Tag Archives: Rory Duffy

2021 ORIGIN 1st IRISH THEATRE FESTIVAL

Michelle Dooley Mahon’s The Scourge tells of a woman reliving her mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s (photo by Carol Rosegg)

2021 ORIGIN 1st IRISH THEATRE FESTIVAL
January 11-31, free – $10 per event
www.origintheatre.org

The thirteenth annual Origin 1st Irish Theatre Festival has been reimagined for its 2021 iteration, a three-week collection of theatrical dramas ($10), fiction and nonfiction films ($5), and free panel discussions shedding light on the current state of Irish theater. Curated by actors Mick Mellamphy and Sarah Street, the festivities kick off January 11 with the opening ceremony on Zoom and Fishamble’s Mustard, Eva O’Connor’s one-woman Edinburgh Fringe play about a woman who falls hard for a Tour de France competitor. “The cyclist knows nothing of the madness in my bones or the mustard in my mind,” the character says. The other plays are the Wexford Arts Center’s production of Michelle Dooley Mahon’s one-woman The Scourge, an Alzheimer’s story directed by Ben Barnes; Darren Murphy’s deeply moving The Gifts You Gave to the Dark, the Irish Rep tale told over a smartphone, one of the first live works dealing with Covid-19; Origin’s Under the Albert Clock, comprising monologues by five playwrights from Northern Ireland (Emily Dedakis, Gina Donnelly, Sarah Gordon, Fionnuala Kennedy, and Alice Malseed) set around the historic Albert Clock in Belfast in 2050; About Face Ireland’s Zoom presentation Transatlantic Tales, eight original works by Matthew Cole Kelly, Melissa Annis, James McLindon, Rachel White, Emily Bohannon, Krystal Sweedman, Seamus Scanlon, and Neil Sharpson, each pairing one actor in Ireland and one in America (Amie Tedesco, Kathleen Warner Yeates, Brandon Jones, Helena White, Kevin Collins, Darina Gallagher, Orlagh Cassidy, Mark Tankersley, Erin Healani Chung, Michael Rhodes, David Ryan, John Keating, Megan Day, Kate Grimes, Paul Nugent, Richard Topol, and Maureen O’Connell); and Origin’s Stay Home and Stay Safe, four short pieces by Geraldine Aaron, Honor Molloy, Derek Murphy, and Ursula Rani Sarma about domestic violence during the pandemic, with Angel Desai, Alan Kelly, Niamh Hopper, David Spain, and Jade Jordan.

Richard Topol and Maureen O’Connell star in one of five short Zoom plays that comprise Transatlantic Tales

In addition to three showings of each play, there will be two screenings of each film, which explore unemployed actors going on a camping trip (O’Connell’s Spa Weekend), a possible miracle (Aislinn Clarke’s The Devil’s Doorway), what happens when your horse comes in (Seanie Sugrue’s Misty Button), the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (Rory Duffy’s A Fragile Peace), an incident in the Irish War of Independence (Conal Creedon’s The Burning of Cork), and a 1905 journey across Connemara by John Millington Synge and Jack B. Yeats (Margy Kinmonth’s To the Western World). There will also be five panel discussions that will stream twice; the full schedule is below.

Monday, January 11
Opening Ceremony, 3:00

Friday, January 15
“Irish Redemption — An Irish Invasion into the World of Video Games,” with Roger Clarke and Penny O Brien, 8:00

Sunday, January 17
“Producing in a Pandemic,“ offering first looks at new works, with Aoife Williamson, Derek Murphy, Tim Ruddy, David Gilna, and Lorna Fenenbock, 8:00

Monday, January 18
“Black&Irish,” focusing on diversity and inclusion in Irish arts and culture, with Femi Bankole, Leon Diop, Bonni Odoemene, Jade Jordan, and Zainab Boladale, 8:00

Wednesday, January 20
“Casting and the Irish Perspective,” with Christine McKenna Tirella, 3:00

“The Irish Tunes of Tin Pan Alley,” with Mick Moloney and Larry Kirwan, 8:00

Friday, January 22
“Irish Redemption — An Irish Invasion into the World of Video Games,” with Roger Clarke and Penny O Brien, 3:00

Saturday, January 23
“Producing in a Pandemic,“ offering first looks at new works, with Aoife Williamson, Derek Murphy, Tim Ruddy, David Gilna, and Lorna Fenenbock, 3:00

