Educating Brigid - Part II

Born in County Longford, Brigid Duffy and her family moved to Chicago when she was a little girl. Her parents both lived in Chicago for a time before they knew each other, but both of them returned to Ireland during the Great Depression. Annette and James eventually met, were married, and had four daughters. Since Ireland was not exactly the land of opportunity for young women in those days, Annette Duffy decided that the family should move to America, so her daughters would have a better chance for a good life and a good education.
Brigid, their eldest daughter, has had both, as it turns out. Her mother would have been very pleased to know that her foresight paid off. And through Brigid’s careers in education and in the theatre, she has always found ways to “pay it forward.” And ingeniously, she has found ways for one profession to inform the other.

Brigid, who studied acting at the Goodman Theatre School of Drama, first got her Equity Card at Candlelight Theatre in the late 60s, playing in The Boyfriend for director Bill Pullinsi, whom she knew from the Goodman. But after the show closed, Christmas was approaching, and Brigid needed extra money. Since she had a degree in education, Brigid took a temporary job teaching grade school. She found that she loved teaching and her “temporary” job lasted 34 years—teaching first and third grades. Of course, the classes put on lots of plays.

She kept acting herself until her own children came along, and after that, performed only occasionally. She and her husband, actor Charles Gerace, wanted the normalcy of a “traditional life,” so she was semi-retired from professional theatre in those years. The kids are all grown now. Their son Sean is a writer and their daughter Erin is a teacher. But as for their mother, once the acting bug bites…

In 1991, Brigid won a Golden Apple Award for excellence in teaching. Along with it went a sabbatical and free tuition to Northwestern. Not surprisingly, Brigid took a lot of drama classes. Also not surprisingly, she decided to go back into acting professionally. She was cast in John Hughes’s film Baby’s Day Out, Unsolved Mysteries, and Hedda Gabler at Steppenwolf, to name just a few roles. Then Irish Repertory of Chicago came along in the late 1990s, and Brigid was cast often. She and her husband Charles worked together in Well of the Saints by J.M. Synge.

Both Brigid and Charles served on the board of Irish Rep, and tried to help keep Irish Rep afloat, but by the time they became involved at that level, it was already too late. Irish Rep had already struck the iceberg. Brigid believes that Chicago still needs an Irish theater, and Irish Rep could have made it with the right leadership. “There were very serious financial problems,” she says. Most theatres have financial problems. But Irish Rep had FINANCIAL PROBLEMS. Brigid feels that it failed because of poor business management and poor play selection. “One person tried to do everything, and there weren’t enough bodies to do all the jobs.” But still, she says being part of it was something that made her very proud. “We always got good notices… It was heartbreaking.”

Brigid Duffy loves working in the atmosphere of what some call “The Chicago School” of acting. “There’s something so real about working with Chicago actors. Everything is so authentic—there’s no fakery. They are really concerned with delivering the playwright’s content in the most authentic way—no histrionics.”

Brigid also thinks having taken a long sabbatical from acting proved to be valuable as well. “It’s good in a way to be away from it, to be studying other people, and to be carrying on with your life—because you learn a lot about the craft. And when you go back, the more avenues of your life that you bring together, it’s more interesting than being totally immersed all the time. Most of the actors that I admire have real lives—because (the theatre) gets so insular.”

Besides acting, another way Brigid has gotten back into theatre has been to offer her services as a dialect coach for theatres such as the Goodman, Northlight, and Irish Repertory. She has learned, however, that sometimes a dialect coach can do too good a job. An authentic regional Irish dialect can be so authentic, that it can be almost unintelligible to American audiences.

So what makes Irish drama so distinctive? Brigid thinks it’s the language. “That grasp of language is so the center of an Irish play. The biting humor. The new writers, like Martin McDonough and Conor McPherson are coming out of such a rich history of language, and humor, and compassion… The newer crop of Irish playwrights are clever, but for a play that’s beautiful, that’s really moving, that’s really humorous, that just breaks your heart—there’s no one like Brian Friel.”

Other favorite Irish playwrights of Brigid are Sean O’Casey and Eugene O’Neill. She considers O’Neill an Irish playwright by virtue of the hugeness of his drama. Like O’Casey, the “Irishness” is in his language and his character development. “It’s his Irish bones in there.”

And Sean O’Casey? “His comic sense in the middle of chaos, in the middle of tragedy—he’s able to have you crying one minute, killing yourself laughing the next.”
Brigid feels that Hugh Leonard is underappreciated and bemoans the fact that John B. Keane, “an important writer,” is practically unknown in this country. Other than O’Neill, Beckett and Wilde, why are Irish plays not as well known by American actors? Brigid thinks that there is a mindset among actors that Irish plays are difficult to do. She doesn’t think they are, but that’s the perception.

But then again, actresses like Brigid Duffy always make it look easy.