays include: The Factory Girls (Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 1982), Baglady (Abbey, 1985), Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (Abbey, 1985; Hampstead Theatre, London, 1986), Innocence (Gate Theatre, Dublin, 1986), Carthaginians (Abbey, 1988; Hampstead, 1989), Mary and Lizzie (RSC, 1989), The Bread Man (Gate, 1991), Someone Who'll Watch Over Me (Hampstead, West End and Broadway, 1992), The Bird Sanctuary (Abbey, 1994), Mutabilitie (NT, 1997), Dolly West's Kitchen (Abbey, 1999; Old Vic, 2000), Gates of Gold (Gate, 2002), Speaking Like Magpies (Swan, Stratford, 2005), There Came a Gypsy Riding (Almeida, London, 2007), Greta Garbo Came to Donegal (Tricycle Theatre, London, 2010), The Match Box (Liverpool Playhouse Studio, 2012), The Hanging Gardens (Abbey, 2013), Donegal (Abbey, 2016), The Visiting Hour (Gate, 2021) and Dinner With Groucho (The Civic, Belfast, 2022). His widely performed versions include Ibsen's Rosmersholm (1987), Peer Gynt (1988), Hedda Gabler (1994), A Doll's House (1997), The Lady from the Sea (2008) and John Gabriel Borkman (2010); Chekhov's Three Sisters (1990) and Uncle Vanya (1995); Lorca's Yerma (1987); Brecht's The Threepenny Opera (1991) and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1997); Sophocles' Electra (1998) and Oedipus (2008); Ostrovsky's The Storm (1998); Strindberg's Miss Julie (2000); Euripides' Hecuba (2004) and Helen (2009); Racine's Phaedra (2006); Tirso de Molina's Damned by Despair (2012); and James Joyce's The Dead (2013).