SINCE ITS INCEPTION seven years ago, Galloglass Theatre Company has had an honourable record of serving its largely rural community, and that record was sustained last night at its home base of Magners Theatre, Clonmel.
The work presented was devised collectively on head of "research and interviews with women, scripted by Sylvia Cullen and further modified by players and director before and during rehearsals. It examines mother daughter relationships over three generations on a farm astride the Limerick Tipperary border.
Its problem as a piece of pure theatre lies precisely in the fact that it was researched devised, scripted and modified. It does not carry the mark of an individual creation, a personal insight or point of view: it lacks the artistic stamp of an individual author. It is a compilation of events, a catalogue of issues which have confronted women in rural Ireland for generations. It contains most of the known phenomena that have afflicted rural women, including grinding poverty, subjugation, exile, unwanted pregnancy, adoption, alienation, affection, alcohol, love of the land and more besides.
But as a drama it is episodic, far too long for its content and ultimately concluded by almost trivial sentimentality rather than by any resolution of the multitudinous conflicts - it has documented. It is a valuable social documentary for the Galloglass constituency, but it lacks significant dramatic drive or construction for a wider audience.
It contains some dramatic pearls within its many scenes but they do not accumulate into a coherent string which can compel our continuing attention, while Fiona Quinn's direction is sometimes awkward and constantly punctuated by partial blackouts for unnecessary minor alteration to Theresia Guschlbauer's setting (which might more use fully have been less literal and more impressionistic), although Aedin Cosgrove's light ing make far more than could have been expected from meagre resources.
The players are given precious little opportunity to create rounded characters, although Peg Power, in what probably the central character of Bridie, who spans most of the generations, manages to generate power, subtlety and emotion in many incidents.
Tracey Downes and Nual Walsh, given fewer opportunities to sustain or develop character and playing more often outside their effective age range, are less successful, a though each has her moment in a presentation that is of high worth but theatrically less that exciting.