Monday, January 25
“Casting and the Irish Perspective,” with Christine McKenna Tirella, 8:00

Wednesday, January 27
“The Irish Tunes of Tin Pan Alley,” with Mick Moloney and Larry Kirwan, 3:00

Saturday, January 30
“Black&Irish,” focusing on diversity and inclusion in Irish arts and culture, with Femi Bankole, Leon Diop, Bonni Odoemene, Jade Jordan, and Zainab Boladale, 3:00

Saturday, January 31
Closing Ceremony, 5:00

THE O’CASEY CYCLE: THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS

Irishman battles Irishman in Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Irish Repertory Theatre, Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage
132 West 22nd St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Through June 22, $50-$70
212-727-2737
irishrep.org

The Irish Rep concludes its outstanding “O’Casey Cycle” with the third play in Sean O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy, The Plough and the Stars. The controversial 1926 work, the follow-up to 1923’s The Shadow of a Gunman and 1924’s Juno and the Paycock, the semiautobiographical The Plough and the Stars is the earliest of the stories, taking place in 1915-16 around the Easter Rising, when the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army battled the British army and Dublin Fusiliers, Catholics against Protestants in a violent rebellion. Charlie Corcoran’s immersive set, which extends up the sides of the theater and down the hall, changes from a tenement apartment to a pub and the street outside as a close-knit collection of intriguing characters prepare for a fight.

The play begins in November 1915 in the living room of Jack Clitheroe (Adam Petherbridge), a bricklayer, and his wife, Nora (Clare O’Malley), an elegant woman who wants more out of life; he’s a bit disappointed as well, dismayed that he had been passed over for a promotion to captain in the ICA. Carpenter Fluther Good (Michael Mellamphy) is attempting to get rid of the squeak in the front door as nosy charwoman Mrs. Grogan (Úna Clancy) accepts a package for Nora and opens it to find a fancy hat. “Such notions of upper-osity she’s getting’,” she declares. “Oh, swank, what!” Nora comes home to find her uncle, the daffy Peter Flynn (Robert Langdon Lloyd), and Fluther having words with the Young Covey (James Russell), a wisecracking atheist and socialist who enjoys riling people with his progressive beliefs.

Nora (Clare O’Malley) begs her husband, Jack (Adam Petherbridge), not to join the fight in conclusion of Sean O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Fruit vendor and Protestant loyalist Bessie Burgess (Maryann Plunkett) stops by to heap disdain on Nora, calling her a “little over-dressed trollope.” After everyone else leaves, Capt. Brennan (John Keating) arrives to tell Jack that he is the new commander of the eighth battalion of the ICA and must lead a reconnaissance attack, which upsets Nora, who wants him to stay home with her. Jack storms out with Capt. Brennan, and a distraught Nora is then visited by Mollser (Meg Hennessy), Mrs. Gogan’s sickly fifteen-year-old daughter who dreams of having the life Nora does. “I often envy you, Mrs. Clitheroe, seein’ th’ health you have, an’ th’ lovely place you have here, an’ wondherin’ if I’ll ever be sthrong enough to be keepin’ a home together for a man,” Mollser says. As a regiment passes by on its way to the front, Bessie sticks her head in to condemn the soldiers. It’s a brilliant first act, firmly establishing the characters, mixing in humor with dread as darkness awaits. “Is there anybody goin’, Mrs. Clitheroe, with a titther o’ sense?” Mollser asks.

The next three acts build on that extensive framework, with the addition of prostitute Rosie Redmond (Sarah Street), a barman (Harry Smith), a woman from Rathmines (Terry Donnelly) who is terrified of what is going on outside, and Jack’s flag-waving compatriots Lt. Langon (Ed Malone) and Sgt. Tinley (Smith). Director Charlotte Moore, the cofounder of the Irish Rep with Ciarán O’Reilly, knows the play well; she previously helmed the company’s 1988 production, its first show ever, as well as its 1997 revival. In honor of the Irish Rep’s thirtieth anniversary season, O’Reilly again is the voice of the speaker, as he was in 1988, spouting rhetoric to the assembled masses based on the words of Irish activist Padraig Pearse. The cast, most of whom also appear in The Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the Paycock, is exemplary, creating a wholly believable fictional world.

