At 11.40pm on 14 April 1912, the RMS Titanic, on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, struck an iceberg. At 2.20am the following morning, the ship sank. 1,517 people died.
In response to the disaster the British Government ordered an immediate inquiry and Lord Mersey was appointed commissioner. The British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry sat from 2 May to 3 July 1912. It took testimony from 97 witnesses.
Owen McCafferty's Titanic retells the survivors' stories, using dialogue taken word-for-word from the hundred-year-old accounts.
Titanic ( Scenes from the British Wreck Commissioner’s Inquiry, 1912 ) was first performed at the MAC, Belfast, on 22nd April 2012.
DIRECTED BY Charlotte Westenra
CAST INCLUDES
Clerk of the Court - Ian McElhinney
Lord Mersey - Paul Moriarty
Sir Rufus Isaacs - Michael Hadley
Sir John Simon - Ben Caplan
Thomas Scanlon MP - Caolan Byrne
Mr W D Harbinson - Rufus Wright
Reginald Lee - Timothy Chipping
Charles Joughlin - Kevin Trainor
John Hart - Jack Beale
George Symons - Thomas Howes
Sir Cosmo Duff Gordan - Jay Villiers
Lady Duff Gordan - Andrea Irvine
Charles Lightoller - James Tucker
Joseph Ismay - Patrick O’Kane
Sir Ernest Shackleton - James Hillier
Set & Costume Design - Richard Kent
Lighting Design - Conleth White
Sound Design - James Kennedy
Casting Director - Georgia Simpson
Vocal Coach - Peter Ballance
“It is a sign of Owen McCafferty’s stature as a playwright that he can step away so effectively from his usual muscular, Belfast vernacular-driven narrative style to assume here a quasi-curatorial role, sifting through almost 100 witness statements”
