GALWAY BASED Heart’N’Crown Theatre Co present Conor McPherson’s award winning The Weir at the Town Hall Studio from December 15 to 20 at 8.30pm.
The Weir is set in a small rural bar in the west of Ireland. There is the proprietor and three ‘regulars’. They know each other well, swap stories, drink, and generally enjoy the craic. But this night there is a difference. A young woman has just arrived in the district from Dublin - one of the four has arranged a property for her and is showing her round, giving rise to wagging tongues.
She however is a model of pleasantness and restraint. The three customers tell stories, all with a supernatural element, perhaps to impress Valerie, perhaps to give her the flavour of the region, but other possibilities emerge.
The stories increase in seriousness and expose aspects of the tellers’ vulnerabilities perhaps. Valerie then reveals a desperate experience in her own Dublin background and this immediately challenges the attitudes of the menfolk.
Something other than the exchange of ‘spooky’ stories is going on here. Jack, the oldest of the group, who set the story-telling ball rolling, reveals an episode from his earlier life, which is of an entirely different level of seriousness and highlights how much the mood has changed in the course of the play's duration.
The play is directed by Donna Patrice Reidy, who has recently returned to Galway after studying acting at both Trinity College and the famed Lee Strasberg studio in New York.
“During my studies I got interested in the Stanislavski system which is why I went to the Lee Stasberg studio,” she reveals over a post-rehearsal phone conversation. “It’s a training that gets you to be very specific in your playing and that’s something that I’ve tried to bring to this production of The Weir.
“I’ve got a fantastic cast who really absorbed those ideas. The play has also long been a personal favourite of mine – I remember doing an excerpt from it while I was at Trinity – so I’m thrilled to have the chance to direct it.”
Reidy also points out that the cast hail from around Loughrea and are well familiar with the kind of rural pub where the play is set; indeed they even did some of their rehearsals in Broderick’s bar in Kilreekil to further ‘get the feel’ of the play’s distinctive milieu. It should all make for an atmospheric production,
For tickets contact the Town Hall on 091 - 569777.
