THEATRE Play depicts Mayo run-up to All-Ireland final

Taking no shortcuts


A Ballinrobe man’s play hits Galway this week

Daniel Carey

WHILE writing ‘Shortcut To Hallelujah’ this summer, Ballinrobe playwright Mick Donnellan would force himself to sit at his computer for hours. “Sometimes all you’d get in a day is one line,” he told The Mayo News, “but it’d be one line you wouldn’t have to do tomorrow … The brain is a horse – you just have to break the spirit of it. Necessity is the mother of invention!” 
Donnellan’s interactions with his brain were clearly more successful than, say, Homer Simpson’s. Because last night (Monday), the play – described as a ‘hysterical drama’ set during the run-up to an All-Ireland football final – opened at the Town Hall Studio in Galway, where it runs until next Saturday, September 3.
Named ‘Shortcut To Hallelujah’, the play began life as a ‘creative quickie’. Donnellan was offered a ten-minute slot as part of the Jolt project in Galway last May to showcase a work in development. The first scene of what became the play got a good reaction, so he developed it into something longer.
The prospect of Mayo in an All-Ireland final looked fairly slim at that stage, given that London had almost beaten James Horan’s side in Ruislip. By the time rehearsals began in early August, however, it looked like life might imitate art. But it was not to be.
The play deals with ‘issues like land, pub culture, drink and relationships’, and ‘fights over brandy going back 20 years’, explains Donnellan, He says the play has ‘struck a chord’ in previews.
Working as writer, director, producer and casting director, the Mayoman has overseen ‘intensive rehearsals’ with an ensemble that includes Ballinrobe man Cathal Leonard. The cast is full of up and coming actors where ‘everybody mucks in’, says Donnellan. It has, he admits, been ‘a little crazy’, considering rehearsals began just four days after the last performance of his previous play ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’. Asked if he’s due a holiday when ‘Shortcut To Hallelujah’ ends, he laughs. “I don’t know … the Galway Theatre Festival is in October!”
It’s been a busy year for Donnellan, who last January was offered the Town Hall Studio in Galway to show ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’. He was also involved in brainstorming ideas for ‘Lucky Run’, which won the online RTÉ ‘Storyland’ competition in June.
After completing an MA in Writing in 2004 at National University of Ireland, Galway, Donnellan did some ‘heavily dialogue-based’ fiction and – inspired by Jack Kerouac – some travel writing. Returning to recession-hit Ireland last July, he was keen to ‘do something’ and ‘get busy’.
A former TEFL teacher when in Spain, Donnellan has long had an interest in languages and loves the Mayo turn of phrase – something he’s enjoyed exploring in his plays.
“The way Mayo people speak is beautiful compared to the logical way people speak in other places,” he says. “We’re bringing people into theatre who never went before … You have critics and supporters and admirers and people who hate what you do. One aspect of Mayo dialogue is profanity and we haven’t shied away from it, because you’re ignoring a whole group of people if you do that. But there are people who can’t abide profanity, especially in the theatre.”
His native place has clearly shaped him – his production company is named Truman Town Theatre – inspired by the Jim Carrey film ‘The Truman Show’ but in his case a pseudonym for Ballinrobe, where ‘everybody knows your name, but you can’t leave!’
Having done a few shows at the Valkenburg in Ballinrobe and held workshops with transition-year students in Ballinrobe Community School, he notes a ‘hunger and desire’ for theatre in south Mayo. Planning permission has been granted for a new civic, arts and amenity centre in the town, so, he says, ‘it’s just a matter of getting the money – no small thing these days!’

‘Shortcut To Hallelujah’ runs at the Town Hall Studio, Galway until next Saturday, September 3. To book tickets (€10 or €12 each), call 091 569777 or visit www.tht.ie.