Lucius Robinson on rage, masculinity and the electric force of playing Howie

As he takes on the role of Howie in Howie the Rookie, Lucius Robinson reflects on navigating the character’s volatile extremes of love, anger and vulnerability, the muscular rhythm of Mark O'Rowe’s language, and why this 1999 Dublin drama still speaks urgently to questions of violence, masculinity and identity today.

Howie and Rookie move between bravado, vulnerability and sudden violence. How did each of you approach finding that balance in your performances?

Howie has within him the capacity for great love and powerful anger, and I think part of my journey has been learning how to navigate these polarities. They are punctuated by brief moments of self-reflection, where I think we do see him in a state of vulnerability, but I think the truth of his performance is ultimately in playing the pendulum of his emotions. The text helps tremendously with this task. As with Shakespeare, the text is both mechanism and guide. I liken playing Howie’s language to plugging myself into an electrical socket, which is to say I think the best I can do is yield to the journey of the language and allow it to exist in space through me.

The play is built around two interlocking monologues rather than direct interaction. What are the challenges (or freedoms) of sustaining that kind of solo storytelling while still creating a shared world?

It is both harrowing and delightful to take the space solo for that duration. While I am alone, I know Andrew is present both in the story and in the space, so there is a sense of playing with him, even in his physical absence. Acting thrives on connection, and in this case it means connection must be found and sustained outside of a scene partner: with the self, with the language, and primarily with the audience. It feels vulnerable, but also like the first drop on a roller coaster, an invitation to go for it. In my work, since Howie speaks first, I try to paint as clear a picture as I can for Andrew, both in terms of what is seen and who lives in our world, but also in regard to how he and I are going to tell this story.

There is a strong physicality and rhythm to Mark O’Rowe’s writing. How did you work with the language to bring it to life?

I feel as though the language works me. Earlier I likened O’Rowe’s text to Shakespeare, and I think the comparison is particularly apt when we consider how playing a tightly established structure can impact and shape an actor. Howie’s text drives, pushes and steers me when I speak it. O’Rowe smashes words together, cuts sentences in half, will give a character a page’s worth of straight text and then break for a single line before resuming the flow. I have found that if I am present physically and emotionally, the linguistic structure he has crafted will do most of the work.

Both characters are driven, in different ways, by humiliation, status and perception. What insights did you gain into how quickly those pressures can escalate into violence?

Violence feels ever present in this show, and it seems greatly connected to a general loss of possibility. At one point, Howie describes how they call the “New Shops” the “New Shops” because when they were built ten years ago, that’s what they were called at the time. It gives me the sense that this place is economically stuck: Howie seemingly has no future beyond what he’s doing now, and Rookie, despite his success with birds, is in a similar state of having nothing. This kind of personal and economic stasis breeds violence and discontent. It is humiliating not to be able to move forward, to feel profoundly unsuccessful, and I think much of the violence in the show comes not in response to a single action or person, but as a more generalised rage towards the whole world, born from not being able to become more than we are.

Despite being written in 1999 and set in Dublin, the play feels strikingly relevant today. Did working on it shift how you think about its themes, particularly around masculinity and identity?

Howie’s sense of masculinity feels right in line with the wrathful, unreflective, self-directed masculinity currently on display in many right-leaning podcasts and espoused by many men in the USA and around the world: he wants more than what he has and tries to achieve it with aggression. Howie is not without empathy he loves his brother but he struggles to be vulnerable and instead opts for defensiveness and force. In this sense, I do not think masculinity has changed a great deal from 1999, or at the very least part of masculine identity is still behaving in exactly the same way, having the same struggles with the same outcomes, and ultimately blaming others when things come up short.

Howie’s masculinity comes into particular focus when he encounters women. He exhibits an overall disdain to the point of rendering women non-people. For the woman nicknamed Avalanche he uses the foulest, most demeaning language and refuses to see her as anything more than a clandestine hookup. Later, he meets another woman, Bernie, and again objectifies her. She is a sexual object, and her stories of struggling to care for her brother ultimately annoy Howie to the point that, after being rejected, he leaves her blacked out on the bar and bleeding. Again, because he is unable to get what he wants, or even understand how to be an empathetic person, he responds with force and possessiveness. Is he a bad man? No, I think he is worthy of compassion, as many men are. But simultaneously, he exhibits some of the worst behaviour and thinking men have to offer women.

What do you hope audiences take away from the production?

Delight, laughter, disgust, compassion and revelation.

Howie The Rookie will be at The Cockpit Theatre for a limited 10-performance from 24th April - 2nd May. Tickets available from https://www.thecockpit.org.uk/show/howie_the_rookie