Playwright Billy Roche last night opened the 47th All-Ireland Amateur Drama Festival under the auspices of the ADCI, the 40th sponsored by Esso Ireland Ltd.
Bernard Farrell's Happy Birthday Dear Alice will follow, with Gorey Little Theatre presenting the comedy that is not all frivolity, as children and their spouses provide both fun and darker thoughts as they visit their mother on her birthday. Servant Valre, daughter Elise and son Clante have 17th century shenanigans today with Harpagon, The Miser in Moliere's classic comedy - Torch Players, Limerick, will include plenty of their city's lace and flounces. Una Parker is back with her beloved Arthur Miller on Thursday - The Price tells of under-achiever policeman, Victor Franz, his wife, wealthy surgeon brother and a furniture dealer. Fraternal bitterness and business eccentricity is in good hands with Sundrive Players. Holywood Players will present Peter Shaffer's Lettice and Lovage on Friday. A fantasising daughter of a Shakespearean actress, Lettice Douffet, brings inherited theatricality and eccentricity to her employment as a visitors' guide in a country house. Preservation Trust official Lotte Schoen fires her, but later enters into Lettice's world of historical romance.
There will be performances of Frank McGuinness's Someone Who'll Watch over Me on Saturday, May 8th and on Friday, May 14th. Dundalk Theatre Workshop (which will also present the work at their home town's Drama International on Tuesday June 1st) are first off while Olivian Players will get a warm welcome back to Athlone for the second performance. In their Lebanese prison, three hostages fight fear and despair with humour in this play loosely based on the kidnapping of Brian Keenan and others. Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot follows on Sunday, May 9th from Cuckoo's Nest Theatre. Ballyduff presents Ray Cooney's Out of Order on Monday 10th. Portia Coughlan should pack the Dean Crowe Hall on Tuesday, 11th, when Marina Carr's dark portrait of a woman who cannot love her husband and whose dead twin brother keeps calling to her as she fears for her children will be well served by Moat Club, Naas.
Enniscorthy will present Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan on Wednesday 12th. The strange, comic story from a remote western island will be popular, as will Handful of Stars by Billy Roche, the choice of current holders of the Esso Trophy, Corn Mill, Carrigallen. They won with Roche's The Belfry last year. Fittingly, the festival ends with a Brien Friel play as the author celebrates his 70th birthday. Dalkey Players perform Translations, his touching tale of language and love. Russell Whiteley (GODA) will adjudicate.
