View from the Green Room: Dunhill Players roll back the years
Many Young Men of Twenty was performed at Dunhill Community Centre.
It was 1967 and President Kennedy’s wife Jacqui was staying in Woodstown House for the summer. Dunhill Players' production of John B Keane’s “Many Young Men of Twenty” had received much praise for its performance and Jacqui went along to see it. It was the cue for much subterfuge as the First Lady’s visit required strict protocols and security was a drama all of its own.
The performance sparkled and the entire visit was a triumph of everything that is good about community life in Ireland.
And tonight’s performance sparkles from the off. A strong cast – everyone was word and cue perfect – and firm direction from Mary Harney entertained a packed house with word and song for two hours or so.
In its day, the play was a biting commentary on Dev’s Ireland where employment was scarce, wages low, marriage in decline, although families of two figures were the order of the day. Church interference in the private lives of citizens and state law was intrusive and censorship was rife. No wonder politicians railed at the controversial commentary from Danger Mullaly (Jonathan Whelan) throughout.
The play opens and closes with emigrants taking the train for London in Seelie Hannigan’s (bitter-tongued Anne Marie Quealy) pub. In between, their histories tumble out on the floor like Monday’s washing. Daheen’s (Cormac Daniels) two sons Kevin (David Walsh) and Dinny (Martin Harney) are heading for London with their father’s instructions to send back pounds and their mother’s admonishment to say three “Hail Marys for purity and the grace of a happy death”.
The brothers return a year later. Kevin is about to be made foreman, while gormless Dinny has secured a scatterbrained wife Dot (Ellie May Swift) and all are keen to return to London.
The frequent repetition throughout from the ensemble of John B’s song “Many Young Men of Twenty” is a constant reminder of the droves that took the boat to England in search of a better life.
I can remember watching The Great Western cattle boat depart Adelphi Wharf on Saturday nights with some 20 emigrants from Waterford in search of work. Their bitterness towards this country is the bedrock of this play. As the curtain falls, nine people in the pub take their leave for the boat, including young teenagers Mikey (Darragh Griffin) and Mary (Sophie Mulcahy) as the latest emigrants.
Keane’s script makes it clear that England was no bed of roses either. The emigrants annual homecomings and their admission that “everyone is lonesome leaving home” as they return to jobs and places they never really belong to… ”the night shifts an’ filthy digs with shifty landladies” tells it as it is. Their journey “...with their long faces leanin' out o' the carriage windows with the thoughts of what's waitin' over” as they acknowledge that “…everyone is lonesome leaving home”.
But some are lonesome here too. Barmaid Peg (the excellent Ciara Burns) is shunned as the fallen woman who has a child out of wedlock. Schoolteacher Maurice Brown (a very sympathetic Killian Power) has drunk himself out of his last five jobs. A rather nasty JJ Houlihan TD (Finbar Buckley) is shunned by his community for his exploitation of his position to secure favours – including the appointment of his son Johnny (the gauche Tommy Griffin) to the position of rates collector despite having no second-level education.
Some eke out an existence on the margins. Jonathan Whelan is brilliant as Danger Mullaly – a quick-witted, sharp-tongued exposer of state, social sham and hypocrisy as he exploits vulnerable emigrants by selling them holy pictures for three bob. Anne Barry is hilarious as Kitty Curley the black-toothed fortune teller with bizarre prophecies.
Amateur drama societies loved John B Keane’s plays. Rural people had their stories told in a way that mattered. Casts were huge – there was a part for everyone in the audience AND an audience for everyone in the parts. John B was good business.
It was a great night in the Dunhill Community Centre where the entire community came together to delight in the talent that was in the village and surrounds. Mother and daughter Mai Ryan and Anne Murphy gave me the royalist of welcomes.
This is what amateur drama is all about.
