DRAMA: Friel classic given an American twist

Friel classic to get Cleveland treatment on Mayo tour


Drama
Anton McNulty

BRIAN Friel’s classic award-winning play, ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’, will be played out with a Cleveland accent instead of a Donegal brogue this month when the Cleveland Irish Players Drama Company perform a four-performance tour of the west of county Mayo.
The Cleveland Irish Players Drama Company have been touring around Mayo since the 1970s and this tour gets under way in the Carrowkennedy Community Centre on September 15. The majority of the cast have connections with Mayo including the Director, Kevin McGinty, who is a native of Castlebar.
Kevin told The Mayo News that a lot of hard work and expensive goes into the tour but they love coming back to Mayo and putting on a show for the public.
“Coming back to Mayo is always very special for us and we are looking forward to this year’s tour. Most of the crew were born in the US but have been back to Ireland and love coming here. They put a lot of work and expense to get here and it takes a lot of dedication and commitment. It really is a novel idea for an Irish American group to perform Irish plays in places like Carrowkennedy and I don’t know of any other amateur group in the US who do that,” he said
The Cleveland Irish Players drama company has become a mainstay in Northeast Ohio’s Irish Community, presenting classic as well as lesser-known works of Irish writers for nearly 50 years. The group performs in and around Cleveland, and has regularly taken productions to the Youngstown-Warren area, as well as Pittsburgh and Detroit.
The group was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1964, as the Pioneer Players by members associated with the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association. As the group grew and broadened its audience, the name was changed to represent members’ connection to Cleveland’s Irish community as a whole.
Their first tour to Mayo was in 1976 when they performed another Friel classic, ‘Philadelphia Here I Come’ and their most recent Irish tour was in 2007 when they performed an adaption of Lady Gregory’s ‘The Rising of the Moon’ and ‘The Workhouse Ward’.
‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ is set in 1936 in a fictional town in Donegal and the play eavesdrops on the lives of five spinster sisters, the Mundys, one a single mother, as they raise her child and help their missionary priest brother through his rough re-adjustment into Irish life after his return from decades of ministering to the peoples of Africa. A tale of faith, superstition, joy, dancing, sadness and heartache, ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ was first produced on April 24, 1990 at the Abbey Theatre. The play opened on Broadway in 1991 and the production won a Tony Award for Best Play in 1992.
The lead role of Kate Mundy will be played by Kris Spicer who has relatives from Tiernaur while Deirdre Hart’s (Maggie Mundy) grandparents are both natives of Achill and Seamus Goggins (Gerry Evans) relatives are from Achill, Swinford and Connemara. The role of Fr Jack Mundy is played by Bill Chambers whose father comes from Newport.
The rehearsals for the play took place in the West Side Irish-American Club, in Olmsted Township, Ohio, approximately 15 miles southwest of the city of Cleveland, and Kevin explained that they have been rehearsing for three nights a week over the last eight weeks to get things right for the tour.
The last time the company played ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ in Ireland was in 1999 and encountered a number of logistic and financial difficulties in shipping its own set and Kevin explained that this time they begged and borrowed from friendly theatre companies, and were grateful for their assistance.
He explained that the primary funding for a portion of the airfare from Cleveland was raised with a reverse raffle and receipts from local performances in the US. He said the balance of airfare, car rental, accommodation and food is being borne by the individual cast members and he felt this showed their dedication and that they really wanted to come to Mayo and put on a good show.
The curtain time for all the performances will be at 8pm with the opening show taking place in Carrowkennedy Community Centre on Tuesday, September 15. The remaining shows will take place in the Wavecrest Hotel in Achill on Wednesday, September 16; Ballycroy Community Centre on Thursday, September 17; and in the Parochial Hall in Newport on Saturday, September 19. Tickets will be available on the door and admission will be no more than €10.