Galway Advertiser 1992/1992_06_04/GA_04061992_E1_027.pdf 

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ENTERTAINMENT GYT'S "HEROES" A TRIUMPH
THAT'S
Galway Youth Theatre's sparkling new production, "Heroes" (Nuns Island Art Centre nightly till Sunday) is a resounding triumph for all concerned and is yet another feather in the cap of the year-old theatre company. It combines a shrewd, witty and perceptive approach to contemporary young Irish people and )blems and challenges they face, in a production that is both compelling and, ultimately, quite moving.
A group of young Irish people - Doireann (Miriam Lohan), Fran, (Victoria Stewart Jolly), Grainne (Judith Higgins), Laura (Michelle Fennessey), Mike ( P h i l i p S w e e n e y ) , and Ronan (Shawn Brewster)retum to Ireland after a twoyear stint in America where they've become a very suc cessful rock band, with a No. 1 album. Landing at Galway Airport, where they receive a tumultuous welcome, they face a bar-' rage of reporters who fire a host of awkward questions at them. Laura, the group's manager, arranges at short notice an appearance on The Late Late Show where the tired and slightly disorien tated band members don't acquit themselves very well. Tensions of all sorts - bet ween the band members t h e m s e l v e s , with their friends, their parents - start to eat away at the unity of the group. The new album gets bogged down. The lead singer, Fran, is offered a part in a new film - an offer she conceals from the others until she gets it. Everybody is forced to re-evaluate his or her committment to the future of the band, and a new, perhaps stronger, con ception of the band eventual ly emerges. Rebecca Bartlett and Molly Fogarty, who cowrote and co-direct " H e r o e s " , have used this straight-forward scenario to explore a wide variety of issues and themes. It is a measure of their success and, of course, that of the extremely talented cast they've assembled from GYT members - that never do you have the feeling the story is simply a vehicle to preach a " m e s s a g e " .

"WAREWOLVES" - DRUID'S ENIGMATIC POLISH PLAY

" W e r e w o l v e s " , by the Polish playwright Teresa Lubkiewicz, is by any standards a strange play. From an interview with the playwright in 1976, headed "Wisps From the P a s t " , she indicates that her memories of childhood are traumatic. Indeed this play is full of tramua Set in " a n obscure village somewhere on a spiritual border between Poland and Ireland", the events in this isolated village become more and more obscure and enigmatic as the play unfolds. The engimatic role of the The tragic happenings of a poor Polish family are laid mother is played with great b a r e before u s . T h e strength and sensitivity by savagery of the Joan O ' H a r a , and she " w e r e w o l v e s " - three displays a disquieting young men w e a r i n g savagery as she appears and wolkfheads - descend on a disappers throughout the ac house, bringing still more tion of the play. Even with turmoil to a family already her savage son, she is a* s a t u r a t e d with s t r a n g e force to be reckoned with upheavals. However, in this and at all times her acting is play, with its Polish orien superb. The part of Nora is nice tation, one wonders if the in troduction of Irish songs is ly played by D e i r d r e entirely successful, or do Molloy, while Peter Hartley they, together with the is convincing as the stranger dialogue, create this trying to come to terms with this peculiar family. The "spiritual border"? In this morbid play, with three "werewolves" are so many unpredictable hap very good, particularly Tim penings and with its black Loane in his double role, the humour, the character of mourners are interesting and Thrush holds sway. He is a Marie Stafford turns in convincing weird, strange insidious a n o t h e r character, with an amalgam performance. Helena Kaut-Howson, of feelings and actions jut ting in and out of time. Right who translated and directs, through the play, there is an seems to have got it right, u n r e l e n t i n g , unresolved whatever about the con relationship between this tinued stance at the interval. awful creature and his Full marks must also go to mother. The character of Aleksandra Lech for the kit Thrush is strongly played by chen set created out of the Tony Rohr; his furtive walls of the theatre. The manner is typical of the lighting effects by Nick character he portrays. In Beadle create just the right deed, at times he is positive atmosphere. AN TSIUR AILBHE ly frightening.

REAL CHARACTERS
This is due in large part to the sensitive depiction of the different characters. None is simply a cipher. Each one from the ruthlessly am bitious Fran to the nice, de cent bloke, Ronan - is a thoroughly credible in dividual, with hints of com

plexity glimpsed beneath the outward persona . Everyone is so good that it's impossible to single out any particular person for special p r a i s e . M i r i a m Lohan as Doireann brings an edgy vulnerabily to her role as a girl from an or dinary Connemara family Lighting changes - very who is grappling with her important in a play with so own confusion about her many short scenes - is sexual identity and her excellent. father's deep resentment and The "character" parts, hurt over her decision to march with the gays in a New York street parade. Victoria Stewart Jolly is ex cellent as Fran, whose father is one of those street angel/house devil types all too common, despises herself because she's too much like her father. Yet it's his driving ambition that fuels her own desire for success. The scenes between Philip Sweeney as Mike, the single-minded force behind the band's success, and Helen Corr as Nessa, his former girlfriend who was dumped when the band got their CBS contract and left, literally, holding the baby, are very well done and en

tirely believable. I r o n i c a l l y , the real " h e r o e s " are the solid, steady characters like Judith Higgins as Grainne, from the Catholic part of Belfast, Shawn Brewster as Ronan, musical arranger for the group and Fran's boyfriend, and Michelle Fennessey as Laura, the band's manager who has to cope with the emotional fluctuations in the group. Also Helen Corr as Nessa, who's picked up the pieces of her life and is now working on an M.A.

