People started laughing before Wednesday night's opening performance of Barabbas's The Whiteheaded Boy at the Andrew's Lane theatre had even begun. Not strictly speaking an opening night - more of a re-opening night - most of the audience had seen the production the first time round when it was the theatrical hit of last year and had come back for more. Director Gerry Stembridge was accepting congratulations all round from any number of theatre folk including playwright Tom Murphy, who said he was "in the middle of something new" and didn't elaborate further; he was accompanied by actor Jane Brennan. Gerry also chatted to director Stephen Bradley, who has just finished filming Sweetie Barrett which features two Barabbas members, Raymond Keane and Mikel Murfi.
It was the first time that director and writer Shay Healy had seen this particular production of the play although his father Seamus Healy, had appeared in several Abbey productions of the play in the 1930s. He laughed that after this production, where the four cast members take several roles, he had absolutely no recollection of which role his father played.
Peter Sheridan confessed that the play was probably the best thing he had seen last year. Peter has had considerable success with his book 44; named after the house number of the Sheridan family home, it was snapped up for publication by Pan MacMillan in the UK and Vintage in the States, and will be out later in the year. A man with particularly fond memories of both the play and its author Lennox Robinson, was senior counsel, Rex Mackey. Rex had a life-long love of theatre and Lennox was the man who gave him his first break in the Abbey; the pair went on to become great friends until the playwright's death in 1958. Other folk at the first night included Gaiety theatre director John Costigan, full of plans for the theatre's refurbishment later in the year; Tony O'Dalaigh of the Dublin Theatre Festival; actor Mal Whyte who is married to the company manager and show producer, Enid Reid Whyte, and singer Paul Brady, who was in The Johnsons with Mal all those years ago. Also in the audience were two actors who had played the part of the whiteheaded boy in the past - Mark O'Regan and Peadar Lamb, who was accompanied by his wife, actress Geraldine Plunkett.