A poster boy for the process of grieving
Al Dalton, the man behind artsy billboard company Notes to Cork, was working on a play with his stroke survivor aunt when her terminal cancer was diagnosed; his new play is about navigating grief.
Amongst all of the hair-raising weirdness of the lockdowns of 2020, the scenes of empty streets, locked schools and abandoned businesses, one of the eeriest was the sight of billboards advertising months-old cancelled gigs, plays and exhibitions.
They hung in tatters, almost a physical embodiment of the suspended hopes and dreams of live performers.
Al Dalton, both a theatre-maker and the newly ensconced MD of the billboard company then known as Poster Displays Ltd, found himself facing not only all of the cancellations for theatre work, but also all of the family business’ income in advertising all those lost events.
“I had to have a moment in the kitchen, crying first of all, seeing all of the bookings and gigs and plays and venues around the city, predominantly our clients, close overnight,” Al says.
“After the deep shock of what was going on, there came a moment when I realised that this was a great opportunity to rebrand the business.”
He began posting billboards with messages for the people of Cork.
“I ended up with loads of negative space around the city, all these empty boards,” he says. “Essentially, they were saying you can’t go out and work. But under the radar, I was trying to get out to change things and take things down. If the billboard itself had an out of date poster on it, to me that was a negative space.”
We are sitting in the foyer of Cork Arts Theatre, where he is in rehearsals for the one-man show, At the Moment, Everything is Missing that opens next week. We’re unravelling, or most likely just picking at, the tangled knot of family dynamics, bereavement, business and inherited love of the sea that has led to this production.
What do creative people do when faced with situations beyond their control? They get thinking, they adapt: so in 2020, inspired by the work of artist Andy Leek, who started leaving Instagrammable notes to strangers in the London Underground in 2017, Al began putting his company’s empty billboards to use, posting inspiring messages for the locked down inhabitants of the second city.
He called this project Notes to Cork, and eventually, he rebranded his family business in its name, from a straight-up old-fashioned billboard company founded by his grandfather, to a hip creative design and advertising agency working with the arts community in Cork in some quite unusual ways, including with so-called Public Inspiration Panels, or PIPs, that have featured the work of numerous artists in billboard form.
You’ve seen them, even if you don’t know you have.
Al had taken over as managing director of the family business after his aunt Breda, with whom he was very close, was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2018. As well as running the family business, she taught recorder in Cork School of Music and was an avid sea swimmer.
“Some people would have found her quite eccentric, but a lot of people loved that ball of energy that came with her,” Al says. “She could meet anyone on any level, and just had a real way about her.”
After an initially promising response to immunotherapy, Breda died in 2019. And this is also part of the story of why we are here.
Three (generations of) billboards outside Oysterhaven, Co Cork
“We were super close,” Al says of this aunt. “My mum was a single parent, so for the first ten years of my life, we lived in a house with my aunt and uncle. My mum went back to college when I was a toddler so I spent a lot of time with Breda and her husband Tony.”
Al got his love of the sea from Breda: when he started surfing, she would drive him to go surfing and, instead of sitting in the car as many such commandeered adults tend to, she would go bodyboarding or swimming while he was on the break.
They had a family holiday home in Oysterhaven: Al’s grandad, who founded the billboard company, had a fishing boat. Al describes a multi-generational connection to the sea. “There’s almost a religious element,” he says. “It’s a ritual. It’s just such a part of our world.”
When Breda had a stroke in 2013, her recovery was precipitated and punctuated by her need to get back in the sea. In 2017, this struggle became the inspiration behind Swim/Stroke, a play by ALSA Productions, the fledgling theatre company founded by Al and his partner, Sadhbh Barrett Coakley, who both graduated from MTU’s Theatre and Drama Studies course in 2016.
Navigating an ocean of grief on stage
When Breda died, Al says, Swim/Stroke died with her: she was an integral part of the production, which was in development and which had had early outings for Cork Midsummer Festival and Clonmel Junction Arts Festival.
Now, At the Moment, Everything is Missing moves the story on: it has become a work about grief and loss, and, of course, the sea.
In the play, the uncaring vastness of the sea becomes an embodiment of the weight of grief: Al’s performance is split between three characters, one of which is called The Body of Water.
“I found it quite difficult to reconnect with the sea after Breda passing because it reminded me so much of her,” Al says. “I was really interested in giving a voice to that entity. If you’re out there on your board, or you’re going for your swim, as the world quietens we begin to hear other parts of ourselves, things we don’t want to fully acknowledge.”
Writing and performing a piece about the very personal journey of bereavement is, Al acknowledges, fraught with vulnerability.
“I do feel vulnerable, absolutely,” he says. “But we have a really strong team. The duality for me of being a writer performer is those moments where you’re going, ‘Jesus, does that make sense in the writing? And do I have the capacity as a performer to communicate it?’”
“It requires trust to go there and be vulnerable and open those doors that you might purposefully have padlocks on.”
It may be highly personal, but Al and Sadhbh feel that their production has universal themes, things that any audience will have experienced and be able to connect with.
“We’ve all experienced moments of love, loss, grief,” Al says. “We hope that we will win them over with the opening sequence. I believe that we subconsciously pack away feelings and thoughts linked to grief, loss, hope, death: there are these moments that pop up throughout the piece and I hope people feel kind of held within the performance.”
Closure
Notes to Cork, Al’s billboard company, is now set to cease trading at the end of 2023. Al is ready to move on, and ALSA Productions are ready to move on too.
With At the Moment, Everything is Missing, Al says, they will draw a line under the Swim/Stroke experience too, and working with Breda’s story. Al, who prefers to be a theatre maker and director rather than solely a performer, says he doesn’t envisage “doing a Pat Kinevane” on it: he doesn’t want to tour At the Moment, Everything is Missing indefinitely, no matter how well-received it is.
Which means there’s a strong chance that the coming run of performances in the CAT Club might be the only chance to see this play on the stage.
“I think this journey will come to its natural end on the closing night,” he says. “It’s part of the making of it, that it’s this moment and that then it will dissolve or dilute: with our last audience, it can go with them out the door, and then it can be done.”
At the Moment, Everything is Missing is on at Cork Arts Theatre from Wednesday, December 14 until Sunday, December 18. For details, show times and tickets, go here.