Keane’s family drama gets festival underway

Damian McCarney

at the Town Hall Theatre

If there’s anyone who could teach Vladimir Putin a thing or two about authoritarianism and resultant isolation it would be John B Keane’s creation, Big Maggie. And last Friday, on the opening night of the 68th Cavan Drama Festival, Trish Doyle of the Wexford troupe ‘Bridge Drama’ stole the show as the twisted matriarch.
Those unfamiliar with the drama set in 1960s rural Ireland were given a hint at what to expect by the hugely impressive Ferran Glenfield, Bishop of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh, who quipped before the half-full Town Hall Theatre that Big Maggie would be knowingly referred to within parish circles as an ‘EPW’ - Extraordinarily Powerful Woman.
The play centres around the aftermath of the death of Maggie’s abusive husband, and her ill-conceived attempts to do right by her four emotionally-bruised children. Bend to her will or break were the options open to Gert (Ellen O’Donnell), Katie (Mairéad Ryan), Maurice (Brian Sheridan) and Mick (Andy Lehane). Meddling in her offspring’s affairs of the heart and futures, Maggie veered from emotional torture to physical violence (curiously, Maggie’s dragging of Katie squealing to the ground by the hair prompted laughs from some of the audience).
Adjudicator Tommy McArdle was complimentary of the performances of the Bridge Drama group as he gave his fascinating insights from the stage once the actors took their bow to the genuine applause from the audience.
The Monaghan man pointed out how Maggie’s concluding monologue was both unnecessary and misleading, shifting responsibility for the abused-becoming-the-abuser, away from the womaniser deceased to the Catholic Church.
Tommy explained that Maggie showed love for her children, but in a perverse way - made perverse by the destructive effect of an abusive relationship. Despite never appearing on stage, the shadow of her late husband darkened every scene.
In a key scene, despite her maturity Maggie reveals her sassy side as she adopts a cringingly no-nonsense approach to seduce the all-too-willing travelling salesman, Teddy (Myles Sunderland), who has already promised to take Gert out on a date. Adjudicator Tommy pointed out that the play hinges on the success of this scene.
“In so many productions they get it wrong, it’s very pleasing that they have got it right,” he said of the ages and performances of the actors in convincing the audience that this unlikely lust-triangle was in anyway a plausible possibility.