The Playboy is Back

How many would have guessed that it is eight years since the curtain last fell in Sligo on “The Playboy of the Western World”. In that year the Sligo Drama Circle had just won the Northern Ireland Premier Award with it in Belfast. Much has changed in the interim and many have gone. The Drama Circle has grown to be a much larger and considerably more active organisation. In that year, the Playboy was possibly the only full length play they did, but nowadays the Circle are undertaking nine or ten plays a year and growing all the time.

But these changes apart, some things do not change and one thing of permanence is the majesty of J. M. Synge’s Wild Poetry. Christy Mahon’s “rambling tale of how he destroyed his da” is as vibrant and exciting today as it was when it set Dublin audience “to a deed” of riot in 1907, though there appears to be sufficient change to make the latter possibility seem highly improbable in 1975.

It is a long time indeed since Sligo has seen such a blend of experience and new talent in one play as is lined up for “The Playboy”. Excitement is mounting at the prospect of Paddy Dooney’s return to the Town Hall Stage in the role of the tippling rambling man Michael James. I’m told on the best authority that he has lost none of his comic whimsicality during his absence and that audiences have a real treat in store for them as he wheedles and tipples his way through the play.

Eddie Mc Dermottroe storms the scene as the half crazed Old Mahon. Those who remember the savage fire that Eddie brought to the part in the sixties can vouch for the performance of a lifetime. But Eddie hasn’t got it all to himself this time. For the first time in the Drama Circle’s history, a father and his daughter duo team up in major roles in the same play.

Maria Mc Dermottroe who gave such an inspired performance as “Maggie” in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” has the lead role of “Pegeen Mike”. Add to that the talents of Joan Fitzpatrick who has played so many unforgettable roles in recent years in Drama Circle productions and who also played her present role as the Widow Quinn in the sixties, and one sees how really strong the line-up is, but it doesn’t stop there.

In two of the minor roles we have Cormac Sheridan (who will forget Big Daddy, Lennie or John Proctor) and Liam Mc Kinney who interpreted James Joyce so successfully in 1974. In the role of the Playboy himself, Joe Fahy, a newcomer to the Circle takes on his first part. Joe tells me that he regards the characterisation as a major challenge, but despite the hard work involved, is enjoying every minute of it. Another first timer is Theo Bourke in the classic role of Shawn Keogh, the village idiot.

Rena Meehan, who played Dot, the English tart, in “Many Young Men of Twenty”, Pauline Mc Niffe, Mary Jennings and Jane Fitzpatrick make up the crowd of “wild girls”. Liam Mc Kinney, who we usually associate with heavyweight material, such as “Streetcar”, “Death of a Salesman” and of course the recent “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” which had such a brilliant run this spring, is in charge of direction. This is Liam’s first Irish play since the legendary “Lovers” in 1971. We have come to associate a sense of adventure from Mc Kinney’s productions and from what I hear, the “Playboy” may cause the eyebrow of an old traditionalist to raise too. He lets the play spill off the stage from time to time and we are to be treated to fiddlers, pipers and dancers as well as three card tricksters. Watch out for the “Deed of the Blood”.

Running every Tuesday and Thursday for four weeks, “The Playboy” will, of course, be of interest to Senior English students as it is on the course for Leaving Cert in 1976. The Drama Circle are to be complimented for this valuable service to our young citizens and deserve the support of everyone.

from The Sligo Champion, July 1975