ELECTRIC BRIDGET make a welcome return to the Galway Arts Festival with the premiere of Eileen Gibbons’ new play, The Grippe Girls.
The play introduces us to the ancient and decrepit twins Obstina and Hildegard Grippe, (played by Gibbons and Helen Gregg ), who are the last remnants of a bygone age, seeing out their final years in the crumbling remains of their once magnificent country pile.
They have now agreed to be interviewed about their flamboyant and shameless past, much to the irritation of their faithful and equally ancient retainers, Margaret and Brigid, who are also twins (and also played by Gibbons and Gregg ).
While one set of twins drags forgotten skeletons and salacious tales out of the closet, the other set is determined to keep those same skeletons and stories carefully hidden away.
During a break in rehearsals, Gibbons and Gregg talked about the new play.
“Hildegard and Obstina are like the last hurrah of the landed aristocracy in Ireland,” Gregg explains. “They’re very old, living in a house that was once very grand and beautiful but is now old and decrepit, like themselves.
“They live there with their two retainers who are equally ancient, born within a few days of them on the estate, who are also twins. The two ladies are delighted that the journalist is coming to interview them but the two retainers aren’t because God knows what Hildegarde and Obstina will tell them. And as Eileen likes to say, the play is full of historical inaccuracies!”
“Yes, It’s wildly inaccurate and improbable,” Gibbons concurs wryly. “For example one of the sisters had sex with Eamon de Valera!”
Gibbons continues; “There’s a religious divide in the play as well because Margaret and Bridget are Catholics and they’re disgusted by the stuff they have seen going on among the upstairs set.
“While a lot of the play is funny, there are also undercurrents. It’s about old age and how people get attached to stories. How people need to identify themselves and need to tell stories to reaffirm their identities. When you’re old and dying a lot of stuff that was important kind of evaporates, so there’s that dark undercurrent running through it as well.”
“It’s comic but it has a bittersweet undertone,” Gregg observes, “as there has been in a number of our plays, like Waiting For Elvis, which we did for the 2008 arts festival.”
The Grippe Girls, with direction by Fred McCloskey, promises to be a worthy addition to the impressive Electric Bridget canon. It runs throughout the arts festival at the NUIG’s Bank of Ireland Theatre, commencing each evening at 6pm.
Tickets are available from the festival box office, Galway Tourist Office, Forster Street, and www.galwayartsfestival.com
