Clarity has its moment

DRAMA McGuinness wins DLI/ADCI Playwrights' Award for 'Clarity at Last'

“I was sitting in a living-room in Kildallan having prunes and custard with my father-in-law John O’Reilly,” recalls Charlie McGuinness of the inspiration for his play Clarity At Last. While this doesn’t seem the most promising of starts for a drama, Charlie took the idea and the setting and penned a play that has just scooped a prestigious award.

He was presented with the award for the DLI/ADCI Playwrights’ Award at the One Act Drama Festival Final in Castleblayney.

Charlie was very pleased with Cornmill Theatre’s “great” production of his play directed by Philip McIntyre, with his father Killian McGuinness as Man, Brían Murray as Clob and Leah O’Donnell as Daughter.

“The play went down really well with audiences which is nice to see,” he says.

While Charlie’s play was performed on the festival circuit, entries for the playwright award didn’t have to be performed to be in the running. As such the judges had a record number of entries from which to pick, and they were justly smitten by Charlie’s.

The blurb for Clarity At Last succinctly reads: ‘The play concerns itself with prunes, observations and memories. A man in a chair, his daughter and a clob detail the events of an evening in their lives. And in their own individual ways they all find some sort of clarity.’

The script reads as a gentle piece full of compassion and brimming with humour. It's befitting the pen of one who has received a First Class Honours Masters in Creative Writing from DCU.

Charlie originally penned Clarity At Last as a short one man show with Hugh O’Brien in mind to perform in Culture Night 2022. The Cootehill actor had wisely advised Charlie to “Make sure it’s short and simple”. Unfortunately Hugh was unavailable to perform the play at the time, but Charlie’s father Killian, a respected actor in his own right, stepped in.

After a second well received performance, this time in Longford's Backstage Theatre, it was Killian’s turn to provide some wise advice - he suggested Charlie expand the short play into a full one act.

Charlie skilfully managed to achieve that without changing a word of the character of Man. It’s seamless.

“Man hasn’t changed from the first draft and the two characters of Clob and Daughter were there.

“I really liked the original piece so I didn’t want to change it at all, so I wrote the other two characters around Man. It’s about Man talking about one evening, so I let them speak about the same evening.”

He agrees Killian was right.

“It did make the play better rather than just Man on his own,” says Charlie.

The prize for winning the competition is a week at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, an artists' retreat in Annaghmakerrig, in Newbliss.

"I was telling someone about the competition and they said, 'So the prize is a week in Monaghan?'" he says with deadpan delivery.

While others mightn't be impressed, Charlie's thrilled and is eager to work on new material while he's there.

The DLI/ADCI award didn't come out of the blue as he has twice been shortlisted in RTE PJ O'Connor Awards for his radio plays. Writing is of course only one aspects of Charlie's skillset. He's also a fine actor and director. This year he has delighted audiences around the country with his high octane performance of John McManus's one man show The Determinator, and he has more dates lined up.

Meanwhile on the directing front he's fresh from taking the tiller for a Backstage production of John B Keane's Sive. And on the very day he speaks to the Celt, Charlie is due to audition for cast for the Backstage's production of The Snapper. He dismisses the idea he may be more drawn to one of the three disciplines.

"I genuinely love all three. I don't think I could stick to one in particular. I don't think I have the concentration to write all the time and I like working with other people so I love to get the chance to direct or act."

He believes time spent working as a writer, a director or an actor helps him improve in the other two disciplines.

"No matter which of the three you do it's productive," he says.

Asked what the awards means for him as a playwright, he sees it as "encouragement" to keep going.

"You're writing away sometimes and not sure if it's going to be on stage or who's going to read it, or what's going to happen. So it's encouraging."