John Kelly meets actor, writer and director Olwen Fouéré, a theatre artist who in the last four decades has combined roles in the classics – from Greek tragedies to Shakespeare – and contemporary classics – starring in plays by writers like Mark O’Rowe and Marina Carr – with her own, highly experimental, work. This revealing and intimate interview opens with her looking back on her unusual childhood in Connemara: her parents were Breton separatists who were forced to flee France in the 40s because of their political views, and the young Foueré grew up between languages and cultures as a result. She reflects on a career that has been marked by the influences of Ireland, France and her Breton roots; her love of experimentation and compulsion to explore hitherto uncharted territory in her performances; how she developed her own, unique, movement-based style; and her many and varied collaborations with artists from different disciplines. Foueré is a true pioneer; a performer who, over a long career, has never ceased to explore, question and innovate. She is currently touring two, universally-acclaimed, solo shows that she has devised herself: Lessness by Samuel Beckett, and Riverrun, inspired by the voice of the river in Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce.