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The Lislea Drama Festival Committee are delighted with the standard of the 2022 festival to date and Wednesday nights audience was enthralled by the home grown Lislea Dramatic Player’s production of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” by Dale Wasserman (from the novel by Ken Kesey)
Glenamaddy Players’ from County Galway make a welcome return to the festival with “The Cripple of Inishmaan’ by Martin McDonagh will finish off the festival tomorrow night Saturday 12 March, NOTE Curtain up the earlier time of 7.30pm to allow for the awards to be presented.
Glenamaddy Players have been in existence for nearly 50 years also and have qualified in the All Ireland Finals, most recently gaining 2nd place in 2019 with David Lindsay-Abaire’s ‘Rabbit Hole’. Reappearing with ‘The Cripple of Inishmaan’ a strange comic tale in the great tradition of Irish storytelling, is set in 1934 on the island Inishmaan off the West of Ireland. As word arrives on Inishmaan that the Hollywood director, Robert O’Flaherty is coming to the neighbouring island of Inishmore to film ‘Man of Aran’, the one person who wants to be in the film more than anybody is young Cripple Billy, if only to break away form the bitter tedium of his daily life. An epic tale of high drama. This really is a production not to be missed and will be followed by the final adjudication by Emma Jordan concluding with the presentation of awards.
Tickets will be available on the night at the Box Office from 7-8pm. Admission: Adults £8. General Inquiries Tel: 02830838565. Ticket bookings 02830830069.
Lislea Dramatic Players were formed in 1940 and have staged productions almost every year since, bringing their shows to All Ireland Confined finals. They dedicated their presentation of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” on Wednesday to the late Kathleen McParland who played leading roles in the 1940s and 1950s. This year they welcomed back Christopher Quinn and Gerry McBrien after an absence of some time as well as Katie Cunningham in her debut performance as Nurse Flinn. The play, carefully crafted by director John Campbell tells a tale of optimism amidst a sea of hopelessness. Another fine production from Lislea Dramatic Players astutely written by Ken Kesey, reeking of bitterness and occasionally leavened by black humour.
In Review
Friday 4th March ‘Little Gem’ by Elaine Murphy performed by Kilrush Drama Group.
All Ireland Award winners Kilrush Drama Group returned with their production of “Little Gem” directed by Mick Byrne to the Old schoolhouse Theatre in Lislea.
The festival adjudicator Emma Jordan welcomed the opportunity for the audience to see the first comedy of the festival and feel the “communal force of laughter” in a theatre again. The play was presented on a very simple set of three chairs and a moving spotlight. The adjudicator was delighted with “three beautiful performances” that had the audience at times in gales of laughter followed by moments of poignant silence and tears. Caitlin Clausson, Margaret Nolan and All Ireland award winning actress Mary Earle play three generations of Dublin women, Amber (granddaughter), Lorraine (mother) and Kay (grandmother), who recount their story in successive scenes revealing their personal histories of love and loss and how they depend on and ultimately save each other despite the family matriarch Kay’s worries that her “little family is falling apart”.
The play was written by Elaine Murphy, an actress who originally was frustrated at the lack of well written parts for the female working class voice in contemporary Irish Theatre. Murphy wrote this play about the woman she knew around her. Her award winning play certainly delivers three very strong roles for it’s cast and as they deliver their long monologues there was no hiding place for actors on stage during this fast paced journey through their lives. The play has a very simple structure but the story is universal, one of love, loss, hope and tragedy. Although there are only three of them on stage the cast conjure a host of other charters who’s interwoven stories had the audience entranced. Mary Earle in her first stage performance in 23 years was in particular praised for her “superb comic timing” but the adjudicator advised the group to be more confident in the physicality of their roles and not to be intimidated by this structure. She suggested that they shouldn’t be tentative but to have faith that the strength of the storytelling would allow them to be free to move more. A brilliant night of strong female performances aptly held on International Women’s Day. It was a memorable night of theatre and no one who saw the performance will ever look at Kermit the frog the same way again….you had to be there!
Saturday 5th March ’’The Night Alive’’ by Conor Mc Pherson performed by Enniskillen Theatre Co.
Saturday 5th March brought a returning production to the Old School House Theatre in Lislea, when the Enniskillen Theatre Company, under the direction of Ena Trimble presented their version of Conor Mc Pherson’s ‘The Night Alive’. The play is set in contemporary Dublin and explores the lives of a few lost souls whose paths cross in the makeshift bedsit of a drifter named Tommy and his sidekick ‘Doc’. What follows is what festival Adjudicator Emma Jordan described as a very “demanding play” with significant challenges. The play has political undertones and the undercurrent of the repercussions of the financial crash in Dublin in 2013 and portrays the city’s inhabitants as they themselves reflect a society that is falling apart as they are “at the seams”. The loneliness and desolation of the characters was presented “sensitively” by the cast.
The audience agreed with our adjudicator Emma Jordan on the 4th night at the festival that the company did a “superb job” which was enhanced by an amazing set which framed the performance so well.
All of the actors delivered strong performances with “very individual characterisations”. Conor Friery, playing Tommy gave a “gentle and likeable” performance in his portrayal of the feckless Dubliner down on his luck who was just looking for something to believe in when Aideen McNamara, playing Aimee, the young prostitute, crashed into his life and chaos ensued.
Aideen as Aimee was commended for her performance in what the adjudicator felt was a role that the playwright Conor McPhearson had left “ very underwritten” so the actor has to communicate the emotional reality of the character through the physicality of the performance which she felt that actor captured very well.
The audience was taken through the fast paced drama which ultimately led to the death of one of the characters in a very tense scene. Uncle Maurice and Kenneth played by Marty Quinn and Damien McGirr gave solid performances . Kenneth was, as he was supposed to be, a “very scary man” and his menace was very succinctly captured by the actor. The adjudicator thought that Uncle Maurice’s physical limitations were very “deftly handled” in this portrayal of the old man in a performance that went to the heart of the character.
The audience favourite was undoubtedly “Doc” brought to life by Christian Carbin. The Adjudicator thought he did a “fabulous job of this adorable character” who is simultaneously very naïve and profound. We had a fantastic moment of theatre when he claimed to have ‘brainalized’ the odious Kenneth. The murder scene was singled out as being particularly well done which the adjudicator recognised as “technically very difficult to accomplish on stage” so the cast and the director were rightly praised for the choreography and stage craft in this scene which delivered a brilliant moment for the audience.
The adjudicator had some minor “critique as opposed to criticisms” of the transitions in the play between scenes. Jordan felt that there was a lack of pace during these times in the performance and this was one aspect of the night that the company moving forward in the completion may need a little work on. Jordan suggested that as all the transitions have a different function this needed to be recognised in the production. Overall the audience were treated to a really great performance of a very challenging play.
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