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Video: Gabriel Byrne Explains What WALKING WITH GHOSTS Is All About
May 17, 2024
Internationally renowned actor and writer Gabriel Byrne will return to Broadway in his acclaimed solo show, Walking with Ghosts, adapted from his best-selling memoir of the same name. Directed by Lonny Price, the limited engagement of Walking with Ghosts will begin performances on October 18, with an official opening night of Thursday, October 27, at the Music Box Theatre for 75 performances only.
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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Following critically acclaimed sold-out runs in Dublin, Edinburgh, and London's West End
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stage and screen legend Gabriel Byrne has come to Broadway and walking with ghosts for limited engagement through December 30th
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Adapted from his best-selling memoir, it is directed by Lonnie Price, and I caught up with both of them here at the Music Box Theater
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Well, welcome back to Broadway. How does it feel to be back here again? Well, you know, Broadway is the mecca
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I remember once years ago in Dublin, there was a woman who came into the tiny theatre
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that we were working in at the time and people were just like afraid to speak to her
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because she had been off Broadway. That's how far away that that concept was
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And to be on Broadway, I mean, I can't. Sometimes I can't even take it in
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You walk down 45th Street and you say, oh my God, this is the place. This is it. It doesn't get any higher than this. So yeah, I'm absolutely thrilled to be here
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Now you started this run back in Dublin At a theater you had performed at last time was it 30 something years ago Yeah yeah yeah yeah How magical was that Oh my God it was a sense of completion of a circle I know people talk about things like that but it really did feel like I was coming home
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And playing before the home audience is difficult. Because they know you in a particular way
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and they have a preconception of you. But it was so warm and so welcoming
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I was really touched by it. And, you know, we've gone to the West End and the Edinburgh Festival
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and audiences have been incredibly warm. But you're a little bit tentative with each new audience
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Will they get this? Will they get that? And then the relief when people say, oh, yeah, I got what you're talking about
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That's really powerful to me. It's universal. I mean, talk about what you hope audiences take away with
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or can feel from the play. I think I set out to write something that would make people laugh, move them
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and then that they would take away something that they would be able to look at in their own lives
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Because as I said many times before it not a show with me going hey look at me I doing my schick up there It not about that It about being as truthful as you possibly can in a dramatic way The form of how you do it whether it drama or musical or this it doesn matter
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It's connecting in a real way with the audience so that they can leave saying
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wow, now, what about me? That's really what it's about. It's about saying, I'm doing this so that you can walk out of here
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Because I think that's what a dramatist, a dramatist, sets out to do
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I mean, he's setting out to connect almost like in a spiritual way with an audience
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So let's talk about how did you get involved to direct Gabriel in his show
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Yeah, Gabriel and I met about 15 years ago when I directed him in Camelot at the New York Philharmonic
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And we became lovely friends. And I don't know how long ago, when he first wrote the book, the memoir, he sent a very very
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early version to me to look at. And by page three, I was just utterly dazzled by you don't expect a friend or an actor
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to be that kind of a writer. You know, you think it would be like a memoir, you know, showbiz
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And it's real writing. I mean it is gorgeous elegant prose and it profound and it moving and it funny and it human And I was just so dazzled by it and so proud of him that he could you know I hoped he would be as really good
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but he, more than any expectation, he just overrepped it. And so the material was amazing
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And then when he decided to turn into a play, when Anne Clark came up with the idea, and he called me
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it was just like in a minute, of course. Also, just to be in the room with him, he's one of the great men of all times
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and I don't say that lightly. He's just a sensational person. And the older you get, the more you feel
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who do you want to be in the room with, Richie? You know, that's really a lot of it. And he's someone I would be in any room with it at any time
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What are you enjoying the most and looking forward to the most about this run here in New York
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and being back on the stage again? I wouldn't say I ever enjoy it
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Do you know what I mean? I can't say, God, I'm really enjoying this. This is great crack altogether
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I never say that because I can never, I can never take an audience for granted
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I can never take myself for granted. It's always like, get out there and do the best you can, and that's it
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You can enjoy yourself thinking about it in six months' time. I really enjoy that
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But the idea that you're out there enjoying yourself, I've yet to reach that place
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