Amateurs with a professional approach

No one noticed him at first, but as the old man drew nearer the stage people began to wonder what he might want. He seemed purpose-driven, but walked cautiously through the gloom of the empty hall that May afternoon in 1994, as if he was unsure what to expect. He looked frail beneath his long fawn overcoat, which it seemed incongruous, even eccentric, to wear on such a bright warm day. Onstage, a crew were putting up the set for that night's performance of the play Belfry, under the eye of the director, Andy Doyle, of the Enniscorthy Theatre group. It was he the old man approached with an invitation to look at a play of his. He felt it might suit the group. Andy agreed, and the old man left, as slowly and deliberately as he had arrived. Within weeks he was dead.

The old man was the playwright M.J. Molloy, whose reputation had enjoyed something of a revival some years earlier with Druid's acclaimed production of his play The Wood of the Whispering. He had heard about the Enniscorthy group's track record in producing new plays on the amateur drama circuit, and that was why he had called to see them in the Dean Crowe Hall during the Esso All-Ireland Amateur Drama Festival in Athlone that year.

Sadly, he did not tell Andy Doyle the name of the play he wanted the Enniscorthy group to produce for him. He was to get back to them about that. Then death intervened, unkindly.

M.J. Molloy's untimely death is one of the few disappointments the Enniscorthy group has had in recent years. Theirs has been a stunning run of hard-won successes. They won the Esso All-Ireland title in 1996 and 1997, won the all-Welsh title last May, then the all-Britain title last July, becoming the first Irish group ever to do so. And they have qualified for this year's all-Ireland, this month, by coming first in five of the six festivals they entered.

In all cases their success has been achieved with plays by living Irish playwrights, plays which had never been staged by amateur groups in Ireland before. They have always favoured Irish playwrights, particularly Bernard Farrell, Frank McGuinness, Tom Murphy, Sean O'Casey, Brian Friel and Mary Halpin.

But the play they produced at Athlone in 1994 was Belfry, one of Wexford playwright Billy Roche's most sublime works and the first of his plays ever to be produced on the amateur circuit in Ireland. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

At the time he recalled how the group "plagued" him to be allowed do "a Wexford play by a Wexford writer in a Wexford accent." Just the previous year Billy Roche had conquered Ireland, after being hailed in London for his Wexford Trilogy of plays.

Belfry was the beginning, but it was with his other Trilogy play, Poor Beast in the Rain, that the group struck gold in 1996, winning the Esso All-Ireland for the first time, with three of the cast (Pat Connaughton, Carmen Yates O'Gara, and Michael Dunbar) winning best actor/supporting actor awards. And the play which has brought them so much success already this year is Billy Roche's Cavalcaders.

Last year they went a little further afield for a play, but still stayed in the south-east. They took Moonshine, by Jim Nolan of Waterford's Garter Lane theatre, and brought it to unsurpassed heights, winning the Esso All-Ireland for an unprecedented second year running, but also carrying off awards for best actor (Pat Connaughton), and best lighting (Liam O'Brien and Freda Shaughnessy)."Great quality . . . sure and beautifully orchestrated," wrote the festival adjudictor Ms Nora Relihan in her notes of the performance in Athlone, "extraordinary performace by McKeever (Pat Connaughton)."

And then to Wales and the allBritish competition in Essex, where not alone did they win, but so also did Pat Connaughton. He carried away the best actor award at both festivals.

The Enniscorthy Theatre Group is probably the best current example of one of this country's most extraordinary and unsung phenomena: amateur drama. Every year, in small towns, some cities, and rural parish halls throughout Ireland, as many as 10,000 people in approximately 400 groups, gather from November to February to rehearse plays they will present at up to 36 festivals from mid-February to May. Twelve winners go on to compete in either the Esso All-Ireland open, or All-Ireland confined amateur drama finals. And the latter is currently being hosted by Enniscorthy this year, as part of the 1798 commemorations.

The Enniscorthy Theatre Group has qualified 12 times for the Esso All-Ireland Finals, since that first time in 1982 with Bernard Farrell's Canaries, but has actually performed in 10 such finals. On two occasions, in a draw for limited places at Athlone, their name was left in the hat.

Of late the group has developed most in the technical area. Whereas it has always been strong in terms of acting talent and in direction, it has added a technical sophistication which has been much commented on by others. Essential to this has been the work of Brendan Rankin, whose set designs have been imaginative and ingenious, as well as lighting by Liam O'Brien and Freda Shaughnessy.

Looking back, Pat Connaughton who has been with the group since 1978, recalled how irritated they used to get when told again and again in those early years that they had "great potential" and "huge enthusiasm." But he can see now how true those observations were, when he notices how the group has matured and the "dramatic improvement in the technical area." It is generally an area which amateur groups are taking much more seriously nowadays, as standards rise and both competition and interest increase.

But it is a sad fact that the professional theatre in Ireland remains less than generous in its encouragement and appreciation of the work of Ireland's amateur drama movement. There has always been a peculiar reserve on the part of the professional theatre towards amateurs, possibly rooted in the perennial insecurity of the trade, but at times the begrudging attitude seems downright petty.

Probably one of the greatest recent examples of this has to be the decision of the Abbey theatre in Dublin to end its tradition of allowing the Esso All-Ireland winner a week at the Peacock during the summer. For many in the amateur drama movement, the week at the Peacock was every bit as important and exciting as winning the all-Ireland title itself. No convincing reason was ever given for the Abbey's discontinuance of the practice. It was a mistaken decision and should be overturned, if only as an acknowledgment of the invaluable contribution of groups, such as Enniscorthy, to promoting a love of good drama throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, and in places which the professional companies cannot or do not reach.