Short-story writer Seamus turns his hand to theatre

Galway City writer Seamus Scanlon, whose short-collection As Close as you’ll Ever Be was published in 2013, has more recently being enjoying success as a dramatist.

His new work, The McGowan Trilogy was staged at this year’s 1st Irish Theatre Festival in New York, running over 16 nights. It won the awards for Best Actress, Best Director and Best Design at this event, dedicated to Irish theatre.

The central character in the Trilogy is Victor M McGowan, a Galwegian with a penchant for guns, puns, the pogo, and the Victor comic.

The first of the plays, Dancing at Lunacy, is set in Belfast where a court martial goes wrong. The second, The Long Wet Grass is set in Co Mayo, when Victor follows his inflexible rulebook to his detriment, and Boys Swam before Me is based in Galway.  In it, Victor visits his mother and learns some disturbing facts.

The Trilogy explores topics including dementia, loyalty, redemption and IRA and domestic violence.

As with his prose, Seamus’s plays contain dark humour, violence and local references. Lord Haw Haw, James Joyce, Nora Barnacle and Rahoon Cemetery are mentioned alongside The Man from Uncle, The Titanic, Lugers, Colts, Geronimo and Coelacanths.

Seamus is only the second Galway-born playwright to feature in 1st Irish Festival in New York (now in its seventh year). The other was Geraldine Aron.

The Trilogy was staged at the cell theatre, which “incubates new works in a collaborative process and takes risks”, says Seamus. “They took a big risk on me and it worked. I was involved with all stages of the rehearsals and production, and doing rewrites everyday for four weeks. The dedication of the cast and crew was magnificent”.

Irish-born Paul Nugent played Victor in the Trilogy, while Anna Nugent (Paul’s wife) played The Woman in The Long Wet Grass, for which she won the Festival’s Best Actress Award. The director of the Trilogy Kira Simring won Best Director

Seamus, who lives in New York, is currently in writers’ retreat in Southern France where he is working on his novel, Black Coelacanths.

Galway based publisher Arlen House has published an edition of the Trilogy script, which is available in Dubray Books, Charlie Byrne’s and Kenny’s Bookshops.