Aaron Monaghan
Hometown: Cavan, Ireland
Currently: Playing the title role in Atlantic Theater Company’s production of Martin McDonagh’s black comedy The Cripple of Inishmaan, as a disabled young man looking to escape his provincial life in 1930s Ireland.
Rural Beginnings: Monaghan’s working-class Irish hometown—where “a lot of the people were related and everyone knew everyone else’s business” not unlike the play’s Inishmaan—couldn’t have been farther from the lights of Broadway. “I don’t think I watched a play until I was in college,” the actor admits, brogue rolling. The second youngest of seven children plus two foster sisters, Monaghan spent his early years dreaming of architecture. “I wanted to design buildings,” he recalls. His focus shifted at 16 when a youth drama group started up in town. “I used to work in my father’s vegetable store after school, and I would get off one hour every Friday evening [to do] drama and improv. I loved it.”
A Play's the Thing: The drama group eventually selected Monaghan for a scholarship to a weeklong theater camp, where he so impressed visiting playwright Declan Gorman that the writer penned a role specifically for young Aaron in his play Hades. “I had just turned 18 and had [been accepted] to school for architecture, and this guy offered me a part,” Monaghan recounts. “I said, ‘God, I’d like to do a professional play before I die!’” The budding actor accepted, joining the cast for six months with the intention of starting college the following September—though that plan soon derailed. “Someone handed me an application for the Samuel Beckett Center at Trinity College in Dublin, already filled out for me. I signed it, and the day I auditioned I realized [acting] was what I wanted to do.” Fortunately, he got in.
Taking the Stage: At Trinity, Monaghan honed natural talents for acting and movement that led to meaty roles after graduation, including star turns at the Abbey, Ireland’s national theater, and the Druid Theatre Company, led by Tony-winning director Garry Hynes. His success greatly relieved his parents. “No one in our family’s into the arts in any way," he says. "So my mom [Monaghan’s father passed away six months after his graduation] was glad when I got out of college and started doing well.” Monaghan himself immediately felt at home in Ireland’s intimate theater community. “Back home, actors are good at looking after each other because the money and industry are struggling. We don’t really have understudies, so if someone gets sick, the [other actors] are there to support—they’ll come to your house and bring you soup.”
The Star of Inishmaan: In 2007, during a stint as Romeo in the Abbey’s production of Romeo and Juliet, Monaghan landed the starring role in Inishmaan, directed by Hynes. The darkly comic story of disabled Billy, who attempts to abandon Ireland and make it as an actor in Los Angeles in 1934, was met with acclaim during its initial run at Druid, launching a UK tour that transfered intact to off-Broadway. Monaghan explains the show’s black comedy is distinctly Irish: “[McDonagh] knocks that cruel sense of humor on the head. When characters make ‘Cripple Billy’ jokes, I don’t play offended because that offense isn’t there at home. We do so much slagging of one another, but it’s just funny and no one means any harm.”
Best Foot Forward: It’s not easy playing a severely disabled character, especially when you’re as healthy and appealing as Monaghan. The actor explains he had to slowly experiment with his role’s crumpled physicality to develop the part. “I started with the foot, really. I turn it, raise it, step over it, then drag it behind me. Then the spine gets pushed forward, the shoulder turns in—God, I’m doing this in public as I explain it!” he says with a laugh. The characterization is so extreme that Monaghan must switch his “good leg” each show to prevent permanent damage. Is all that work painful? “Everyone asks that!” he says. “Yeah, it is. But I put ice on it every night and make sure I do a rigorous warm-up before.”
Luck of the Irish: With the news that Inishmaan has extended its Atlantic run through March 1, Monaghan finds himself trying to adjust to life as a leading man in New York. “I’m finding it a little weird,” he admits. “When people come and talk to you [after the show] they treat you with a lot of respect you don’t necessarily deserve! Back home everyone is pretty much equal.” Though he missed his family at Christmas, Monaghan is enjoying his extended stay in NYC. “The first time I was here, I found the city calms you down. I would find myself singing out loud in the middle of the street and not caring—and no one else cared! You feel a bit confident here.”