Asking For It: portraying a painful reality
By Amy McLoughlin
There is a certain beauty in going to the theatre. For just a little while you can walk into a room, sit back, relax and leave the real world outside. However, every now and again, you step into an auditorium and the story that presents itself on stage is one that reflects real life, one that touches the heart of everyone in the audience, and one that reveals a truth about life that very few of us care to admit. These are the stories that leave a lump in your throat and remain in your head long after the final bow has been taken and the curtain has come down. For the first time since March 2020, DCU’s acclaimed Drama Society will step back into the spotlight in the hope of not only putting on a show but also sharing a message, teaching a lesson, and spreading awareness.
Asking For It, written by award-winning writer and Cork native, Louise O’Neill and adapted for stage by Meadhbh McHugh in collaboration with Annabelle Comyn is the profound and harrowing tale of Emma O’Donovan, an 18-year-old girl from the perfect family, in the perfect town who endures a traumatic sexual assault during the celebrations following a county final football match. We follow Emma, her friends, her family, the people of Baillinatoom, and their respective relationships both before and after the incident as Emma attempts to figure out what happened to her that night. As photographs of Emma and the boys in question, that she doesn’t remember being taken, begin to circulate on social media, and the people of Baillinatoom turn on her and her family, her parents and friends begin to wonder: was she asking for it?
This raw and gripping story contains a whole host of characters from the cruel to the kind all embodied by the talented members of DCU Drama, including me. My name is Amy McLoughlin and I play the rather complicated and messy character that is Emma O’Donovan. The story that myself and this fabulous cast portray is not an easy one to watch, it doesn’t roll off the tongue and it doesn’t make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But reality is never easy to watch, the truth never comes easily off the tongue and this powerful and brutal story is not one you would associate with the usual happy-go-lucky theatre stereotypes. It’s not easy to watch and it’s not easy to portray either. Normally playing a character is easier than being yourself, but doing this show and facing this reality is a challenge all on its own. Growing up and standing on stage you’re normally telling made-up stories of magic, fairy tales, and true love, but this is different. This is the story of one in five women who are raped in their lives, the story of one in three women who experience sexual harassment in their lifetime, and the story of every woman whose heart-breaking reality is reflected in Emma.
Emma is a complex and interesting character. Well, that’s what I’d say if I was being kind and gracious. However, Emma is a bit of a handful in the beginning. Some keywords to describe Emma when we first meet her could be unlikable, manipulative, cruel, and selfish. Emma O’Donovan has one thing on her mind and that’s Emma O’Donovan. As the carbon copy of her delicate mother (Emma Jones) and the apple of her checked out Dad’s eye (Thomas Moriarty), Emma has everything she could possibly need. Popularity, a gaggle of boys following her around, and plenty of friends. When you’re acting you try your best to get on common ground with a character and learn to understand them, empathise with them perhaps. But if I saw Emma walking down the street towards me I would high tail it in the other direction as fast as my legs would carry me. She’s not easy to play and at first I wondered how I could ever feel sorry for her but there is one thing we have in common. We’re both girls and as a girl, the last person on earth you think is going to hurt you, is your friend.
When some light flirting with the captain of the football team, Paul O’Brien (Taylor Byrne), turns into a traumatic assault, Emma is left vulnerable only to be violated again by Dylan Walsh (Tom Duffy) and Séan Casey (Dom Byrne), two of her friends, two people she thought would protect her. Putting yourself in the mindset of someone who has been assaulted is terrifying. As a girl, I spend all of my time trying to make sure that I never end up in that position, that I never end up that vulnerable and terrified. Playing Emma scares me because it forces me to look at the reality that Emma’s story is a real story, it's somebody's story, this has happened to more people than is truly imaginable. But like I said earlier, reality is never an easy thing to face.
Emma’s friends slowly disappear, her best friend Zoe (Shauna May Bohan) refuses to see her, and Ali (Aisling Dillion-Roberts) is quick to side with the boys, while Maggie (Hannah Louise Doherty) loses her relationship with boyfriend Eli (Emmett Bellew) over Emma’s actions and blames her for it. Most frustrating for me as the person inside Emma’s head throughout this, is that she pushes away the only people who will protect her. In her pain and confusion she shuts out Connor (Mark Kilcawley), the only one of her friends who stands by her through everything and refuses to confide in her brother Bryan (Ethan Fleming) who is the only person keeping her from slipping off the edge. Without a support system, love, or friendship around her, Emma is at risk of falling into the darkness and never coming back.
Asking For It is a raw, gripping, and profound tale that will stay with you. With innovative and nuanced direction from Órla Morris Toolen, produced by the talented Emma Jones, and the added power of DCU Chairperson David Cotter as our stage manager, we hope that you will be moved and inspired by the story that we are going to tell. We hope that you will learn to always be a listening ear and remember that there is always someone that you can talk to, there is always someone there to help.
Asking For It will show in the St. Pat’s Auditorium at 7 pm on November 16th & 17th in aid of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.
