It's 9.30 a.m., Saturday, May 6th and the Estuary Players from Dublin - 20 of them including cast and crew - pile out for a good Irish breakfast at Mother Hubbards near Kinnegad before heading on for Athlone and the finals of the 48th All-Ireland Drama Festival, sponsored this year, for the first time, by Ericsson. Their entry is The Plough and the Stars, and they'll be competing against 11 other productions, all of them prize winners on the amateur drama festival circuit. They took The Plough to eight festivals (there are 36 around the country) and won first place at two of them, which qualified them for the finals, the winners of which will be announced on Saturday. For director Myra Maguire, today began not at dawn but with the first rehearsal in December. "It's a play that isn't done often by amateur groups," she says, "because it needs four scene changes." The sets are in the back of a large white van. It costs £750 to hire for a month, excluding payment to the driver, who's giving his services free. Performing rights cost £55 a performance and they've already given eight.
11 a.m.
The Shannon is gleaming with sunlight as we drive over the bridge decked out with white and blue bunting. "This is Mecca," says Myra. "Everyone wants to get to Athlone." For Peigi Daly (Bessie Burgess) it's the first time, despite the fact that she has been acting and directing for 45 years: "I've directed The Plough four times myself but no one cast me as Bessie until Myra asked me." Hammers and drills are out, and the four-hour job of erecting the set has begun. The men assemble and lift while the women dress the sets. Set designer John J. Brady had gone to town for this production, devising a collage of Emmet, Tone and the GPO going up in flames, all projected on the back set. But after three adjudicators pointed out this was mixing it - surreal with traditional - they decided to replace it with something safer: a red-brick wall.
Noon
The radio is overheating: Manchester United v. Spurs. "I never have rehearsals when Man United are playing," says Myra. "No point." The set is halfway up and outside, cast and crew are taking a break in the sun, sitting on the prop sofa, beside the battered pram, on loan from the Abbey. "Wait till you hear," says Philippa Alford (Mrs Gogan). "They'll say - you were great and wasn't the pram wonderful?" They've been rehearsing twice a week since December. Finding a rehearsal room is a headache. In the old days, some nice nun would let you use the local school hall for nothing, but now schools are run by parent committees and nothing comes free. The Estuary Players were fortunate in being able to use the creche room at Grainger's Pub in Malahide for their evening rehearsals, plus the owner has let them have two bar tables for the pub scene. They speak enviously of the many rural groups who have their own theatres. In Dublin, everyone's competing for limited and expensive resources.
1.30 p.m.
There's a lot of smoking going on, and people have started to smile into the distance as if thinking about something else. No one eats lunch. Acting isn't the only thing at stake. They've had to raise around £3,000 to mount the play, the cash coming from raffles, table quizzes and bums on seats. They'd hoped to put the show on in Baldoyle but the cost of hiring the hall put paid to that. Amateur groups get no Arts Council funding: "We're not regarded as legit theatre," explains John Brady.
2.30
The run-through starts. There are the usual hitches. The spot on the sofa's not right. The dresser's a bit wobbly. Bessie Burgess needs a basket. I try to guess who's playing who. Brendan Kelly is a frail-looking man with a beard so he's got to be Uncle Peter. Karen Corrigan has a slightly wan look to her and must be Nora. When Edward Brady (Jack Clitheroe) sings to her, he has the sweetest voice. In fact, many of the cast have excellent voices and, in their spare time belong to various local musical societies.
Time is the thing I wonder about - where do they all get it from, what with children and families, not to mention the day jobs? Dick Tobin (Fluther), owner of The Yacht pub in Dublin's Clontarf, explains simply: "I don't play golf." They all regard acting as a hobby, whereas I would describe it as a year-round passion which drives them to abandon homes and partners for whole weekends at a time.
Donal Grey (Captain Brennan) reels off the plays he has been in. His wife doesn't come to watch in case it would encourage him further. He got the bug from his mother, he thinks, who'd always wanted to be in amateur dramatics but never got round to it. Would he be tempted to go pro, I ask, but he shakes his head. There's the mortgage to think of. In any case, as an amateur, he gets to play far more parts than he would if he were a pro. "Professionals want the money," says Myra. "Amateurs want the parts."
After the run-through, there's a post mortem, followed by a meal break. Each production is given £100 towards expenses by the festival committee - and taken out to a meal. "The worst thing a committee can do is offer a meal at 6 p.m. The women won't eat anything they're so nervous, though the men tuck in. They don't care." Or perhaps they have other ways of dealing with stress like playing football with anything handy, batting a shuttlecock to and fro, acting the tittyhawk. And smoking.
7.30 p.m.
Karen Corrigan's husband can't get a ticket: the people of Athlone are here in their hundreds, and all 466 seats have been sold. Talcum powder is sprinkled on black skirts to make them look shabbier. Uncle Peter's ceremonial sword is ready in the wings. (Hire of the army uniforms cost £500, and everything has got to be authentic, down to the Red Hand of Ulster badge on the Citizens' Army hats.)
7.55 p.m.
The cast performs its good-luck Hokey Kokey before hugging each other. John Brady gives the signal: "Go curtain! Go Philippa!" And Mrs Gogan is on.
Behind the scenes, Dave Sheridan (The Covey) is as irrepressible as he is on-stage, acting out and mouthing Mrs Gogan's words before bounding onstage. During the interval, the audience are all smiling, a sure sign.
11.30 p.m.
The theatre's empty. The sets are being taken down and packed into the van. Then everyone's off to the party, though Donal Grey wants to get back to Dublin early: he's with another theatre group and they're rehearsing The Bouncers tomorrow. Did I say this was a passion? More like a lifelong addiction to acting. Theatre in Ireland would be all the poorer if they ever thought of giving it up.
The All-Ireland Drama Finals continue at the Dean Crowe Hall, Athlone, until Saturday. Results will be published next Monday
