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Crowd-Pulling VersifiersAuthor(s): Tom MorganSource: Fortnight, No. 306 (May, 1992), p. 37Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25553445 .

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Midsummer

night and

Easter week

GRAINNE FARREN observed Red Kettle's Abbey debut

IN A SMALL town, the congregation of the Protestant church has dwindled to nothing, and

it faces closure as the rector's wife lies dying.

McKeever, the local undertaker, is trying to put on an amateur production of A Midsummer

Night's Dream, but his actors are leaving one

by one.

With only three of them left he struggles on,

doubling up parts and enthusiastically urging on his remaining cast. He directs, acts, changes

roles, even makes the costumes himself. When

the Catholic priest hands over the parish hall to a rival troupe staging a musical version of

the Easter Rising, McKeever gets the idea of

asking the rector for the use of the about-to

be-defunct church for the Shakespearean

performance. Written by Jim Nolan, artistic director of

Red Kettle Theatre Company, Moonshine be

gins as a comedy but gradually unfolds a seri

ous side as the vulnerability of the six charac

ters is revealed. It loses some momentum in the

middle but recovers to reach a moving climax

in which disappointment and grief give way to

hope. Last month Red Kettle performed the

play at the Abbey?the first appearance by the

Waterford-based company on the Dublin

stage?before taking it on tour.

Tom Hickey was funny and sympathetic as

Mac, the mortician with a passion for drama

who lacks nevertheless the courage to embrace

romance in his own life. The scene in which he

chats and sings to a corpse he is embalming was

hilarious. Also outstanding were Frank Mc

Cusker as Michael, the retarded apprentice

undertaker, and Alan Barry as the unhappy Rev

Langton, who has lost not only his church but

his faith. Bridget, the schoolgirl who throws herself into acting in an effort to give meaning to her life, was played with great gusto by Clare

Dowling.

Completing the highly professional cast were

Jenni Ledwell as the rector's daughter, Eliza

beth, home for the first time since the break-up of her affair with Mac, and Brendan Conroy as

Griffin, a reluctant member ofthe drama group who has his own dark secret. The director, Ben

Barnes, made the most of the interaction be

tween characters and the balance between com

edy and pathos. Jim Nolan's previous plays include The

Boathouse and The Gods are Angry Miss

Kerr. If he keeps writing like this he will soon become a well-known name in Irish theatre.

Final dates in the Red Kettle tour: April 30th, St Louis Convent, Monaghan; May 2nd, Town Hall, Cavan

Hot property?Dowling and Hickey in the Red Kettle production

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Crowd-pulling versifiers

TOM MORGAN savoured the Galway poetry festival CUIRT, GALWAY'S sixth international po etry festival, was officially opened this year by the humorous Ernest Bryll, Poland's ambassa

dor to the republic. A poet in his own right, and

a fluent Irish speaker who has already trans

lated several Irish works into his native tongue,

Bryll set the tone ofthe festival by saying that one poet from Poland had already gone to

Rome and another to Ireland?in his estima

tion the latter had made the better choice. He

spoke directly and simply against a background of Robert Bottom's festival exhibition of paint

ings, the Place ofthe Three Stones. Later that

evening the stoic R S Thomas read to a packed

audience?many had been unable to get in.

Twenty-five events had been packed into

last month's festival, including a poetry com

petition for the under-18s and the 'poets' plat form', which allows representatives from writ

ers' groups from all over the country to read.

This year the event was lengthened to three

hours to accommodate the many participants. Over the five days the hardy had the oppor

tunity to experience some of the best from

home and abroad. The Indian poet Jayanta

Mahapatra shook like a leaf under cold Galway skies, but he exuded a calm stillness when he

read in Drimcong House restaurant with Paula

Meehan and the soprano Helen Holohan. It was

a pity his books weren't available to savour the

beauty and apparent timelessness of poems like

The Whorehouse in a Calcutta Street, which

concludes with

when, like a door, her words close behind:

'Hurry, will you? Let me go,' and her lonely breath thrashed against your kind.

At the same time, the ever-popular Paul Durcan

performed to a full house in Nuns' Island?the

simultaneous events bearing witness to poet

ry's appeal, in Galway at least.

Iain Crichton Smith's volume of collected

poems was introduced by Gerald Dawe in the

Sheela-na-Gig Bookshop. Humorous and ur

bane, Smith was prompted to read to another

packed venue and the audience (which seemed

to include most of the poets in Ireland) had a taste of what was to come that evening.

The five days proceeded with readings by Sean Dunne, Jerzy Jarienwicz, Nuala Ni

Dhomhnaill, Ian Duhig, Gabriel Rosenstock, the excellent Hugh McMillan, Harry Clifton, James Berry, etc, etc. A new inclusion this year

was a prose reading in the Druid Theatre. This

included Tim Robinson (who has mapped vir

tually every square inch on the Aran Islands in

his more than important book Stones of Aran) and the journalist-turned-writer Colm Toibin.

Poets beware. If your ego is riding high or

your sense of your own worth inflated, keep

away from the comedy duo Connor Maguire and Charlie McBride, whose show is bound to

deflate even the most august and arch. Their

performance in the Atlanta Hotel signalled the start of a successful partnership.

Perhaps too many events were included this

year. But no one would have wanted to see

everything. And it was all so professional? with events starting on time, poets seen

rehearsing on the strand at Salthill, others jog

ging under Spanish Arch. Gone were the re

hearsals in pubs when, late in the evening, no

one knew the running order and where inscrip tions in slim volumes were indecipherable.

Hopefully Mike Diskin and his committee will have similar success next year.

FORTNIGHT MAY 37

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