Date set for 'Bridie's List' in Kilcullen
The debut play of Anna Dunlea, Bridie's List, will be performed in Kilcullen on Saturday 20 January, writes Brian Byrne. A one-act presentation, there will be two performances on the evening, along with a sketch by longtime Kilcullen Drama Group members Dick Dunphy and Esther Reddy.
The play has already been performed in public, in Dublin last November, where it was very well received at a one-act festival held in Club na Múinteoirí. The Killarney-based teenage playwright's grandmother, Kilcullen's Nessa Dunlea, is playing the title role of Bridie, along with Vivian Clarke and John Coleman in the parts of priests in Bridie's parish. Anna's father Peter Dunlea built the highly-mobile set, and her mother Sandra has a, literally, short-lived part in the play. Rounding out the family connections, it was important to all concerned that Bridie's List should be performed in the theatre which Anna's grandfather Pat Dunlea was responsible for refurbishing almost a quarter of a century ago.
Anna is very much involved in youth drama and musical projects in Killarney where her family lives. A writer since she was very young, the idea for Bridie's List came about when she was in a friend's grandmother's house where a Sacred Heart lamp was surrounded by a large number of In Memorium cards. "Oh, did your grandmother kill all those people?" Anna asked jokingly. The idea stuck in her mind, and when she was offered a place last May on the Graffiti Playwright Programme in Cork, she wrote the 30-minute play as part of her course.
With the piece being well received by professional actors during the course at Cork's Everyman Theatre, Anna subsequently submitted it for the Club na Múinteoirí festival. After acceptance — "I was more than surprised" — it was a case of finding actors to help develop and present the play and it was decided that going back to the Kilcullen roots would be appropriate.
Anna has directed the play herself, while the components of the set — including a coffin — ingeniously do double duties. Though the play is just 30 minutes long, there are multiple location and action changes, including a very atmospheric confessional scene.
The Dublin performances in the Parnell Square Club na Múinteoirí were very successful. "The fact that this was a Dublin audience rather than being in our comfort zone of Kilcullen, and that they got the play, was really great," says Vivian Clarke. "They laughed in all the right places."
Bridie's List will be performed at 7.30pm and 8.45pm in Kilcullen Town Hall Theatre on Saturday 20 January. Tickets for each show at €10 will be available in Berney's Chemist.
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