‘Fascinating line-up’ for Clare Drama Festival

The 66th annual Clare Drama Festival kicks off on Thursday night at Scariff Community College, hosting 10 different productions performed by drama groups from across the country.
Clare deputy Michael McNamara will officially open the festival, which is one of the oldest in the country, having been founded in 1947.
“The passion for drama, which is embedded in the local community has ensured the success of the festival,” said festival chairman, Alan Sparling, explaining the event has developed into a showpiece for amateur drama movement in Ireland.
Festival adjudicator is Walker Ewart OBE said this year’s festival includes “a fascinating line-up of theatrical entertainment”.
Six of the 10 plays to be performed will be staged for the first time in Scariff. Curtains go up nightly at 8.30pm, with a 8pm curtain call on the final night.
The festival opens with the local Sliabh Aughty Drama Group in A Wake in the West by Michael J Ginnelly. The story centres on the death and wake of Tom Healy, a man whose fondness for alcohol is renowned.
Not content with drinking himself to death, Tom makes a last request to be buried in the drink (at sea). This creates havoc in his house and in his local community, with some believing he is not entitled to “take it all with him”. When a neighbour paying her last respects tries to take a “keepsake” from Tom, a hilarious series of events begin to unfold.
The festival continues on Friday with Corofin Dramatic Society’s performance of By The Bog of Cats by Marina Carr.
Loosely based on Euripides’s tragedy Medea, the play is a prophetic tale of Hester Swane, an Irish traveller, who struggles to come to terms with a lifetime of abandonment. Using the mysterious landscape of the bogs of rural Ireland as a backdrop, Carr interweaves elements of the supernatural and the mystical with the classic themes of prophecy and fate. This is the story of one woman’s courageous and outrageous attempts to lay claim to that which is hers: her caravan, her house and her daughter. It is the story of a woman pushed beyond the limits of human endurance.
On Saturday Skibbereen Theatre Society from Cork will present its production of the Jimmy Murphy play The Hen Night Epiphany. This is a story of five women who come together in a remote cottage for a hen night. When the booze flows, the jokes and slagging begin, and they all get more than they bargained for.
Brideview Drama Group from Waterford will bring From These Green Heights by Dermot Bolger to the Scariff stage on Sunday. The play covers two generations of two families from 1964 to 2004 from the building of the tower blocks in Ballymun to their demolition. It is a humorous and poignant story of their lives.
Yellow Moon Theatre Company from Wexford present another Marina Carr play, On Raftery’s Hill on Monday. Set in the midlands of Ireland this is a dark play about three generations of Raftery’s who are at war with themselves and the ties that bind them. On a remote hill removed from the civilized world of the valley, Red Raftery lives by his own brutal rules. Rumours of incest, stillborn children and madness are more common than love and affection. Audiences are advised that this play is suitable for adults only.
On Tuesday, Garrymore Drama Group from Mayo present Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel, which tells the story of the five Mundy sisters in Ballybeg County Donegal in 1936 who are barely making ends meet.
The festival continues on Wednesday March 20 with Conna Drama Group from Cork who make their first visit to Scariff. They will perform The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh. This play tells the story of two brothers, Valene and Coleman, living alone in their father’s house after his recent death. They find it impossible to exist without massive and violent disputes over the most mundane and innocent of topics. Only Fr Welsh, the local young priest, is prepared to try to reconcile the two before their petty squabbling spirals into vicious and bloody carnage.
Mullagh Entire Drama Group is also on their first visit to East Clare with the Jimmy Murphy comedy Fortunes and Misfortunes on Thursday. This play tells the story of hardworking Daisy Fortune who through her job as a waitress is supporting a lazy husband and a good for nothing son, but when she loses her job due to her son’s lizard she takes on a new role as a housekeeper.
Kilmeen Drama Group, Cork presents their production of The Playboy of The Western World by JM Synge. Set in a rural shebeen on the coast of Mayo where Margaret Flaherty, or Pegeen Mike as she’s known locally, is preparing for her arranged marriage to local farmer Shawn Keogh. Plans are scuppered, however, by the arrival of Christy Mahon, a curious stranger telling tales of a brave and frightening deed.
The Bradán Players from Leixlip, County Kildare close the festival with How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel. This is the surprising, funny and devastating tale of survival, as seen through the lens of a young girl. Vogel’s play takes on a dark subject presenting it in a sometimes humorous but always thought provoking way.
Clare Drama Festival is one of 38 festivals all over Ireland affiliated to the Amateur Drama Council of Ireland. This year 60 amateur drama groups from all over Ireland will compete on the preliminary circuit. Further information can be had from www.adci.ie.