New Stages: Theatre Tours to the Prisons

Earlier this week, as the Abbey Theatre look back in detail on Dublin life in 1913 at the height of the Strike and Lock-Out through the words and drama of James Plunkett's The Risen People, the play found a new audience in the prisoners and staff of Wheatfield Prison.  In terms of Irish touring theatre this is an unusual but not quite a unique departure.

As reported in TheIrish Times earlier this week:

The Great Dublin Lock-out became temporarily locked-in last night when, on an occasion that was historic in more ways than one, the Abbey Theatre presented its latest production behind bars.

The Risen People, a musical adaptation of James Plunkett’s play about the events of 1913, was transferred for an evening to Wheatfield Prison, where it was watched by 200 inmates, staff and invited guests.

The set was scaled down to fit the stage of the Wheatfield assembly hall, otherwise, this was the full Abbey experience, available in an Irish prison for the first time in its 110-year existence.

Though a first for the Abbey and yet another landmark in the story of its rich 110-year history, It was back in 1987 that Druid Theatre also crossed the gates and performed in Irish prisons. As part of their nationwide 1987 tour of Tom Murphy's Conversations on a Homecoming, the play was staged in Cork, Mountjoy and Arbour Hill prisons.

Within the Druid Archive here at the Hardiman Library, NUI Galway, is a letter of feedback from an unnamed prisoner within Arbour Hill. Entitled "Thank you for an evening's entertainment", the inmate wrote in detail a review and experience of the production in Arbour Hill. Comments include:

"Firstly, I would like to say a big thank you to one and all connected with the bringing this play to the prisons. . . We, the inmates or prisoners if you prefer, appreciated what must have been a very hard and apprehensive decision for you to make. Also, the prison staff deserve a clap on the back for making it such a wonderful evening."

The review continues: The characters by the cast were brilliantly performed.  .  .The professionalism was one of total enrapture for the audience which held our eyes constantly on every movement on stage. Any noise in the audience was met with a 'hush, hush, Silence please!' reaction from the rest of the audience."

Comments from prisoners, 1987

The letter concludes by comments from the prisoners with one being "It's nice to know that not everybody has forgotten about us in here, thanks a million to the cast of Druid Theatre Company."

This file on the 1987 Prisons tour by Druid Theatre is accessible at T2/144.

The Druid Archive catalogue can be viewed in full here

Press coverage of the 1987 prison tour (Click to enlarge)

Druid and the Colleen Bawn - from 1978 to present

Druid cast of the Colleen Bawn, 1978

It's been thirty-five years since Druid Theatre staged Dion Boucicault's the Colleen Bawn. Looking back through the archive of such a body of work, it highlights much about the variances in the early Druid repertoire. Then, the young Druid Theatre company was hardly three years old and developments were well in motion that were making all involved with the Galway group stand out for recognition. People might not be aware of the range of work which Druid was producing at that time, and so much of it being recent non-Irish work also.

The 1978 season saw Druid produce the Colleen Bawn along with Tom Stoppard's After Margritte, Anton Checkov's the Proposal, The Glass Menagerie by Tennesse Williams and Woyzeck by George Buchner. Along with Boucicault's frantic and wild action, characters and language it is interesting to see Druid programming work by Boucicault, which would not have been too commonly familiar to many Irish audiences.

[Paul O'Neill] and Marie Mullen

This revival by Druid is a timely chance to dip into the archive and see some of the items and resources available for study of past productions of this play and one from Druid's early and formative years. The initial cast featured Marie Mullen, Sean McGinley, Pat Connaghton, Paul O'Neill and the play was designed and directed by Garry Hynes. Included in the archives are numerous production shots of the cast in costume and in production, original scripts used by Marie Mullen and Sean McGinley, with annotation and notes by both, lighting and cue sheets, programmes, posters and other such documents, each telling their own story of the history of this play.

Programme from the 1978 production

It is really exciting to see a new staging of the Colleen Bawn coming to the Galway stage. If you have any friends or family who may have seen this original production in in 1978 we would love to hear from you! Do leave a comment.

For more records about The Colleen Bawn or other productions from Druid's archive, please click here for the full archive catalogue. 

For more on the current production of the Colleen Bawn, see http://www.druid.ie/the-colleen-bawn/ for details.

Sean McGinley's script, with handwritten annotation

Looking Back: Much Ado for Druid and Hawk's Well in 1982

This year marks the thirtieth birthday of the Hawk’s Well Theatre in Sligo. As well as being a home to theatre for the people and communities of Sligo, Hawk’s Well has supported and developed some of the most successful of Irish theatre productions and companies for the past three decades.

Kicking it all off back in 1982 was a production by Druid Theatre of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. It is fitting that this past month Druid once again took to the stage of Hawk’s Well with their currently touring production of John B. Keane’s Big Maggie.

On 12^th January 1982 the Druid production of Much Ado About Nothing featured the talents of Marie Mullen, Ray McBride, Sean McGinley, Rebecca Bartlett and many others. The production was directed by Gary Hynes. The Druid Theatre archive, which is proudly held here in the Archives service of the James Hardiman Library of NUI Galway, includes many records from this opening night in Sligo. Here you can view the original programme, cast list and some fantastic images from that original production at Hawk’s Well in 1982.   

 

Culture Night events at NUIG Archives

The wonderful ‘Culture Night’ is now only a few weeks away and we here at the Archives and Special Collections hope you will call by and enjoy what promises to be an entertaining and fun evening. Friday night, 23^rd of September will see cultural venues and institutions open up to the public for a series of special events to mark the national initiative that is Culture Night.

Our events feature talks, info sessions and film events to give you, our users, a sample and insight to our wonderful archival collections. Talks, screenings and events will feature specifically on our extensive landed estates records, our theatre archives and also our literary collections. For any fans of writer John McGahern, archivist Fergus Fahy will give a talk about the personal archive of McGahern himself, which is deposited here in the NUIG archive. (The McGahern archive catalogue can be seen here: http://tiny.cc/apmso )

Marie Boran and Bridget Cleshan have this year launched the fantastic Irish Landed Estates database. The database provides an incredible record of Irish landed estates in Connaught and Munster from c.1700 – 1914. For anyone with interest in this period or for those working in genealogy, this is an event not to be missed.

The multiple award-winning Druid Theatre Company, based here in Galway, have committed their extensive and rich archive to the holding of NUIG. The production archive of Druid (1975 – 2008 is fully catalogued and available) To celebrate this proud link with one of Ireland’s premier theatre companies, we will be screening two pieces from their 2004 ‘DruidSynge’ series. “Riders to the Sea” and “The Well of the Saints” are two of Synge’s most acclaimed works and we are delighted to be screening them this Culture Night.

For details of events and times please click here

Events are staged in the Patrick. F Fotrell Theatre, Arts Millennium Building (Next to James Hardiman Library) All events are free and open to the public.

For any details or enquires about these events please contact barry.houlihan@nuigalway.ie

http://www.library.nuigalway.ie/collections/archives/