Last Night of “The Country Boy”

Tonight (Thursday July 12th) brings down the curtain on what has been probably Sligo Drama Circle’s most successful opening summer play to date. “The Country Boy” has been playing to increasingly large houses since Brian Friel opened Summer Season Seventy Three on June 26th, and while it is almost certain to return to the Town Hall in August, “The Country Boy”, despite the present demand, must now step down to make way for “Arms and the Man” by George Bernard Shaw which opens on Tuesday, July 17th, and runs each Tuesday and Thursday until August 2nd. “The Country Boy” by John Murphy, has proved most popular with visitors and local theatregoers alike. The mixture of comedy and pathos is ideal entertainment for a holiday audience.

This production by Padraig Foran has already brought offers to the Circle to bring the play to the Cork Opera House, to the Ballina Moy Festival and the Manorhamilton Wild Rose Festival. With its commitments to Sligo audiences it may not be possible for the Drama Circle to fulfil all these engagements but it is most encouraging for them to know that they are appreciated outside of Sligo.

The acting in this play is well up to the best Drama Circle tradition. Eddie Watson makes a triumphant return to the Sligo stage as Tom Maher, the classical father-figure of Irish drama – hard outside and soft beneath the crust. His timing of the comedy lines is mastery. As Tom’s wife, Mary Kate, Mary Mc Govern brings a thoughtful stillness to the role that admirably highlights her husband’s blustering ways. Michael Kilcoyne brings to “Curley” all the pent-up frustration of the young man growing to slow maturity on a West of Ireland farm. This was a most believable performance. Sheila Horan, as his girlfriend “Eileen”, takes a further step along the road towards becoming one of the Circle’s leading actresses. We look forward to seeing her as Teasie in Donagh Mc Donagh’s hilarious “Step-in-the-Hollow” later in the season.

Liam Mc Kinney, as “Eddie”, the country boy who can’t shake off the past whether in the form of the Mayo landscape or his former girlfriend, despite fifteen years in New York, shows that he is no less able an actor than he is a director, and Sligo audiences do not need to be reminded of Liam’s abilities in that direction. But to me the greatest “find” the Drama Circle has produced for a long time is Margaret Monaghan, who plays “Julia”, Eddie’s American wife. This performance is worth going a long way to see and it is almost incredible that this is Margaret’s first season with the Drama Circle. She can be brash and tender, strong and yielding, dominating and forgiving. It is a beautiful performance. So if you have not seen “The Country Boy” hurry to the Town Hall tonight (Thursday) at 8.30. It is a show not to be missed.

Next week sees another comedy, but a very contrasting one when the Circle mounts Joe Meehan’s production of “Arms and the Man”. On Tuesday, July 17th the gala opening is in aid of the Friary Building Fund. Some people still have the impression that Shaw’s work is “heavy”, but we can assure you that “Arms and the Man” lives up to its designation as a “comedy”. Those who saw Joe Meehan’s direction of Brian Friel’s “Philadelphia, Here I Come” last season will certainly return to see this production of “Arms and the Man”.

from The Sligo Champion, July 13th, 1973