Transplant drama for Joe as Kildysart show goes on

When a member of Kildysart Drama Group says ‘The show must go on’, they mean it.
The group was due on stage in the local hall last Sunday evening to present another viewing of Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa.
Many of them were gathered in The Alders public house on Saturday night, presumably rehearsing their lines, when one cast member received a rather urgent phone call.
Joe Grace, who played Gerry Evans in the show, had been on a kidney transplant waiting list for several years. He was contacted late on Saturday night with news that he had to leave for Beaumont Hospital immediately.
With mobile reception poor in the village square, the only person that Joe’s wife Geraldine managed to make contact with was Fr Colm Hogan, who is also a cast member.

“He called Joe and said ‘here you go, you’re off to Dublin,” Gerry Kelly explained.
Gerry knows a lot more about Dancing at Lughnasa now than he did on Sunday morning. With Joe Grace unavailable to tread the boards, Kildysart Drama Group needed somebody with a good memory to step in.
“Jane Casey said to me ‘will you learn the lines?’ So I highlighted the lines and I started learning them at 12 o’clock. In fairness, the people on stage were brilliant. Even though the audience couldn’t hear it, I was saying to the cast ‘where are we going now? Am I standing or am I sitting?’ But we got by,” he laughed.
Of course the decision to press ahead with the play was taken in consultation with Joe Grace’s family.
“I got the word at about 8.30am that morning that Joe had been called away. We spoke with the family and a couple of us made the decision that we wouldn’t let the play be cancelled because we were going to do it for Joe. He’s a key member of the drama group,” Gerry said, noting that he didn’t manage to pull off Gerry Evan’s Welsh accent with the same elan as Joe.
“Joe was able to do the Welsh accent but I wasn’t. It shows you the total failure that I was,” he joked.
Close to 250 people attended the play and while the cast were happy with their performance, they were delighted to hear that Joe’s operation had gone well.
“We got word after the play that the operation had been a success and that Joe was in recovery. We’ve had very good reports for the two or three days now. He’s on the mend, thank God.
“On the Sunday night everybody was on a high. We’re all waiting for the call for the last three or four years with him. Suddenly it came. You’d never have believed it was going to come on the night of a play,” Gerry concluded.