Druid takes ‘mortgage melodrama’ to the stage

An early 21st century take on a late 19th century “mortgage melodrama” is the focus of Druid Theatre’s forthcoming production which is currently in rehearsal in Galway.

“Romance, misplaced honour and downright skullduggery” are themes in Dion Boucicault’s The Colleen Bawn , billed as a “thrilling national drama (with poitín)” and one which artistic director Garry Hynes believes to be a seminal work.

“I think the famous dramatic literature of the 20th century that emerged in the late 1800s may not have been possible without Boucicault,” Ms Hynes said yesterday, on a brief rehearsal break in Druid Lane Theatre.

Boucicault is credited with making his fortune on his interpretation of the “stage Irishman”, but the “impresario and showman” that he was belied his many talents, and the fact that he believed he may have written the first play in English set in Ireland about real Irish issues, she said.

“Mortgage melodramas were of a type, in that unless the hero married the woman he was not in love with, Anglo-Irish estates were not to be saved,”Ms Hynes explained.

Class, money and a clash of identities are themes of the script, which Boucicault wrote after reading an 1829 novel by Gerald Griffin, entitled The Collegians, about the true story of a 15-year-old girl who was murdered in Co Clare in July,1819.

The girl, Ellen Scanlan was shot with a musket and her body was dumped into the river Shannon by her husband’s servant. Her body was washed ashore some weeks later, and her husband, John Scanlan, was defended by “The Liberator”, barrister Daniel O’Connell, when he was tried for her murder.

The servant, Stephen Sullivan, was also arrested, and both he and Scanlan were found guilty and hanged. It emerged that Scanlan arranged for the girl’s death when he realised she would not be accepted by his family.

The play became one of the longest running shows of its time in London, and it was adapted for opera and for several films. Hynes first produced it in 1978 in Galway, and also produced Boucicault’s The Shaughraun for Druid and at the Abbey Theatre.

Marie Mullen, currently in this new production which promises “mirth and edge-of-the-seat engagement”, participated in that 1978 version. Maelíosa Stafford, also in the new cast, worked with Hynes on The Shaughraun in 1984.

Actors Marty Rea, Rory Nolan, Aisling O’Sullivan, Aaron Monaghan, Ronan Leahy and John Olohan make up the complement, with Kelly McAuley, first time with Druid, playing the “eponymous Colleen Bawn”.

The production opens in Galway’s Black Box Theatre on December 5th and runs till 21st, touring to The Hawks Well Theatre, Sligo( January 15th-18th); the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin (January 21st-25th); The Grand Opera House, Belfast ( Jan 28th-February 21st) and Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick (February 4th-8th).

Later this week , the Druid Theatre company will dedicate its Druid Lane theatre space to the late actor and company founder, Mick Lally.

[ druid.ie ]