THEATRE MacMahon’s ‘The Honey Spike’ opens in Galway

From the Giant’s Causeway to ‘The Honey Spike’


Bryan MacMahon’s ‘The Honey Spike’ opens at the Town Hall Theatre Galway tonight. The play, a Mephisto Theatre Company production, will runs until this Saturday night, August 13.
Evoking an Ireland of passion, wildness and beauty, ‘The Honey Spike’ tells the tale of a Traveller woman, Breda Claffey, who has her heart set on returning to her native Kerry, where ‘The Honey Spike’ – a lucky maternity hospital – is to be found and where her child must be born. But she and her husband, Martin, are far from home, at the Giant’s Causeway in Co Antrim, and Kerry is a long, wearisome distance by cart.
This classic Irish play is a real treat for local audiences this summer. It was first produced by the Abbey Theatre in 1961 and is widely regarded as MacMahon’s best work. The Mephisto production’s cast includes Claremorris’s Orlagh De Bhaldraithe, Martin Maguire of Newport, Helen Gregg (of Electric Bridget Theatre Company fame), Daniel Guinnane, Zita Monahan, Seamus O’Donnell and, fresh from her universally praised role as Nuala in the award-winning play ‘Grenades’, Emma O’Grady. The play has a further Mayo connection through its Creative Producer, Róisín Stack, who hails from Shrule.
Director Caroline Lynch, who also directed the hugely successful ‘Grenades’, likens the story of the play to that of a contemporary road movie. It’s a journey of endurance lightened by laughter and mischief, including tangles with soldiers at the border, priests in the midlands and feuding clans in Kerry. It shows Irish people as they have always been; putting their faith in God and in magic, with their greatest belief of all in life itself. 
Mephisto has been producing work in Galway for over five years, presenting the works of Oscar Wilde, Tom Murphy and Carol Ann Duffy, along with devised pieces and new plays. The company has also toured both Ireland and the UK. ‘The Honey Spike’, Mephisto’s most ambitious work to date, is a heady concoction of conflict, tradition, song, comedy and beautiful lyricism from the pen of MacMahon.
The Honey Spike runs from Tuesday, August 9, to Saturday, August 13. To book tickets, which cost €18/€14 (or four people €55), contact the Town Hall Theatre box office on 091 569 777 or visit www.tht.ie. Tickets for the Tuesday night show are available at the special rate of €12. Curtains up at 8pm.

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