Cork Midsummer Festival 2025: The Second Woman

Eileen Walsh in The Second Woman. Image, Jed Niezgoda

*****...

It's that time of year when the calendar says summer but the weather’s going to do whatever it’s going to do. The only thing you can count on for consistency is Cork Midsummer Festival. This year, the women have it. Irene Kelleher (Stitch and Footnote), Camille O’Sullivan (Cork Girl!), Amanda Coogan (Caught In The Furze), Deirdre Kinahan (Songs and Souls with Steve Wickham), Caryl Churchill (Escaped Alone) with an all female cast. Five women also performing in the annual delight that is Landmark Production’s amuse bouche, Theatre for One, now in its third year at Cork Midsummer Festival. But all that’s to come. Walking the city’s streets, suffused with mouth watering aromas, excited talk is for one show only. One woman only. Eileen Walsh and The Second Woman.

If last year’s Cork Midsummer Festival gave us one of the year’s best productions in Kamchàtka’s Alter, with The Second Woman they serve up the theatrical event of 2025. Inspired by John Cassavetes’ film, Opening Night, creators Nat Randall & Anna Breckon blend live performance with filmed close ups projected onto a screen. In which Eileen Walsh undertakes to perform the same scene 100 times with 100 different partners, some professionals, most not, over twenty-four hours. The demands unimaginable. The experience unique. Walsh awe inspiring. No applause between scenes; a notice begs our compliance. Little chance of that.

Eileen Walsh in The Second Woman. Image, Jed Niezgoda

If Cassavetes’ 70’s masterpiece inspired the scene, David Lynch’s 50’s Americana, by way of  Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet, frames the action. Walsh’s Virginia a sultry, blonde bombshell in a snug red dress. Pushing a trolley of Jim Beam she sits, silently, with a haunted, far away look. FUTURE METHOD STUDIO’s fish bowl design evoking a seedy, red walled, graphic noir hotel, with the play’s curious name etched in neon on the back wall. In which Walsh, part desperate dame, part femme fatale, waits. Embodying the image fetishised by male artists from Eisner to Hammett, from Chandler to Lynch.

As a piano score stops, Walsh stands to one side, facing out. Her partner enters, whispers their name and she turns and assesses them with soul searching eyes. A brief exchange establishes the relationship and context of the scene. They eat noodles, drink bourbon, talk, dance till Virginia sends them packing. But not before one final choice. Then Walsh cleans up, sits, and does it all again. And again. And again. Men, women, other. Race, sex, age no restriction. Walsh mother, sister, daughter. In charge. In pain. In love. Breckon & Randall’s direction stacking the deck in Virginia’s favour through clever play with status ensuring you can only go where Virginia leads. The wise follow. The foolish compete. The lovers genuinely there for her. The vain always there for themselves, no matter how strong or sweet their affections. How we communicate and fail to communicate forever made evident.

Eileen Walsh in The Second Woman. Image, Jed Niezgoda

Technically, it’s something of a Meisner improv. A partner exercise where each performer is restricted to key phrases as the scene is adjusted each time. Drama pared back to its basic ingredients: conflict, motivation, objective, outcome. Walsh endlessly finding new ways to say the same thing and achieve the same goal yet have it mean something different every time. Repetition, like snowflakes, or fingerprints, defined by what makes each one unique. As the hours slip by Walsh pushes past the boundaries of her craft, taking it closer to pure instinct, then pushes further. Mirroring soon exhausting its usefulness and forcing Walsh to dig deeper. Yet always the craft remains, evident in the calculated heel slip, the held gaze, the exquisitely timed delivery.

As The Second Woman rolls along with the addictive fascination of doomscrolling, it can come to feel like a theatrical Deathmatch Tournament as another contestant steps into the ring for a ten minute bout in which Walsh wipes the floor with them. The outcome usually decided in the initial tense silence as Walsh establishes dominance. But some she can’t boss around so easily. Usually colleagues like Luke Murphy, Frank Blake, Jack Gleason, or local actor Peter Rawlinson. Some call Virginia’s bluff, others offer support, or deeper challenges, some ready to go where she seems to want to go. Others, like good sport Willie White, inject something from beyond the frame. I’d swear on a stack of bibles that Walsh intentionally set out make the former Artistic Director of Dublin Theatre Festival squirm. And not just him. Though never restricted to sex, age or race, mostly it’s men. Masculinity undergoing a thorough investigation, revealing men stuck as boys, boys playing at being men, the endless power dynamics with the reviled and revered feminine confirming masculinity as never simply one, singular thing. Nor is Walsh. Whatever you need, want, dread or desire, whatever your sex, age, race or creed.

