James
James played by Tom Hughes
Can you describe your character?
There is a kamikaze element to him
James's character changes from scene to scene. In his heart he is a desperate man who has had an unbelievable amount of pain in his childhood. All of our childhoods shape and stable us but this has had a really negative and lasting effect. All James longs to do is feel vibrant and feel something tangible that belongs to him. He wants to have the colour back in his life that he used to have before it was stolen from him. There is a kamikaze element to him and an animalistic quality that draws people to him. Everything is based on instinct for him.
The supernatural quality of James’s psyche draws us into him a lot more than if he was a bit more linear. James is a character that is emotionally quite distant from the audience.
What is the best genre to describe Paula?
It’s quite a hard one to describe as this drama covers so many different facets and styles of genre but also Conor McPherson creates characters that are multi-faceted and contradictory to the extreme.
What attracted James and Paula to each other?
These are two people that are seeking something bigger in their lives. There is an emotional distance to Paula as-well. Out of necessity, they both want a degree of control in everything they do and perhaps they want to relinquish that. You can see that in their sexual encounter scene, they are both very relaxed afterwards as if they have both relinquished control on this occasion.
James is drawn to the strength of Paula. Her personality is attractive to him and she has been the first person he hasn’t been able to dominate. They both seem destined to be close to one another regardless of what those consequences will be.
Sum up the story in two sentaces
The story hinges around the meeting of 2 characters James and Paula. They are both quite isolated in different ways but come together like a magnetic pull and from that point on wards, their lives spiral out of control and we’re left with the uncertainty of who is going to be able to claw their way to back to some sort of normality.
