Actor and comedienne Pauline McLynn choose to remind all 450 guests at The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards ceremony this week in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin, that "this year's star is next year's black hole".
Breaths were held as she compered the night and continued to "introduce some perspective", as she said wickedly, keeping her tongue firmly in her cheek all the while.
Before presentation of the awards following a gala dinner, actors and directors were placing bets on who the likely winners might be. Andrew Bennett, from Caherconlish, Co Limerick, who is playing in Paul Mercier's play Homelands at the Abbey; Jim Culleton, artistic director of Fishamble Theatre Company; his wife, Clodagh O'Donoghue, and actor Karen Ardiff were all having fun at their table as they put money on their favourites from the lists of nominees in 12 categories. Paul Fahy, artistic director of the Galway Arts Festival, said Marie Mullen, in Synge's Riders to the Sea, which was part of the DruidSynge production last year, was the most spectacular performance for him - "hands down" - he said. And Mullen, who was nominated for best actress for that role, was there with her husband, actor Seán McGinley, and their daughter, Róisín (14). She later joined the whole Druid troupe of over 40 on stage with director Garry Hynes when they won the Judges' Special Award for that six-play production. The actor Robert Price was hoping the winner of the best new play award would go to his wife, nominee Elizabeth Kuti, for The Sugar Wife, which was produced by Rough Magic during the year.
"It's a Quaker play, set just after the famine," he said. In the end, the award went to Cavan man Tom MacIntyre for his play, What Happened Bridgie Cleary, which was staged in the Peacock Theatre last year. Abbey artistic director Fiach Mac Conghail picked up the award on behalf of the 75-year-old playwright. "He's a true poet of Irish theatre ... I'll take this up to Cavan tomorrow to Tom," he said ,waving the trophy over his head. And there were further celebrations when the best actress award went to Catherine Walker for her role as Bridgie Cleary.
Actor Liam Cunningham was cheering for his friend, Dubliner Laurence Kinlan, and hoping he'd pick up the best supporting actor award. The two acted beside each other in the Billy Roche play, Poor Beast in the Rain, last year in the Gate. Kinlan can be seen in the recently released film, Breakfast on Pluto, while Cunningham features in the upcoming Ken Loach film The Wind that Shakes the Barley, which, he says, "will draw a lot of attention in this country" when it goes on general release this summer. "It's brother against brother and told from the perspective of a Flying Column in West Cork. It's going to annoy a few people," he said, adding that Cork actor Cillian Murphy is in it too.
Also with fingers crossed for a friend in the same category was Sam Corry, the actor from Athlone who played his first big role this year in Alan Stanford's adaptation of Jennifer Johnston's novel, How Many Miles to Babylon. He was at the award ceremony hoping one of his co-stars, Philip O'Sullivan, a nominee in the best supporting actor category, would win but the award was presented to Nick Dunning, for his role in Betrayal by Harold Pinter at the Gate, who was cheered and applauded by many of this fellow thespians around the ballroom.
Chair of the judges, Tony Ó Dálaigh, said he and his two fellow judges, Philomena Byrne and Patrick Sutton, had seen a total of 150 productions between them, and had nominated 36. His wife, Mags Ó Dalaigh, sitting beside him at the awards ceremony, laughs when she recalls that he is retired.
But she will soon be busy herself, when rehearsals begin for the next Rathmines & Rathgar Musical Society production of Fiddler on the Roof, which will open shortly for two weeks in the Gaiety Theatre. She'll play the part of the matchmaker Yenta, she says with relish.