Scent and sensibility: Longford's Luke Casserly distils the importance of peat

The majesty of Longford's bog landscape took centre stage recently when Longford theatre professional, Luke Casserly brought his one man show home.

'Distillation' is not a drama, nor a traditional theatrical production, it's a unique multi-sensual show that intersects the point between the human experience and landscape.

Part lecture, part performance, the project explores humans' relationship with the landscape through memory and scent.
The piece was staged in the Temperance Hall as part of Culture Night, with a second sitting on the following night.
To describe it as 'a sitting' alludes to the dinner party feeling of the piece. The 'guests' sit around a circular table, with the fare on offer assorted grades of peat.

Casserly brings the audience on a performative journey that saunters through the Irish bog landscape. Distillation may have a genesis in the cessation of the peat harvesting industry in Ireland, but it zooms back and forth in time from origin to future.
In the year leading up to the first staging Luke collaborated with perfume maker Joan Woods to create a unique distillation of the Midlands bog. In the course of the show the participants get to dig in the peat in front of them to uncover an ampoule of the fragrance.

Distillation has been brought to audiences across Ireland, the US, and Canada in the past 12 months.
It's a piece of art that begs to be observed through multiple senses; it's tactile, aromatic, auditory and even that unobservable sense linked to memory.

Casserly's gift is to bring the audience to him. At various points in the performance he dips an index finger in the shards of turf in front of him to draw a path, meanwhile he draws the audience on a parallel path with his words.

There is a pied piper quality to his style. He leads the audience into the bog, spinning the table from a community hall in the centre of a town to the wetlands of the middle of Ireland.

At moments quirky, informative it is consistently entertaining throughout the 50 minute presentation.
There is a certain irony that the audience is part of the piece; because it's essentially a communal experience, but was created during the isolated times of lockdown.
Distillation was staged at Temperance Hall, Longford on Friday and Saturday, September 20 and 21.