'The Mental' at the Moat
All three plays are set on the banks of the river Barrow. The first play in the series was Corner Boys, set in Castledermot and Carlow in 1963. The second was Lucinda Sly, set in Carlow and Old Leighlin in the 1830s. The latest play is set in Carlow and Castledermot in 1990.
About three years ago, the author got a line in his head, 'There's talk of them closing the place down …'. From that, he spent 18 months speaking with staff and former patients at a number of psychiatric hospitals and focused on a time around 1990 when patients were beginning to be moved back into the community.
His play's central character, John Salter, is one of those but he doesn't want to go. He likes life in the hospital and he has his jobs – ‘waking the crows in the morning, putting them to bed at night'.
Director of the play Angela Keogh says that characters emerged through workshops. "Some have survived in the final draft, some haven't but what we have now is a quiet and beautiful story, often very funny, of a gentle man who spent 40 years in psychiatric care for doing a good deed."
The array of really different and often very funny characters include Kathleen, the hospital cook; the Chief Psychiatrist; the Church of Ireland chaplain; the Man from Mayo; and the Ladderman.
Tickets, €16/€14 concession, are available for an 8pm performance on Wednesday 17 October – see www.moattheatre.com or call 045 88 30 30.
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