Sligo Drama Circle’s Great Success – All-Ireland Awards for “God’s Gentry”

Sligo Drama Circle scored a notable success at the All-Ireland Drama Festival which concluded in the Dean Crowe Memorial Theatre, Athlone. on Sunday night last, and for their presentation of Donagh Mc Donagh’s three act verse play “God’s Gentry” they won the Sportex Cup,, the open competition for three act plays, and also the Westmeath Independent Cup for verse plays. In addition, the production award in the competition for verse plays was won by Dr. Timothy Mc Keogh, producer of the Sligo Drama Circle, while a member of the company, Paddy Dooney, won a certificate of merit for outstanding performance in the role of John Melody in “God’s Gentry”.

And further honour was brought to Sligo by the Ballymote Dramatic Society which won the Broderick Cup for the best one act play presented by a rural group with their production of “Master Dudley”. “Master Dudley” was produced by Rev. Fr. Higgins, C.C. Ballymote. Heartiest congratulations are extended to the producers and casts of “God’s Gentry” and “Master Dudley” as well as to all those who were connected with the staging and presentation of the two prize-winning plays. Certainly by their success they have brought Sligo right into the limelight once again in the amateur drama movement in Ireland and brought off an unique success as being the representatives from the only county competing to win such a number of awards.

When the Sligo Drama Circle staged “God’s Gentry” on Friday night before a packed audience they were described as “romping through” the play in what was most probably the most vital performance of the fortnight and indeed the most colourful. Commenting on Sligo’s production of the Donagh Mc Donagh play – it was seen by the author – Mr. John Fernald congratulated the company heartily for a most enjoyable night. He said as far as the performance was concerned it had a “tremendous vitality for which I thank God. We have seen too many plays here without guts”. He liked the play itself, and the words were a joy. A single quip so engagingly expressed should not be missed. He did miss some, he thought, but that was because he was not quite familiar with the dialect. Others he lost through lack of clarity.

Dealing with the set, he said the second act reminded him of the set used by the Moscow Arts Theatre for their setting of “Cherry Orchard”. Some people would say it was very old fashioned. But it was very realistic and he thought it was just right for this play. The sky, however, at the back should be a little bit more realistic looking than the group had it. He had a few small points of criticism in his otherwise enthusiastic night. The Guards disappointed him because he thought they were such enjoyable characters in the script. Some of their “business” was a bit too clever and detracted from their lines. The play, he said, was basically a triumph for production. He would have liked to have seen better lighting and thought that the battle of the tinker women should have been more stylised.

While refusing to name any individual in the cast because of their all round team work, he did single out Paddy Dooney for giving the best performance of the night and Marks Mongan, played by Eddie Fitzpatrick, who flew back from Germany and motored with Maisie Mc Daniel from Dublin with the show’s producer Timothy Mc Keogh. The grouping could have been better, he added. However, the acting all round was excellent and he had a most enjoyable evening.

from The Sligo Champion, May 2nd, 1959