Jane Coyne’s The Suitcase comes to Down Arts Centre

Jane Coyne’s The Suitcase comes to Down Arts Centre

9 January 2019

DOWN Arts Centre is hosting The Suitcase next month.

The highly acclaimed production by Jane Coyle takes to the stage on Sunday, February 10, at 8pm and tickets are now available.

The play was premiered at the Belfast synagogue for the 2015 Belfast International Arts Festival and won the Audience Award. 

Now, in response to popular demand, it is being revived and toured around Northern Ireland during this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations.

The storyline moves between 1930s Vienna and modern day Belfast. In Vienna, a young girl dreams of becoming a dancer. In Belfast, an elderly man relives a painful past, while his daughter and granddaughter uncover an intriguing, long hidden piece of family history.

The play opens at the MAC in Belfast on February 1 and 2 and there will also be a schools’ matinee. The play then moves to Bangor before it is on to Coleraine’s Riverside Theatre before stopping off at the Seamus Heaney HomePlace in Bellaghy. Next stop is Armagh before the production arrives at the Down Arts Centre.

After each performance, there will be a professionally facilitated audience discussion, dealing with issues raised by the play: cultural and religious identity, enforced deportation, reconciliation and coming to terms with the past, the immigrant experience, mutual respect for others, the restorative power of art in conflict situations.

Tickets for the Downpatrick production can be booked by contacting the Arts Centre on 028 4461 0747, or email downartscentre@downdc.gov.uk.