A new drama from Shaun Byrne that centres on Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’s stay in Donegal in the summer of 1935 is due to premiere next week with some well-known faces.
One Night at Glenlough is a dark moving comedy written by Shaun Byrne and directed by Charlie Bonner imagining the last night of Thomas’ stay in rural Donegal.
Known for famous lyrical works like Fern Hill,Do not go gentle into that good night and Under Milkwood, Thomas has over the years garnered a reputation as a free living, slightly tortured, bohemian writer. His stay in Glenlough did little to dispel that myth making.
The play is a boozy night of soul searching and piss taking for the poet. Accompanying him is local postman Liam who has his own demons to contend with. Much poteen and liberties are taken as stories, poems and songs are shared.
One Night at Glenlough will open at the Balor Theatre in Ballybofey before transferring to the Abbey Arts Centre in Ballyshannon and Halla Mhuire, Glencolmcille where Thomas spent the summer recuperating from his hectic London lifestyle while composing new work.
One Night at Glenlough by Shaun Byrne, directed by Charlie Bonner
Returning to his hometown to appear on the Balor stage for the first time is Frankie McCafferty, star of stage and screens both big and small. Frankie is one of Donegal’s most successful and best-known actors.
His thirty-year career on stage and screen has seen him work with almost every major Irish theatre company including The Abbey Theatre (The Plough and The Stars), the Gaiety Theatre (The Lonesome West) and Decadent Theatre (The Seafarer, The Weir). His many roles at The Lyric Theatre, Belfast, where he now lives, include Waiting for Godot, The Playboy of the Western World and Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, for which he received an Irish Times Theatre Award.
His Film and TV roles include Philomena, Angela’s Ashes, In the Name of the Father, Far and Away, Ballykissangel, Vikings, Ripper Street, Derry Girls and, most recently, Blue Lights.
Frankie expressed his delight at being involved in the project. “Of course I’m thrilled to be finally treading the boards here and to be involved in such a unique local production makes it even sweeter. I’ve known the director, Charlie Bonner for some time so I’m glad to be working with him. I’m really looking forward to going to Glencolmcille, I think the reaction there will be fantastic as really it’s their story. I filmed Murder in Eden, a TV mini series, there a few years back and have fond memories of the place,” he said.
Joining Frankie on stage will be Aidan Moriarty who is no stranger to these parts either.
Donegal audiences will have seen him recently in The Abbey Theatre / Lyric Theatre, Belfast co-production of Brian Friel’s Translations at An Grianan, as well as appearing in An Grianán Theatre’s own recent production of Friel’s The Enemy Within, part of the recent Colmcille 1500 celebrations. Aidan too has already trod the boards with many of the major players in the Irish theatre scene.
He spoke about the complexity and difficulties in playing ‘real’ parts, as opposed to totally fictional ones especially in a live venue context: ‘I suppose you have a duty of care to the actual character that goes beyond the obvious vocal and physical mannerisms. Thomas had an unusual upbringing in Swansea. His father, a teacher, was a fluent Welsh speaker as was his mother but both refused to let either of their two children speak it. Instead Dylan ended up after elocution lessons with what we call an RP accent but drifts back sometimes into his native brogue when tensions rise. I guess the voice, deep and sonorous, was just another one of his many masks or cloaks.’
Director, Charlie Bonner, is a well-known actor and director from Ballybofey.
Charlie’s recent film work includes The Woman in The Wall (BBC 1), Obituary (Hulu/RTÉ) and the much praised film documentary, Brian Friel: Shy Man, Showman.
For last year’s Bluestacks Festival, Charlie directed the hugely successful civil war play, Drumboe written by Kieran Kelly, which sold out its four-night run at the Balor Arts Centre.
Charlie said he was drawn to the script because of the honesty of the writing and the madness of the set up. “Here you have two lads, half skulled out of their heads on poteen just basically taking a hand at each other for the first half. It’s mad stuff. Dylan is caught between a rock and a hard place: become the man he wants to be or the man people expect him to be. It’s decision time for him and he can’t hide out here forever. Some of the stuff he comes out with, it’s either pure genius or pure mental. God he had no time for Ardara either whatever they did to him or him to them and he doesn’t hold back. I’m worried what my mother Rosemary, an Ardara woman to the bone, will say to me afterwards. But people should come along, it’s very moving and a great night’s crack.”
Making up the quartet is writer Shaun Byrne, no stranger to the Balor or Abbey Centre stages.
Shaun’s recent work has enjoyed tremendous success on the festival circuit, reaching the RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival in Athlone for the past three years.
Earlier this year, Ballyshannon Drama Society won their way to Athlone with his play Margaret, on the life and times of Margaret Thatcher, with Best Actress Award-winning Rachel O’ Connor in the title role.
His previous plays, the Bloody Sunday-themed An Incident with Dave Cotter and the family drama, Darkness Echoing, were festival successes for the Butt Drama Circle.
This then would seem to be a departure for Shaun in his writing but he disagrees. “I’ve written about real characters before, most recently Margaret Thatcher so there’s a familiarity there. I think the trick is to do your research but not be a slave to it. Thomas’s work just went out of copyright this year so he is topical with new editions of his work and screen adaptations planned. I just think the very idea of this artist living like a hermit on the coast of Donegal before breaking out and returning to the drink and the honesty and dark comedy that it provides had so much potential. Although it is Liam the Postman who’s the dark horse in the whole set up.”