Irish playwright weaves a web of manipulation and rebellion

In a series of internet chatrooms, where a group of Chiswick adolescents show off, flirt and play power games; Enda Walsh creates a chilling and powerful tale of manipulation and the ultimate act of teenage rebellion.

Although the six teenagers believe they are all at a safe distance, the distance may not be safe enough for the vulnerable.

Entitled ‘Chatroom’, this play is one of a trio of sixty minutes plays currently showing at The National Theatre.

Burn / Chatroom / Citizenship are short, sharp and provocative tales where the drama of teenagers’ lives take centre stage. "Direct and honest, they are intensely alive to the possibilities and pressures we face on the verge of adulthood." states the National's press office.

Chatroom author, Enda Walsh was born in Dublin 1967 and attended same secondary school where Roddy Doyle taught.

When asked why he chose Chiswick teenagers he explained "I wanted characters of Chatroom to be tomorrow's potential leaders, doctors and lawyers and thought that Chiswick would therefore be a good setting."

Walsh's other plays include Disco Pigs, which was awarded the Arts Council Playwrights Award, won the Best Fringe production in 1996, the 1997 Stewart Parker and George Devine Awards, and played at the Traverse Theatre for the ’97 Edinburgh Festival. His other stage plays include Bedbound, which won a Fringe First at the 2001 Edinburgh Festival and was staged at the Royal Court in 2002, and Small Things, recently produced by Paines Plough at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

His latest play, Chatroom, has been heralded by the Financial Times as “The best new play currently to be seen in London'

March 27, 2006