HAVING accumulated complimentary critiques on the festival circuit, Ennis Players are literally sweeping the boards.
Winners of the prestigious Blue Riband Award, the Ray Leonard Memorial Trophy, and the best play award in the open competition, the Players are now bracing themselves for a serious assault on the All-Ireland open finals in a few weeks’ time.
Following a highly successful run in Glór, they embarked on the festival circuit with JM Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, resulting in qualification for the All-Ireland open finals.
This was achieved with maximum points putting the Players in the top four groups in the country. This is a remarkable achievement for the group, considering this is the first time Ennis Players have qualified for the three-act open finals.
Ennis Players are no strangers to success at open level having won the All-Ireland one-act finals in 2004 with George Fitzmaurice’s The Dandy Dolls. They have also won the All-Ireland three-act confined finals on two occasions with Ayckbourne’s Round and Round the Garden (1995) and The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh (2002) and the confined one-act finals a year earlier with James McLure’s Lone Star.
Ennis Players have been competing on the festival circuit since the 1980s recognising that this is the best vehicle for honing their skills in all aspects of theatre. The festival circuit consists of an open category and a confined category and the group is thrilled to have successfully made the transition from competing at confined to open level.
This year’s production is directed by Geraldine Greene, who also directed the All-Ireland one-act winners Lone Star and The Dandy Dolls. Geraldine has been a successful director and actress with Ennis Players for many years and has been involved with all the All-Ireland winning productions, acting in Round and Round The Garden and The Beauty Queen of Leenane.
The Playboy has a large cast and the very energetic and physical crowd scenes witness a remarkable 17 people re-enacting Synge’s wonderful portrayal of community celebration, turning to vicious mob rule. Taking this enormous production, involving 26 cast and crew from Leitrim to Wicklow, via Kerry and Mayo, while stopping briefly in west and east Clare was reminiscent of the fit-ups of the 1950s.
The tour was very worthwhile gaining valuable critiques from six highly professional adjudicators from all fields of theatre.
The technical areas have also been the subject of great praise with Mick Kelly’s lighting and the overall presentation winning several awards.
Joe Varden, as Christy Mahon (The Playboy) has won best actor awards, together with Bernie Harten (The Widow Quinn) winning best supporting actress at several festivals.
Other characters, played by Saoirse Byrne, Hugh Gallagher, Jackie Scanlan, Mick Loughnane, Eric Healy and Derek Crosbie have been nominated for several awards. The play has won best play in Doonbeg, Carnew and Claremorris with Geraldine Greene picking up the best director accolade at the same festivals.
The RTÉ All-Ireland finals will be held in the Dean Crowe Theatre, Athlone from April 30 to May 8 and the draw to decide the performance nights will be held on Easter Monday.
However, local audiences will have a further opportunity to see Ennis Players perform in Glór, prior to the All-Ireland finals. The dates will be finalised when the draw has taken place.