The collaborative work Between Your Love and Mine was developed in the summer of 2016 by Leonard Cohen and John MacKenna. Novelist and theatre director MacKenna approached his friend of 35 years with the idea of arranging a requiem for stage, a theatre piece in memory of young people who had died.

Over the following months, using only Leonard Cohen’s words and music, the requiem took shape and was given final approval by him in October of 2016. Sadly, two weeks later Cohen died.

Between Your Love and Mine premiered at VISUAL Carlow in the summer of 2017, in the presence of President Michael D Higgins. So impressed was President Higgins by the work that he invited the company to perform it at Áras an Uachtaráin on Culture Night later that same year. It also prompted him to say: “When I first saw this show I was struck by the sheer beauty and integrity of it.”

The requiem was inspired, in particular, by Cohen’s hope-filled lines:

Behold the gates of mercy, in arbitrary space,

and none of us deserving the cruelty or the grace,

o solitude of longing where love has been confined,

come healing of the body, come healing of the mind.’

Leonard Cohen was a Canadian singer, songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality and romantic relationships, and he enjoyed an enormous following in Ireland, performing here regularly and always to sell-out audiences.

He pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950s and early 1960s and strangely, given his subsequent success, did not launch a music career until 1967, at the age of 33.

His first four albums were in the folk genre, but he later moved into an acoustic style with jazz, Oriental and Mediterranean influences.

Cohen’s most famous song, the hauntingly beautiful Hallelujah, was first released in 1984. I’m Your Man in 1988 is arguably Cohen’s most popular album. He released just one other album before Ten New Songs in 2001, which was a massive success in Europe.

Following a successful string of tours between 2008 and 2013, Cohen released three albums in the final four years of his life, the last of which, You Want It Darker, was released three weeks before his death.

Co Kildare-born John MacKenna (pictured below) is an award-winning Irish playwright and novelist, and his many accolades include the Hennessy Literary Award, the Irish Times Fiction Award and the C Day-Lewis Award.

He worked as a producer in RTÉ radio from 1980 to 2002. He was responsible for several memorable radio series, including Secret Gardens of the Heart which followed a young woman through the last months of her life. His radio documentary series on Leonard Cohen, How The Heart Approaches What It Yearns, won him a Jacob’s Radio Award.

MacKenna writes for, directs and acts with Mend and Makedo Theatre Co who present Between Your Love and Mine, and his association with and love of Leonard Cohen’s music led to his theatrical work Who by Fire for the Water to Wine Theatre Company, based on the experiences of a Holocaust survivor and using Cohen’s songs.

Between Your Love and Mine will be staged at the National Concert Hall in Dublin on 21 September, Cohen’s 85th birthday. That will be the third performance on the current tour, following Athy Community Arts Centre (where a plaque is erected to Cohen’s memory) on 19 September, and a return to VISUAL Carlow on 20 September. It then moves to the Moat Theatre, Naas on 26 September, Wexford Arts Centre on 27 September and the Hawkswell Theatre in Sligo on 28 September.

This is certain to be a sell-out and early booking is advised at all venues.

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