Barbara Duffy
Louisburgh Drama Group’s production of Cupid Wore Skirts, by Sam Cree, was back by popular demand on the stage of Louisburgh Parochial Hall last Friday night. The buzz of expectation as the seats were quickly filled certainly proved that the return of the popular show was eagerly anticipated. Nobody was disappointed and the howls of laughter from the audience throughout the evening were a testimony to the wonderful acting and the hilarious script.
Louisburgh Drama Group staged their first performance 60 years ago and, while the members of the troupe have changed through the decades, the excellence of their productions certainly has not.
The three-act comedy revolves around Andrew Coulter (Eddie Ball), a widower who lives with his elderly father (Michael Fetherston) and teenage son Brian (Jim Power). Andrew attempts to find a wife to win a bet with his sister-in-law, Harriet Courtney (Michelle Maxwell), a spinster with whom he has never got on well.
When, at his married daughter, Daphne’s (Lorna Kilcoyne) instigation, he advertises for a wife, he finds the respondents are not quite what he imagined. Three women accept Andrew’s ‘proposal’, leading to complete mayhem, which can only be solved by some madcap methods to persuade the ladies to cry off from the ‘engagement’.
As the scenes unfold, we meet a young Swedish girl Ingrid Hanson (Máire O’Grady), who replies to Brian’s advertisement for a singer for his band, only to find herself mistaken for a respondent to Andy’s advert; Gladys Gilmore (Irene Cannon), in search of her fourth husband to be a father to her latest baby; and Isobel Stanfield (Brenda Staunton), a prim and proper spinster who changes completely after drinking too much dandelion wine.
To help cool the ardour of Mrs Gilmore, Brian Coulter’s gay friend Ronnie (Noel Billington) is roped in to give the impression that Andy is more interested in men than women – a wonderful comic double-act from the two men.
The wit and repartee between all the characters throughout the whole play is side-splittingly funny and delivered with excellent comic timing by all the cast. There are wonderful opportunities for great acting and each performer did a fantastic job of keeping the audience in stitches for the evening.
Mention must be made of the set – the living room behind the antique shop which Andy refuses to furnish with anything modern – which was so evocative of the 1960s, designed by Michael O’Malley and Joe Fergus. Special effects were by Noel Billington, most memorable being the pressure cooker exploding off-stage in the kitchen.
The directors of the show were Michael Fetherston and Mary Hegarty, who was also the -producer, and they can be very proud of their work. It would not be a surprise to see Cupid Wore Skirts back a third time ‘by popular demand’. DVDs of the show will be available shortly from Louisburgh’s Jim Corrigan.
