The play opened on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre in a limited run on Apafter 27 previews it closed on May 5, 2013, only two weeks into its scheduled 12-week run. The novella was written after this production. The production was directed by Garry Hynes and starred Marie Mullen. The Testament of Mary was initially performed at the Dublin Theatre Festival, under the title Testament in October 2011, and was in the form of a monologue.

He said 'the impulse to write the play was not political, was not to intervene in a debate about the church, but rather to work with a voice that had mattered to me personally, a voice that was iconic as well as human.' Further, he noted that he had 'seen great performances in the Irish theater', which meant that 'In their performances the act of utterance itself took on a sort of soaring nervous power.' ДЄfter the initial reading at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2011 of an earlier version of the play and the writing of the novella, TГіibin 'rewrote the original play, with the images starker, the voice even more urgent and filled with human pain.' Production history This is story-telling at its finest вЂ“ the defiance of a woman who refuses, for as long as she can, to have her story dictated by others.TГіibГn wrote in The New York Times that he began writing the play because he felt 'almost a vacuum of faith in Ireland' in late 2008. Her vivid intensity and detailed attention to TГіibГnвЂ™s text leaves the rest feeling superfluous. LyandvertвЂ™s music combines with Emma ValenteвЂ™s lighting to carve up the monologue into short crisp scenes, brutal changes that jolt the audience and allow Whyte to suddenly switch mood and voice.Д«ut it is WhyteвЂ™s performance that carries the show. The Virgin Mary paraphernalia that Whyte discards in the opening scene become props that litter Elizabeth GadsbyвЂ™s set. Her delivery is augmented by Max LyandvertвЂ™s sound design, which highlights key passages with prophetic reverberations that seem to rattle the very structure of the theatre.Дirector Imara Savage chooses to place Mary not in period, but in a museum-like space outside history. Her Mary is both sympathetic and defiant as she tells her own version of events, unbowed by the pressure to downplay her sonвЂ™s (and her own) humanity or weaknesses. Whyte is compelling as Mary, sustaining a heroic level of focus across the 80-minute performance as she deftly stokes the slow-burn intensity of TГіibГnвЂ™s arc. (It is telling that the immaculate conception is only mentioned in two out of the four Gospels). She is bitterly ironic as she recalls her minders explaining her sonвЂ™s conception to her. She recalls being pushed aside by her imperious, radicalised son, who seems intoxicated by his own charismatic power as he rides the political currents that swirl during the Roman occupation of Judea. She recalls the events of her sonвЂ™s life without sugar-coating вЂ“ much to the frustration of her minders who are intent on building a mythology. Intelligent and cynical, Mary retells the story of Lazarus вЂ“ noting that it is at least third-hand by the time it reaches her вЂ“ and hints at charlatanism at the wedding in Cana. She is hidden by вЂ“ or captive to вЂ“ two of her sonвЂ™s followers, who hound her for her memories of JesusвЂ™ life and death while she grieves for both her lost son and husband. It is MaryвЂ™s humanity, rather than her divinity, that Colm TГіibГn explores in his monologue (also a novella) The Testament of Mary, brought to life in this production by Sydney Theatre Company.В TГіibГnвЂ™s Mary is a political refugee living in hiding in a foreign land, forced to flee Jerusalem after the death of her son. Robe, wig and mask fall away to reveal a woman вЂ“ played by Alison Whyte вЂ“ dressed simply in pants and tank-top.ДЄlison Whyte in Sydney Theatre CompanyвЂ™s The Testament of Mary, all photos by Lisa Tomasetti A porcelain hand is discarded, giving way to a human hand, as the Virgin Mary sheds the symbolic trappings that history has bestowed upon her.

A single chair and a cardboard box are the only furniture in this sombre space. The stage is black marble, ringed with a velvet rope. She holds a stuffed toy lamb, her halo spinning gaudily, her heart glowing with a kitsch electronic light. A single candle flickers in the darkness, soon joined by others, illuminating a niche in which stands a pale statue of the Virgin Mary.

The testament of mary lighting