Hungry

Hungry is a one-actor play which combines original writing with excerpts from the prison writings of Bobby Sands, the IRA Volunteer who starved himself to death in a Belfast prison in 1981. Within his prison cell, Sands reflects on the cultural and personal context of his story, considers his options, makes the commitment, and ultimately sees his purpose through to the end. The audiences can expect to see a blend of historical accuracy and artistic license in an attempt to render the mind of this young revolutionary, his choices, his motivations, his justification, not those of the playwright.

The now documented truth that the daily reality of Sands and his comrades’ existence in the Maze prison in 1981 was a life of government-sanctioned brutality has a contemporary relevance. In our fearful world, where leaders actually debate the legitimacy of torture as a means of staunching the spread of terrorism, it is perhaps too easy to see political conflict in black and white terms, to silence the human voice, and to obscure the common elements which exist in even violent struggles. Hungry wrestles with the complexities at the heart of issues very much a part of our world today.      

Stories of self-sacrifice are compelling to me anywhere I find them. But having an Irish heritage and an enduring interest in Irish history, the story of the Hunger Strikers has been particularly so. Approximately ten years ago, I read Bobby Sands Writings from Prison, and the idea for this work took root in my imagination. Here was a man who was both soldier and poet, a man of deadly conviction who believed in the power of the written word to channel a human voice throughout the world. I saw the dramatic potential there and wanted to bring that forth.