IF A certain beer manufacturer were to create the best stage play in the world, then Conor McPherson’s latest work sounds as if it would ‘probably’ be in the running for the title.
Take the multi-award-winning Irish playwright who's at the height of his prowess, the director Ian Rickson whose play Jerusalem (written by Jez Butterworth) was a Broadway hit, combine them with two of the best young actors from RTE's LoveHate hit drama and music from two-time Mercury Prize-winner PJ Harvey and then stage it in what's regarded as Ireland's best theatre.
The result? Belfast Lyric's upcoming production of The Nest, which was originally written by renowned German playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz.
The Lyric's director Jimmy Fay is staging it as a joint production with the Young Vic Theatre in London, receiving its world premiere at the Lyric from October 22-1, with opening night on October 6.
The Nest has hit written all over it. The play centres on couple Martha and Kurt, two young prospective parents who work hard and want to give their new child the best possible start in life.
All is going well but when's Kurt's boss offers him a chance to make some easy money on a mysterious side job, his rashness catches up with him.
While it's fair to say that McPherson could well expect his latest production to do well since his last play The Night Alive won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for best new play in 2014, he's not one to chance his luck about whether it will play the West End or Broadway.
"I've no idea about that. I think it's better not to think about that in case it somehow inevitably crashes and burns," muses the Dubliner. "It's better to have no expectations whatsoever, I think. It's just best to be glad that you are getting to do it and see whatever happens from there."
Rehearsals are due to start in a couple of weeks and McPherson is excited, not least as it means a welcome return to the Lyric to showcase his latest work.
"The Lyric is a fantastic, world-class theatre. It's probably the nicest on the island of Ireland since the beautiful major rebuild," he says.
"Ian [Rickson] was very keen to work there as we did The Night Alive there and I've been there with some other of my plays before the refurb so it was great that it all worked out."
The Nest will be McPherson's first major translation, although he did an earlier short translation of Swedish playwright August Strindberg's The Dance of Death. The 45-year-old has been working on it for the last two years, at the request of Rickson, and has found the process of translation as stimulating as, but quite different from working on his own original plays.
He says: "It's a bit like the difference of trying to build a house when you are doing your own thing. It can be very hard but at the same time you can get it choose to what you really want and where to put it, whereas translation is more like staying in a house that someone else has built which also has its pleasures as it's easier to go in and it's all there.
"So [translation] is very pleasurable in that sense and it doesn't induce the stress of doing your own work. It's also great to engage with another writer in that way as you are engaging with someone who thinks differently to you. If you turn left, they turn right, if you pick up the pace, they slow it down and vice versa.
"It shakes you out of your own patterns and habits and that's a very refreshing and rejuvenating part of doing a translation."
He also can't wait to see what English musician and singer PJ (Polly) Harvey and Love Hate actors Caoilfhionn Dunne and Laurence Kinlan will bring to his work.
"Ian had worked with PJ Harvey before on a number of projects so when myself and Jimmy Fay who runs the Lyric went for a read-through at a workshop with some actors, we looked around and there she was in the room," recalls McPherson.
"Jimmy said to me 'That's PJ Harvey' and I said that Ian had mentioned her working on it. I had completely forgotten about it but there she was and we both thought, 'This is brilliant'. I said to Ian to encourage her to do as much as she wants, even songs.
"The play is very episodic and it needs a bed to sit in, to flow along in so I think that a strong musical approach will be great. I'm not sure what approach she will take, it may be a bed of sound or even maybe songs. We will just have to wait and see. But it will add to the play which is a timeless story.
"I think that what's great about the original play is it's strong narrative. It's about this couple who are trying to deal with the circumstances that are happening to them. It moves along with good momentum. I'm just dying to see Caoilfhionn and Laurence get their teeth into it."
Success came early for the UCD graduate who won the 1999 Lawrence Oliver Award for Best New Play at the age of 28 for The Weir.
However, his first foray into television drama is to start with filming for a new production for BBC Northern Ireland next month.
"It will be a three-part drama story filmed mostly in Belfast under the working title Paula. It's a strange love story and mystery," explains the father-of-one.
"I tend to like actors to use their own accents so I think it will be set somewhere in Ireland but I don't think we are going to push on an exact place; it will be a city in Ireland."
:: The Nest runs in the Naughton Studio from October 1-22, tickets from £15 (previews October 1-5 £13). To book visit www.lyrictheatre.co.uk or contact the box office on 028 9038 1081.
