Dancing At Greystones’ New Crossroads

Coming up…

n truth, if the Greystones Players had stepped out on the new Greystones theatre’s stage and just Morris danced for two hours, the love in the room would have carried them through.

What a way to christen this magnificent new addition to the town.

The man behind it all, Ross McParland, is both a perfectionist – making sure that everything, right down to the smallest detail, is just right – and a big kid, making sure that everyone who comes to this newly-refurbished theatre has a crackin’ good time.

And that goes for those on the stage just as much as off.

Determined to make sure that the theatre is completely ship-shape before its big launch on August 25th, the cunning plan by young McParland is to have a series of one-off events over the summer. To warm up the engine. And Dancing At Lughnasa – running from Thursday, May 11th to Sunday, May 14th – has proven to be just about the most perfect way for the theatre to say hello.

Hard to believe that the Greystones Players only began life last September. With an abundance of young hopefuls turning up on Aideen Walton’s doorstep, there are actually two productions of Dancing At Lughnasa running at the Greystones theatre this weekend, with ten actresses leapfrogging shows as the five Mundy sisters. And it was fascinating to see the subtle differences of the same role being played by two different actors.

Take Val Kiernan and Laura Wood, both playing the wily, wise-cracking and Woodbine-touting Maggie. Each, in their own particular way, proved that Friel’s fascinating creation was more than just another manic Mundy. As much as the laughs were there in both portrayals, the contrasting delivery was telling too.

Val was pure mischief, bringing a mother-in-arms quality to the role, whilst Laura somehow managed to bring just a tint of menace to the play’s underlying melancholy.

There were many such moments of magic here, where you were taken out of this lovely room, out of the head-space of knowing these people up on stage as neighbours, and just seeing Agnes, or Father Jack, or that “damn righteous bitch” Kate, or that Welsh “bastard” Gerry Evans.

Eoin O’Mahoney is particularly powerful as the voice of the little boy at the centre of it all, never actually seen but represented by his adult self, narrating from the side of the stage.

Set in the small Donegal village of Ballybeg during the summer of 1938, the five Mundy sisters welcome their dazed and confused brother, Father Jack, back from Africa whilst also raising eight-year-old Michael and generally struggling to make ends meet. There’s a sense that life has passed them by, and it’s only going to get tougher, the precariousness of the Mundy’s situation bringing out that peculiarly Irish disposition of dark despair mixed with deluded, delirious delight. Fighting off tragedy with comedy, the Mundy sisters seem to realise early on that they might as well be dancing on the Titanic.

It’s Friel’s genius of dressing up pathos as panto that makes Dancing At Lughnasa so powerful, and getting that delicious deception just right is a real challenge for any director, for any group of actors. And, bejiggers, Aideen Walton and the Greystones Players explore the bitter and the sweet of Friel’s work beautifully here.

Big congrats to not only Aideen Walton for putting this production together but to all the actors who made these shows so special – Eoin O’Mahoney as the adult Michael, Shirley O’Keefe and Mandy Hall as Kate, Val Kiernan and Laura Wood as Maggie, Orlagh Ryan and Lesley-Ann Whelan as Agnes, Miriam Keegan and Sheena Griffin as Rose, Georgina Lawless and Jodie Neary as Chris, Dick Lynch as Jack and Leo Dalton as Gerry.

Oh, and let’s not forget all the backroom heroes – stage managers and rehearsal leaders Niamh Bowe, Ger Galvin, Oonagh Hodkinson and Sophie O’Connor, choreographer Tara Nixon, and, in various other roles (aided and abetted by multi-taskers), Ailbhe Skaye, Brian Lawless, Tim O’Connor, Ciaran Ryan, Marguerite Twomey, John Mardirosian, Greig Fairfield, Jade McCann, Sophia O’Kelly, Mathilde Hoelgaard, Linda Duggan, Konstantin Antipenko, Theresa Bradley, Aiden Cowley, Evan Dalton, Anne Fagan, Emily O’Connor, Alice O’Donnell and Aisling Venables. Most of you proved invaluable.

Here’s to many, many more such magical nights at Greystones’ ridiculously groovy new theatre…

Thanks to Óonagh Moeykins for the video diary. You can find out more about the Greystones Players on their Facebook page here, and check out our September 2016 interview with founder and director Aideen Walton here.