Production photos

"They Also Act Who Only Sit And Listen"

BRENDAN COYLE has spent almost 400 performances, his elbows propped on a bar, a lager or a whisky at the ready, listening to his fellow players in ''The Weir'' turn a litany of ghostly tales into a haunting study of collective self-revelation. But playing a bartender also named Brendan, Mr. Coyle never gets a story of his own, unless you believe -- as some do -- that Brendan's tale begins once Conor McPherson's play ends...

Audio

"The Weir"

by Terri Paddock/ Whats On Stage

To a person used to the hurried rhythms of city life, the pace of Conor McPherson's one act play, The Weir, can often seem slow and almost soporific...

Reviews and Press

The Weir (1997)

BRENDAN COYLE FANSITE

"Coyle Of 'The Weir' Is The Strong Silent Type"

Alone among the five characters of Conor McPherson’s hit play, "The Weir," Brendan, the owner and operator of the country pub in which the tale takes place, has no tale to tell, no monologue to deliver. Each of the others has an extended story to relate to the spellbound audiences filling the Walter Kerr Theatre, where the play opened on April 1, and one of them has two turns at bat...

"Unforgettable ensemble"

By Joseph Hurley/ Irish Echo

Playwright Conor McPherson has pulled off the not inconsiderable feat of turning the stage of the Walter Kerr Theatre into a kind of scout camp bonfire around which his spellbound audience listens in rapt silence as an ensemble of five sterling actors regale each other with a string of fascinating ghost stories. The playwright, a 27-year-old Dubliner, supplies everything but the marshmallows...

Photos

The play, set in a bar in a remote part of Ireland, is about a group of friends who one-up each other with scary stories to impress a young woman, Valerie, who joins their group.  As the drink flows and the stories become increasingly frightening, Valerie tells a tale so distressing and confounding that it leaves everyone completely shaken. 

• The main house is the Royal Court Downstairs, the small studio theatre is the Royal Court Upstairs. For a while in the late 1990s the theatre was closed for renovation/rebuilding, and while it was closed its management leased two West End theatres. The Duke of York's Theatre became the Royal Court Downstairs for the duration of the building work, and the smaller Ambassador's Theatre became the Royal Court Upstairs. The Weir opened on 4 July 1997 at the 'Royal Court Upstairs at the Ambassadors Theatre'. It was such a success that it transferred to the large 'Royal Court Downstairs at the Duke of York's' and played there from 23 February to 28 March 1998. It then came back again to the 'Royal Court Downstairs at the Duke of York's'  from 8 October  1998 - 23 January 1999.
  

• Brendan won the 1999 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor.  Following its West End run, the Royal Court production transferred to New York, where he also won a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut.

• The play won two Oliviers - Best New Play and Best Supporting Performance for Brendan Coyle - as well as the Evening Standard Most Promising Newcomer Award for McPherson and Best New Play honours in 1997 at both the Critics Circle and George Devine Awards.

• The Weir played 276 performances on Broadway with 11 previews, although Brendan left the production before the Sept. 19 performance.
  

• The Weir was voted one of the 100 most significant plays of the 20th Century in a poll conducted by the Royal National Theatre, London.