The author of a controversial new play about a serial killer of Catholic priests has vowed to bring his production to Dublin.Tyrone writer Owen O'Neill, who also stars in the one-man show which opens the Edinburgh Festival this week, says he is in discussions to bring it to a theatre in the capital.
However any staging of the play, called Absolution, is sure to court controversy.
Telling the story of an Irish clerical abuse victim called Peter, much of the drama comes from his bloodthirsty revenge as he murders priest after priest.
O'Neill said : "He thinks he's doing everyone a favour by murdering priests. He tells the audience why he's doing it and why he thinks its right. I'd like to have the audience asking themselves whether he's right to kill priests or is just a complete psychopath."
Despite the play's theme, O'Neill, whose screen credits include Neil Jordan's epic Michael Collins, says he didn't write Absolution for personal reasons or to grab headlines.
"The idea came out of a conversation I had with a well-known artist I met on a train. He had suffered abuse at the hands of priests and told me his story," he said. "It was incredibly disturbing and his story stayed in my mind for two years before I felt I could sit down and write this."
Disputing any suggestion he has an axe to grind with the Catholic church, O'Neill says one of the first people he showed his finished script to was a former Catholic priest.
"I laughed because he commended me on creating great drama because he felt that obviously these things don't go on in real life. I had to tell him I strongly disagreed and that clerical abuse most certainly goes on in real life."
O'Neill is keen to stress he and the play's director, Rachel O'Riordan, were more keen to explore the killer's psyche than to add to the body count.
"It's not Stephen King. It's not shock and horror. We wanted to keep away from that. I'd describe it as a psychological drama because each priest he murders, he is in a different frame of mind. The first priest is personal but the next four or five he kills are very difficult for him emotionally but he has to keep killing priests to stay sane."
Running at Edinburgh's Assembly Rooms from 1 August, Absolution is set to be one of the most contentious productions staged at the Edinburgh Festival.
"We're definitely bringing it over to Dublin but we won't be making a big deal about its subject matter. The worst thing you can do is pre-empt a play. When I see anything advertised saying 'This is shocking', I don't want to see it. I don't want to be told that something will make me feel a certain way. I'm actually quite loath to give away any information on the play but of course I have to. I would just call it one man's story."
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