It was not until she was midway through rehearsals that Eithne Treanor realised the play she was going to perform closely mirrored her own life.
Coming from a family of five sisters and a brother, similar to the Irish play Dancing at Lughnasa, her personality almost matched that of the character she is playing.
“The family dynamics at play is the same as in many Irish families and within any family,” she says. “I realised I have become Kate Mundy and I have always been Kate Mundy.”
The character Ms Treanor is referring to is the conservative eldest sister in the family.
A former television reporter, Ms Treanor works as an independent consultant and conference moderator for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), as well as running a small media training business in Dubai. Now she is venturing into the world of theatre.
In her new role she will be stepping into the shoes of Meryl Streep for the character of Kate Mundy in Brian Friel’s Tony and Olivier Awards winning play from 1990.
Originally from western Ireland, this is the 57-year-old’s first community play and she sees potential in her new pastime for her media training business.
“I can see the possibility for stressed executives,” Ms Treanor says.
She believes the discipline that comes with group theatre and training in voice modulation and stage presence could come in handy for executives who go on air, face panel discussions or deliver speeches at conferences.
“Because there is a danger of forgetting which conference I am at as all are beginning to sound the same,” Ms Treanor adds.
The play will premiere on January 15 and run for four days at Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre in Mall of the Emirates, with hopes that it will attract members from Dubai’s 6,000-strong Irish community.
Set in Ireland in 1936, it revolves around the five Mundy sisters and their nephew in a small village in Northern Ireland, as the world outside moves irrevocably towards the Second World War and a protracted Spanish Civil War. Into their world returns their missionary brother, a changed man after his time in Africa. And all this gets going around early August, the time of the Celtic harvesting festival of Lughnasa.
Initially the actors met twice a week during the play reading, which introduces the actors to the characters of the play, and where they learn to sow emotions into the characters. Later, the group met three times a week, for up to four hours in the evening. On Fridays, the sessions stretched from noon until 4pm.
But community theatre is a big stress reliever, Ms Treanor found.
“I had to let go of a few things and it was my excuse not to go to the gym, but I really enjoyed it,” she says.
In her day job, the former journalist trains executives in oil and gas, infrastructure and transport sectors to speak at major events.
In a year, she handles between 30 and 50 different organisations, including some in the UAE, Qatar, Egypt and Oman, through her two-person company ETreanor, which she set up in Dubai in 2005.
While she does not have any professional training in acting, the former TV reporter is no stranger to live action.
As a correspondent for the BBC, Sky News, CNBC Europe and now a special correspondent for CNBC Arabia, she has enough experience for facing the public.
She also moderates conferences and panel discussions, including those for Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, event organisers DMG and Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry besides Opec. And she says she is never at a loss for words; not even when she had a surprise guest in Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, at the Africa Global Business Forum in Dubai in May.
When he came up on stage and shook her hand after the panel discussion to thank her for her work, she says she managed to mumble: “anytime, your highness, anytime”.
Now she says she will put her new acting skills to good use, coaching other executives as more international conferences head to Dubai.
“It’s about getting into the lines, living and breathing what [we] are reading,” she adds.
ssahoo@thenational.ae
Museum of the Future in numbers
- 78 metres is the height of the museum
- 30,000 square metres is its total area
- 17,000 square metres is the length of the stainless steel facade
- 14 kilometres is the length of LED lights used on the facade
- 1,024 individual pieces make up the exterior
- 7 floors in all, with one for administrative offices
- 2,400 diagonally intersecting steel members frame the torus shape
- 100 species of trees and plants dot the gardens
- Dh145 is the price of a ticket
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Profile of Tarabut Gateway
Founder: Abdulla Almoayed
Based: UAE
Founded: 2017
Number of employees: 35
Sector: FinTech
Raised: $13 million
Backers: Berlin-based venture capital company Target Global, Kingsway, CE Ventures, Entrée Capital, Zamil Investment Group, Global Ventures, Almoayed Technologies and Mad’a Investment.
