A story of love and passion set in a time of war and violence.A story of one man's struggle to find his place in the world.A story of theatre. A story of life.In 1914 a young Jim Brevin runs away from his middle-class Dublin home and joins a theatrical fit-up company travelling around Cork and Kerry. On the day he becomes an apprentice with the famous Ira Allen's Company of Irish Players at the Queen's Theatre he reluctantly gets involved in the 1916 Rising. Jim is mistaken for a British spy, marries a rebel's sister, discovers fraud and theft in the family business and suffers a horrendous personal tragedy. In time he becomes a celebrated actor and at the moment of his greatest theatrical success he is faced with a stark choice.The Actor is a page turner, full of colourful characters, wit, tragedy, humour, life and theatre. It illustrates how the emerging Irish state impacted on the lives of ordinary people, shaped one man's dream and closed the Queen's Theatre. Drawing extensively on the life of the writer/actor Ira Allen, the novel places readers at the centre of the organized chaos and theatrical magic that was melodrama and at the core of a violent changing Ireland.
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