taken by Orla Curran, Gerry Doyle, Cliodhna Flavin, Patricia Mull ins, Fiona Tyrell, Barbri Kennedy, Jenny Predergast and Keith Devaney, are effectively played. Particularly good is Barbri Kennedy as the calculating theatrical agent, while Jenny Predergast steals her scene with an ab solutely splendid star-turn as Gay Byrne. She captures Gaybo's every mannerism perfectly. Implied in all the above is the superb direction by Rebecca Bartlett and Molly Fogarty, who have brought the very best out of their talented cast. And a special word of praise is due to Jules Maxwell, who com

posed the brilliantly at mospheric original music for " H e r o e s " . It's not easy to suggest the music of a fic tional band but Maxwell provides just enough to give a sense of a real band and real music. " H e r o e s " concludes its Galway r u n this Sunday, J u n e 7th, and then em b a r k s on a brief tour which will t a k e the play to Kin vara on Tuesday, June 9th; Ennis on J u n e 10th, Inishmore on J u n e 12th, a n d T u a m on J u n e 14th. M a k e every effort to see this excellent production from Galway's dynamic Youth T h e a t r e . J.O'C.

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FLYING PIG DO IT AGAIN WITH "ALAS POOR HAMLET"

"Alas Poor Hamlet", which opened on Monday in the back room of The King's Head, is an hilarious send-up of Shakespeare's most tragic play. It runs riot with the Bard's story and language and succeeds in keeping faith with the structure of the play while totally subverting its serious con tent. It's got to be the funniest play I've seen in a long time. Hamlet, played by Maim..: to Sr**la3d Garry McSweeny, is a fat of Denmark) and when fop, with a drooping top Hamlet, riding on a stick knot and " p l u m m y " voice with a horse's head at the that would do credit to the top of it, meets Laertes he late l a m e n t e d K e n n e t h tells him, " I ' m going to Williams. Dermot Arrigan Scotland where I'm going to is Claudius, the King, who wear a kilt!" " A kilt!", lusts openly and with relish screams Laertes, "First of for Gertrude, or " G e r t i e " , all you kilt my father, then played by Barbri Kennedy you kilt my sister, and now (who's also with Galway I'm going to kilt y o u ! " Youth Theatre). Kennedy The whole play - it only also takes the role of a lasts about 40 minutes - is " l u m p i s h " Ophelia who full of laughs. It's parody of wants to be " r a c k e d " (or the best kind in that it sticks was it rapped?) by Hamlet very close to what it's hav who just doesn't want to ing fun with, providing a k n o w . T o m m y Tiernan kind of Monty plays Polonius and also Python/"Carry O n " mirror Laertes, Hamlet's " c l o s e " image of this most tragic of friend - as everybody is dy plays. Dermot Arrigan, who ing at the end, Hamlet asks directs, told me that he OUR FRIENDS O E IN STAR RECORDS H V GV N US him. "Laertes, where did it originally wanted to do a VR AE IE T O SETS OF TC E S F R PRINCE'S F R H O I G C N E T go w r o n g ? " W IKT O O T C MN O C R , short version of the real The wonderfully funny thing, much as Sean Evers JUNE 13TH, A T E RDS, A D AL Y U H V TO DO T WIN T H N L O AE O script, which was devised by did with Mac Beth last year, THEM IS TL US T E M M OF PRINCE'S first MOVIE. EL H the g r o u p , with the but " I found myself work COULDN'T BE STAPLER, C U D IT? PUT Y U NAME, AD OL OR assistance of Flying Pig ing with a bunch of come DRESS AND, IF YOU'VE G T ONE, PHONE --MOW ON A stalwart Soma Brodie. is so dians". His loss, our gain. O pwtaH DATA L A E IT I T THE ADVUTAU OFFICE, MRTV full of witty one-liners that EV NO " A l a s Poor Hamlet" ED "GALWAY ADVERTISER/STAR RECORDS PRINCE COM you've just stopped laughing runs each Lunchtime at The PETITION" NO L T R T A N X MONDAY, JUNE 8TH, AND uproariously at one when King's Head, at 1.10 p.m. AE H N E T YOU C U D BE ONE OF OUR WINNERS. DECISION OF JUDGES another hits you. One of the until June 13th. Don't miss OL r u n n i n g j o k e s is t h a t IS FN L A D WINNERS W L BE NOTIFIED ON TUESDAY. Claudius is going to send it! IA N I L J.O'C.

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