The “Black Stranger” Stalks the Land

In the Hawk’s Well Theatre from Tuesday August 19th to Saturday 23rd, Sligo Drama Circle offers it own commemoration of the Great Famine. Directed by Paddy Foran, the Circle stages Gerard Healy’s classic drama “The Black Stranger in the Temple Street venue. This is a must for all lovers of the well crafted Irish play and it also gives the public the opportunity to pay tribute to those who lived, suffered and died during that traumatic time, one hundred and fifty years ago. The director has assembled an accomplished cast for this production. Featuring long-time Drama Circle actors Pauline Mc Niffe, Joe Meehan, Rory Callagy, and Lionel Gallagher as well as several younger performers with plenty of experience on the Sligo stage and as Siobhán Campbell, Ann Brady, Brian Mc Gowan, Kieran Doherty and Fintan Whelan, audiences are assured of a fitting re-enactment of this tragic event in our history.

Despite its harrowing theme, “The Black Stranger” is not all gloom and doom. There is plenty of humour and human interest as the drama unfolds to tell the story of two families as they struggle to come to terms with what is happening to their world. We relive the period with them as they face the transition from the years of relative plenty to the dark days of hunger. Sligo Drama Circle links the events of 150 years ago with those of the present day by giving a contribution from every ticket bought to help relieve the famine now engulfing North Korea. In that land the rice crop has failed just as the potato crop did in Ireland 1847. In our world of the end of the second millennium, history repeats itself and only the location has changed.

from The Sligo Champion, August 1997