Eileen Walsh in The Second Woman. Image, Jed Niezgoda

As the hours move on, Walsh remains forever in control. Truths revealed in the lies we tell, and the lies we tell ourselves. Secrets revealed in the ordinary gestures: the size of a whiskey measure, the unspoken etiquette, the way a hand circles a waist, or a gaze is held with assured confidence or avoided with embarrassed unease. Some try to get away, try too hard, try to get their way, try to stay. Playing the moment to avoid playing the scene. Reminding us we only think we see truth. Revealing ourselves trapped in our memories and conditioning reflected back to us, consciously or unconsciously. The laughs coming hard and fast. Suggesting life’s a comedy after all and not the tragedy it seems. Unless you can’t laugh at yourself. Then it’s not a tragedy so much as a bad joke. Either way it's always a power struggle in which the weak get eaten, the tough ones survive. Though tenderness is often the greatest strength.

With a constitution fortified against all you can eat noodles, and a bladder clearly made of steel, Walsh presses on, taking a short break every two hours. Most step out, many returning later. And so it goes long past midnight. By the Witching Hour the audience has thinned somewhat, but The Crazies have crawled in from the night. Populating the 3.00 am auditorium like homeless ghosts scattered randomly. Lunatics, insomniacs and tired eyed lovers. Night owls and nighthawks addicted to just one more scene. To ensuring Walsh has an audience to play to. That matters to them. They’re here to give something back. Be part of the exchange. The theatre student from Canada who left his hostel to stay till his flight at noon the next day. The visual artist from Dublin who arrived by train, marched directly to the Opera House and has been here since 4.00pm. Planning on staying as long as her body and brain hold out. Meanwhile, festival director Lorraine Maye floats about with the unbridled enthusiasm of a gleeful child. She’s been here since four and intends on staying till the end. Envy wishing it could siphon her boundless energy. Right now it's easier to begrudge her spitefully from a distance, topping up the diminishing fuel tank with water, chocolate and coffee. The Opera House floor staff working the graveyard shift, dispensing mercy like angels.

Eileen Walsh in The Second Woman. Image, Jed Niezgoda

Approaching the half way mark you wonder how the hell can Walsh keep going? Onstage, something shifts. The more tired Walsh gets the more youthful, brave and vulnerable she becomes. No trick of tired eyes that a fleeting glance at her close up leaves you wondering did Sydney Sweeney step in? Walsh somehow more real, raunchy, and emotionally risk taking. The Crazies’ all night vigil richly rewarded. Earlier there were rumours Cillian Murphy might appear at some point during the run. The Crazies knew Murphy was never going to show this late given how much he likes his sleep. Anyway, Cillian wouldn’t have a patch on Eileen tonight as she faces infidelity and impotence, egos and misogynists, lovers and the lovelorn. “I love you” a plea, a prayer, a punishment. As scene follows scene Walsh makes clear we are not our performances but that which performs. If only we knew why, and how, we might perform better. You might think you know how each story will go, you never do. You only know the script. It might seem to be the same recurring actions, but always it’s a new action in search of a fresh reaction. Nothing is repeated even though it all happened before. On it goes. By midday Walsh has pushed through the wall. How, defies belief.

I’d like to say I went the distance. Like so many before, and after, I had to tap out. Meanwhile Walsh prepares for her next two hours. A voice inside says you’re going to be sorry you didn’t stay. You think I don’t know that? I’ve been at hour long shows that felt infinitely longer than this. This, I never want to end. Though if I never hear Aura’s Taste of Love again it’ll be too soon. Mind you, I’ll probably end up listening to it just to recapture this indescribable, unforgettable, insanely brilliant experience, both communal and individual. A gruelling, punishing, powerful privilege. Eileen Walsh. The words fall short of adequate praise. Just bow, or kneel, and be silent.

Attributing stars is a contentious practice. Many feel the popular shorthand should be avoided, unless, of course, they’re being awarded four or five stars themselves. Understandable as most productions rarely fall neatly into three, four or five star categories. But half stars look goofy. Generous soul that I am, I tend to mark up, but read the review and you'll always know which way I lean. So what stars should we attribute to Eileen Walsh for The Second Woman? Simple. Get a boat. Sail out to the middle of the ocean on a moonless, cloudless night. Stand on deck and look up at the constellations.

Start counting.

The Second Woman by Nat Randall & Anna Breckon, performed by Eileen Walsh, presented by Cork Midsummer Festival and Cork Opera House ran June 14th and 15th at Cork Opera House as part of Cork Midsummer Festival 2025.

For more information visit Cork Midsummer Festival 2025