The Bio
Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
Pupils in Abu Dhabi are learning the importance of being active, eating well and leading a healthy lifestyle now and throughout adulthood, thanks to a newly launched programme 'Healthy Lifestyle'.
As part of the Healthy Lifestyle programme, specially trained coaches from City Football Schools, along with Healthpoint physicians have visited schools throughout Abu Dhabi to give fun and interactive lessons on working out regularly, making the right food choices, getting enough sleep and staying hydrated, just like their favourite footballers.
Organised by Manchester City FC and Healthpoint, Manchester City FC’s regional healthcare partner and part of Mubadala’s healthcare network, the ‘Healthy Lifestyle’ programme will visit 15 schools, meeting around 1,000 youngsters over the next five months.
Designed to give pupils all the information they need to improve their diet and fitness habits at home, at school and as they grow up, coaches from City Football Schools will work alongside teachers to lead the youngsters through a series of fun, creative and educational classes as well as activities, including playing football and other games.
Dr Mai Ahmed Al Jaber, head of public health at Healthpoint, said: “The programme has different aspects - diet, exercise, sleep and mental well-being. By having a focus on each of those and delivering information in a way that children can absorb easily it can help to address childhood obesity."
Joker: Folie a Deux
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
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Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants
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Results
5pm: Warsan Lake – Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 2,200m; Winner: Dhaw Al Reef, Sam Hitchcott (jockey), Abdallah Al Hammadi (trainer)
5.30pm: Al Quadra Lake – Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m; Winner: Mrouwah Al Gharbia, Sando Paiva, Abubakar Daud
6pm: Hatta Lake – Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m; Winner: AF Yatroq, George Buckell, Ernst Oertel
6.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup – Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,600m; Winner: Ashton Tourettes, Adries de Vries, Ibrahim Aseel
7pm: Abu Dhabi Championship – Listed (PA) Dh180,000 (T) 1,600m; Winner: Bahar Muscat, Antonio Fresu, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami
7.30pm: Zakher Lake – Rated Conditions (TB) Dh80,000 (T) 1,400m; Winner: Alfareeq, Dane O’Neill, Musabah Al Muhairi.
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Persuasion
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The five pillars of Islam
Profile of Udrive
Date started: March 2016
Founder: Hasib Khan
Based: Dubai
Employees: 40
Amount raised (to date): $3.25m – $750,000 seed funding in 2017 and a Seed round of $2.5m last year. Raised $1.3m from Eureeca investors in January 2021 as part of a Series A round with a $5m target.
BULKWHIZ PROFILE
Date started: February 2017
Founders: Amira Rashad (CEO), Yusuf Saber (CTO), Mahmoud Sayedahmed (adviser), Reda Bouraoui (adviser)
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: E-commerce
Size: 50 employees
Funding: approximately $6m
Investors: Beco Capital, Enabling Future and Wain in the UAE; China's MSA Capital; 500 Startups; Faith Capital and Savour Ventures in Kuwait
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The Africa Institute 101
Housed on the same site as the original Africa Hall, which first hosted an Arab-African Symposium in 1976, the newly renovated building will be home to a think tank and postgraduate studies hub (it will offer master’s and PhD programmes). The centre will focus on both the historical and contemporary links between Africa and the Gulf, and will serve as a meeting place for conferences, symposia, lectures, film screenings, plays, musical performances and more. In fact, today it is hosting a symposium – 5-plus-1: Rethinking Abstraction that will look at the six decades of Frank Bowling’s career, as well as those of his contemporaries that invested social, cultural and personal meaning into abstraction.
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
THE SPECS
Engine: 3.5-litre supercharged V6
Power: 416hp at 7,000rpm
Torque: 410Nm at 3,500rpm
Transmission: 6-speed manual
Fuel consumption: 10.2 l/100km
Price: Dh375,000
On sale: now
