Under the Stars

It has become the norm for the Gaiety School of Acting to commission new plays for its graduate actors on their debuts

It has become the norm for the Gaiety School of Acting to commission new plays for its graduate actors on their debuts. The class of 2000, at the end of two intensive years, has been supplied with some lively material in the shape of two one-act plays, providing testing roles for 17 aspirants to a stage career.

Martin Maguire wrote Under the Stars, directed by Eric Weitz, as a complex whodunnit which dips into family relationships, betrayal and guilt. A young woman returns to the town she fled, under suspicion of murdering her sister, and finds she is not welcome. Another sister, with husband and daughter, a lover and his discontented wife, and the latter's lover complete a tangled skein of relationships. The story spins out to an acceptable resolution.

Lower Than the Heart, a wry comedy by Michelle Read, is directed by Tara Derrington. It is an imaginative and often very funny take on romantic versus sexual love. A young man becomes impotent and his partner finds life becoming complicated. Two she-devils roam the centuries urging people to a higher output of orgasmic activity. A female sex consultant is, um, caught up in her work, fidelity is put to the test, Oedipus peeps in and lots more of a similar nature.

A total of 11 women and six men perform these plays with talents which have already matured beyond tyro level. They have excellent voices, good stage presences and a relaxed quality which enables the audience to shelve a consciousness of their status and simply enjoy their work. That's what the atre is about, and these debuts sound very promising notes.