During the first week of the premiere of The Plough and the Stars at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1926, there were protesters and demonstrators angry with O’Casey’s treatment of Irish nationalism and religion, leading to a riot in which actor Barry Fitzgerald punched out a man who had climbed onstage, knocking him into the orchestra pit. “You have disgraced yourselves again,” senator and Abbey director W. B. Yeats said to the crowd. “Is this going to be an ever-recurring celebration of the arrival of Irish genius?” The 2019 iteration of the play might not pack the same kind of wallop, but it is a potent portrayal of civil strife and the power religious and political disagreement has to tear apart friends and neighbors, something we know all too well given the current climate in America.

THE O’CASEY CYCLE: THE SHADOW OF A GUNMAN

Minnie Powell (Meg Hennessy) and Donal Davoren (James Russell) flirt in Irish Rep revival of Sean O’Casey’s The Shadow of a Gunman (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Irish Repertory Theatre, Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage
132 West 22nd St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Through May 25, $50-$70
212-727-2737
irishrep.org

The Irish Rep’s thirtieth anniversary season, “The O’Casey Cycle,” features Sean O’Casey’s exceptional Dublin Trilogy. Last week I highly recommended Juno and the Paycock the 1924 play set during the Irish Civil War of 1922-23; 1925’s The Plough and the Stars, which takes place around the 1916 Easter Rising, was the first show Irish Rep ever put on, back in 1988, and will begin performances April 20. O’Casey’s first produced play was The Shadow of a Gunman, which premiered at the Abbey Theatre in 1923 and established the laborer as a new force on the scene. The play is set in May 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, in a tenement in Hilljoy Square in Dublin. Small-time peddler Seumas Shields (Michael Mellamphy) is sleeping late, something he appears to do often; while he waits for his colleague Mr. Maguire (Rory Duffy) to go out to sell their wares, a slew of other classic characters from Irish lore, from drunks and ne’er-do-wells to layabouts and overburdened women, come barging in.

Poet Donal Davoren (James Russell) is staying with him, which doesn’t make the landlord, Mr. Mulligan (Harry Smith), very happy, since the rent is overdue. The lovely young Minnie Powell (Meg Hennessy) develops a crush on Donal, believing him to be a heroic IRA gunman preparing for his next hit. “Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not,” he teases, taking advantage of the romantic attention. The blustery Tommy Owens (Ed Malone) stops by to let everyone know that he supports the IRA and will fight if called on. Mrs. Henderson (Una Clancy), who lives in a neighboring tenement, comes over with James Gallagher (Robert Langdon Lloyd), who reads a persnickety letter he wrote asking the IRA for help. And Mrs. Grigson (Terry Donnelly) is worried about her alcoholic husband, Adolphus (John Keating), who talks about himself in the third person. Maguire eventually shows up but is in a hurry, leaving a mysterious black bag with Seumas. Through all the mayhem and madness, the fear that the Black and Tans could show up at any minute hangs over the proceedings with so much dread.

James Gallagher (Robert Langdon Lloyd) seeks help from the IRA in The Shadow of a Gunman (photo by Carol Rosegg)

In the 105-minute two-act play, O’Casey avoids glorifying the lower class. “Upon my soul! I’m beginnin’ to believe that the Irish people are still in the stone age,” Seumas says, adding later, “Oh, this is a hopeless country!” Donal complains, “The people! Damn the people! They live in the abyss, the poet lives on the mountaintop . . . The poet ever strives to save the people; the people ever strive to destroy the poet. The people view life through creeds, through customs, and through necessities; the poet views creeds, customs, and necessities through life.” However, The Shadow of a Gunman is a slighter play than Juno and the Paycock, a less-layered tale lacking the same nuance and muscle. Charlie Corcoran’s fabulous tenement set, which runs throughout the theater, is only slightly altered from Paycock’s. Directed by Ciarán O’Reilly, who plays Capt. Boyle in Paycock, Gunman features many of the same actors, with Hennessy standing out as the coquettish Minnie and Donnelly reprising her role from the company’s 1999 production. In many ways, O’Casey’s vision of the country is personified by Seumas, who doesn’t want to get out of bed in the morning and does not want to go to work. “A land mine exploding under the bed is the only thing that would lift you out of it,” Donal says. It’s a funny line, but one more than tinged with seriousness.