News
Novice Galway playwright has her debut work performed by Druid
Meadhbh McHugh was just 24 and a post-graduate drama student in Trinity College when she wrote the first draft of the play, Helen and I.
The Galway woman sent it to Druid Theatre, which presented it at the 2014 Galway Arts Festival as part of its Rehearsed Reading programme, a Druid scheme which nurtures new writing.
That reading was so successful that Druid opted to give Helen and I – which explores the relationship between two adult sisters who are caring for their dying father – a full production.
Three years on from that first draft, Meadhbh is at the exciting, but nerve-wracking stage of technical rehearsals. Helen and I will open next Tuesday, with previews starting this Friday night.
“I feel I am using all my energy; mentally, physically and emotionally,” she says over tea in the city’s House Hotel on a break from rehearsals.
It’s hard work but Meadhbh is learning lots, although she reckons she won’t appreciate how much until later.
She’s studying for a PhD in Theatre in New York’s Columbia University, but is at home in Corofin in the run-up to the Druid opening.
Meadhbh’s love of theatre and musicals began in childhood. There’s a strong tradition of singing on her mother’s side, with her maternal grandfather Jim Kearns, who is from Athenry, having been a noted tenor in his youth. Her granny plays cello and her mother plays piano, so live performances were part of life for Meadhbh and her two younger sisters.
Her family lived in Tuam while she was aged between eight and 16, where she was involved in youth groups, both as an actor and singer. She loves singing and, for a time, thought she might be a singer, before realising she didn’t have the necessary compulsion to perform on stage.
She did, however, always have a desire to write and theatre is her chosen medium, maybe due to her childhood immersion in performance.
“I didn’t distinguish between theatre and musicals,” she recalls, “I was just going to a show and there was no distinction.”
After leaving school, Meadhbh did a degree in Drama and English at Trinity College before going on to do a masters in playwriting at that university’s Lir Academy.
She describes herself as “lucky” to have been in an environment where her love of literature and theatre was nurtured. She wrote a play for her BA year about violence among young boys in Galway which was workshopped a year later at the Dublin Theatre Festival as she went on to do her Masters. Her first radio play, April Showers, won a PJ O’Connor award for new writing in 2014 and was produced by RTÉ Radio One.
“I was always interested in plays and plays about the West [of Ireland], she remarks, adding that she did her MA thesis on Irish writers including Synge, Marina Carr, Tom Murphy and Martin McDonagh. Meadhbh is also interested in poetry and women writers, listing Sylvia Plath, Virginia Wolfe and Adrienne Rich as favourites.
“I love lyrical writing,” she says, adding that the joy of multi-layered language in theatre is that it tells a story while also creating a wealth of images for the audience. And she’s delighted that her work is premiering at Druid, because the company is renowned for language-focused drama where “language and performance merge”.
That’s been happening with Helen and I in rehearsals, as actors Cathy Belton, Rebecca O’Mara, Seána O’Hanlon and Paul Hickey are directed by Annabelle Comyn, one of Ireland’s leading directors, who is also making her Druid debut.
Helen and I has moments of humour but Meadhbh describes it as “a dark play in certain ways, one that explores how people can be mean and cruel to each other”.
The play centres on Lynn and her older sister Helen who return to their childhood home to look after their dying father. There, they are joined by Lynn’s husband Tony, who hasn’t been invited, and Helen’s teenage daughter Evvy, who has been.
The play offers an insight into relationship between the sisters and their roles in their family, as they look at what might have been.
As a playwright, Meadhbh’s initial grip on a story comes via character rather than plot, and that’s what happened here. She’d wanted to write a play about women and the starting point was when she ‘heard’ the voice of a woman with a story to tell.
“If I can get into the voice of a character, they can tell me a story,” she says. “It may sound strange but it feels like I’m following the voice I’m hearing.”
Meadhbh has sat in on rehearsals for the past week and is understandably nervous as she waits to see how audiences will react to her first full-length drama. But, as she points out, a play is not complete until it’s performed in front of people – that’s the magic of theatre.
After it opens, she’ll head back to New York to continue her studies and teach undergraduates at Columbia as she enters year three of a six-year programme.
Her play-writing is done at weekends – Meadhbh also writes poetry but hasn’t yet sent it anywhere; it’s more “an instinct and spontaneous”, she says. However, the plays are her ‘work’ and she’s already started a new one, more light-hearted than Helen and I, although it’s on the back-burner at the moment because of rehearsals.
“I’m looking forward to writing it with the knowledge I get from this one,” she says.
■ Helen and I will run at Mick Lally Theatre, Druid Lane from September 13-18 with previews from this Friday until Monday. Tickets: €22, €20 Concessions (previews €20/18) Tel: 091 568660 www.druidtheatre.ie.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
