Stags and Hens night for Allen

GLÓR will be overrun with Stags and Hens this April when the latest production by the Ennis Players takes to the stage.

Taking the helm of this menagerie is director Allen Flynn, who makes a welcome return after his All-Ireland winning production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane a number of years ago.
Allen believes that in the current economic climate, what audiences really want to see now is comedy.
“Willy Russell’s Stags and Hens is a personal favourite of mine in terms of comedy. He would be well known for Educating Rita and Blood Brothers and translating the message of the working-class people in comical situations. With so much talk out there about the doom and gloom, the one thing people want is to be entertained and nothing entertains like a good comedy,” he says.
“The wonderful thing about the Ennis Players is that down throughout the years, we would have performed such a wide variety to plays. There are the stalwarts such as the Playboy of the Western World. Then we would certainly have taken on quite innovative productions such as Tone Clusters. We like to keep it fresh when choosing what to perform.”
The staging of this production is particularly important to the play, with the Glór stage set to be divided in two and Russell’s script given a new Ennis location.
“The comedy was written in the 1970s and involves a stag and a hen night of the same couple. Both arrive at the same nightclub the night before the wedding and the mayhem happens when each group find out the other hasarrived,” Allen explains.
“The stage will be divided in two with the ladies’ toilet on one side and the gents at the other. We are going to have the advantage of almost including the ground floor space of Glór into a nightclub scenario, hopefully giving the audiences an opportunity to be more of a part of the play. The wonderful thing about the Ennis Players and one of the greatest strengths of the group, is the quality of our backstage crew.”
The amateur theatre group has been in existence since the 1970s and over the years has enjoyed considerable success with their productions at local, national and international level.
“Ever since the 1970s, the Ennis Players have been an integral part of the community here in Ennis, certainly in terms of the arts, and we would like to think that over the years we have evolved into a significant player in the Irish amateur theatre circuit. It’s a thriving group and they have been very active on the national circuit. So much so that Ennis has been asked to host the All-Ireland One-Act Drama Finals in December, which is a very prestigious event,” says Allen.
“Over the years we’ve had a number of weddings and many great friendships. It’s like a large family that gets together approximately six months of the year. Any rows that ensue, the wonderful thing is that you have a separation for a few months to get over the rows and by the first of October you’re the best of friends again. An ideal family scenario,” he laughs.
Allen himself first became involved with the Ennis Players when he moved from New York to the county town.
“The theatre is a first love for me. When I was working in New York as an accountant I did some pro-bono work for a theatre company. I started out doing their accounts and then moved on to being their stage hand,” he laughed.
When he first came to Ennis he took to the stage in the Bernie Harten-directed Don’t Blame it on the Boots. “The Ennis Players were already successful when I arrived, they had just won the All-Ireland confined title so I was delighted to get the opportunity to work with such a talented group,” he recalls.
Later, Allen moved from being on stage to directing. “When I’m asked what is the job of the director, I think it’s almost about trying to get a vision of what you want for a play most certainly across to the audience but most definitely that it needs to be shared with every member of the cast and crew so that by the time the play is put in front of an audience, the passion the director has is shared by everyone, be it the prompter, stage hand or lead actors.”
Rehearsals for Stags and Hens are currently underway, with Allen saying, “So far, things are going really well, our biggest problem with this production is getting the cast to stop laughing because the script is so funny.”
The Ennis Players are not going on the festival circuit this year, instead concentrating on performing locally, which has the advantage of allowing more newcomers to tread the boards.
“It’s a great opportunity when you are not on the festival circuit that you can afford to bring in quite a number of newcomers and you have the opportunity to do a play with a bigger cast. Our own audiences would be very familiar with such names as Joe Varden and Bernie Harten but there are a number of newcomers and they’ve all settled in very well and have been taken in hand by some of the more experienced members,” says Allen.
Stags and Hens is not suitable for children and runs in Glór from Wednesday, April 6 to Saturday, April 9.