Moya O’Connell, Actor

Moya O’Connell is an actor who has previously performed at the Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Audio Excerpt

Moya O’Connell recites a speech from The Winter’s Tale

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Interview Excerpts

THE RELIGION OF THEATRE

MOYA O’CONNELL: I grew up on a farm, sort of as far away from the theater as you could possibly get, I guess. And—except that my parents are very—very literate, art-loving people. I guess that’s it. And they’re immigrants from Ireland and England. We grew up living off the land.

And I don’t know why I became an actor and actress. There wasn’t a seminal moment in it. I—I just always liked language.

Actually, I think this is—it’s—it’s something that I’ve seen in a lot of people I know. I was raised Catholic—I’m not—I’m a lapsed Catholic; I’m not a Catholic anymore. Sorry, Dad.

But—but a lot of people I know who are actors, or classical actors, have some sort of religious background in—is there an aurality that you have that you’re forced to go to this sort of cavern and hear these things incanted and rhythmically intoned within a community and I think that’s a—we share that. A lot of people I know. A wonderful classical actor in town, he’s the son of a—a minister and he grew up reading the King James’s Bible every night. So maybe that’s where it came from, that I. . . .

I despised going to church but something about the ritual of it and the words being intoned stayed me and so I think I grew into it. And I never—it wasn’t a big leap.

THE PERFECT TRIO

MOYA O’CONNELL: I just finished reading a book about Peter Brooks, who is an interesting man, of course, but he was talking about how it exists—Shakespeare exists on so many different levels: it exists on the narrative level, these great stories that he’s penned or, you know, taken; and it exists on a metaphorical level, his—the depth of his language; and then it exists on just a sonic level, where the words express what he’s trying to say, the same as in music.

And I think all three of those things come—when they come together, as an actor, it’s not something you can—you can think about too much but in the practice of it, that’s what you really try to put together. Telling the story, the depth—trying to articulate the depth of what he’s saying, and just, for lack of a better word, singing it or the way the words sound create what he means. It’s a perfect little trio.

BIGGER THAN US

MOYA O’CONELL: But this idea that it’s the director’s vision and it’s their show, it’s so-and-so’s production of—and they have this grand conceit behind it, I think—I think it falls short. I think the best directors of Shakespeares are the one who understand the heart of the story and who know how to move people around the stage and hire the right people in order to say that.

And once you start putting massive conceits on Shakespeare—I mean, I’ve done so many of those plays where there are these big conceits on. Sometimes they work, oftentimes they don’t. Well, oftentimes they do work and they’re very interesting. But always, guaranteed, every single time the play will bust forth and will bust out of the conceit. It’s too big to be put, for a play to be set in, you know, so-and-so time period with this parallel running. It’s—the plays—which is while they’re still done—they’re—they grandly appeal to all time.

So we try to constrain them, we try to put our stamp on them, but they will bust forth. And I think the real, the true artist, being humble enough to realize that . . .

. . . to realize that they are—they are bigger than us and we just need to—to tell the story. And to tell that story expertly, with expertise and skill. And heart. And that’s when you’re going to be moved, I think. Or challenged or stimulated.