St Patrick’s Day start for 64th Clare Drama Festival

EILEEN Mooney, president of the Amateur Drama Council of Ireland, will officially open the Clare Drama Festival, at Scariff Community College Hall on St Patrick’s Day marking the 64th annual event.
Clare Drama Festival, founded in 1947, is one of the oldest and longest-running festivals in the country. From its humble beginnings, in an age of paraffin lamps, dry batteries and simple double-sided sets and at a time when local groups simply went out ‘to do a play’, the festival has developed into one of the foremost showpieces of the amateur drama movement in Ireland.
Chairman, Paddy McNamara said the new facilities the venue now boasts include a state-of-the-art lighting and sound system, which he says will greatly add to this year’s production.
Festival adjudicator Michael O’Hara makes his third visit to Scariff this year. “There is a fascinating line-up of theatrical entertainment”, he noted and is looking forward “to many memorable performances”.
Five of the 10 plays to be performed at the Scariff venue will be shown there for the first time.
The festival opens with the local Sliabh Aughty Drama Group with Moonshine.
In this play, which has a little bit of everything, members of a motley cast search for their private resurrections.
Skibbereen Theatre Society from Cork will present A Kiss on the Bottom by Frank Vickery, a heartfelt and bittersweet comedy in which a group of women in hospital for cancer treatment must cope with the uncertainties of their health and the inevitable secrets and half-truths from relatives and nursing staff.
Brideview Drama Players from Waterford will perform The Clearing by Helen Edmundson, a gripping tale of love, politics and betrayal. Set in Cromwellian Ireland amidst the atrocities perpetrated on Irish citizens and English sympathisers, it follows two star-crossed lovers who do their best, against all odds, to be together.
Corofin Dramatic Society in The Righteous are Bold by Frank Carney, tells the story of Nora who returns home from England with a mysterious illness that concerns the family greatly. The local doctor and priest are summoned to try to solve the problem. Unfortunately, there are tragic consequences.
Glenamaddy Players will present Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel. Set in 1936 during harvest time in County Donegal, it tells the story of five Mundy sisters who are barely making ends meet. They range from 26 to 40. The two male members of the household are their brother Jack, a missionary priest, repatriated from Africa by his superiors after 25 years and the seven year old child of the youngest sister. It depicts two days in the life of this ménage, evoking not simply the interior landscape of a group of human beings trapped in their domestic situation, but the wider landscape.
Meanwhile, Doonbeg Drama Group will perform Say Cheese by Bernard Farrell, which takes a satiric swipe at contemporary Irish life. It uncovers the murky secrets, which surround a man and his wife who have been selected as Ireland’s happiest couple. When the sponsors of the competition re-enact their wedding reception, a Pandora’s Box of strange secrets and old deceits is opened.
The Nenagh Players will bring their production of Out of Order by Ray Cooney, which begins when Richard Willey, a Government junior minister, plans to spend the evening in a posh Dublin Hotel with Sally, one of the Opposition’s secretaries. However, things go disastrously wrong, beginning with the discovery of a body trapped in the hotel room’s window.
Schull Drama Group will bring John Chapman’s classic English comedy Kindly Leave the Stage to Scariff. This play within a play tells the story of cast members, Rupert and Sarah, whose marriage is on the rocks and their lawyer friends, Charles and Madge, agree to handle the divorce. However, Rupert forgets his lines and threatens to kill Charles because he’s been having an affair off stage with Rupert’s real wife, Madge, and chaos ensues.
Meanwhile, Kilmeen Drama Group from Cork present A Whistle in the Dark by Tom Murphy, which tells the story of Irishman Michael Carney who is living in Coventry with his English wife, Betty. He has given lodgings to his three brothers as they establish themselves there but far from showing him gratitude for his generosity, he is treated with derision and terrorised in his own home.
Bradán Players from Kildare will close the festival with their play Tom and Viv by Michael Hastings, which is a portrayal of the marriage of TS Eliot, the renowned American poet and Vivienne Haigh-Wood. The production shows that Viv, although very pretty, animated and bright can also be difficult to live with, while Tom is awkward, lacking in social graces and rather odd.
Clare Drama Festival is one of 38 festivals all over Ireland affiliated to the Amateur Drama Council of Ireland and 60 amateur drama groups compete on the preliminary circuit.
The best plays in the confined section will compete in the confined finals, which will be held in April at The Opera House in Wexford, while the open finals will be held in May at the Dean Crowe Theatre, Athlone.
Further information can be found online at www.adci.ie.