The animated patrons joined in: “it’s a long way to Tipperary’ when two very different soldiers, ‘Kenneth’ and ‘David’ meet in 1915 and the audience commiserated when Pauline’s love life and her new business, ‘The Sandwich Company’ flops and she eats all the sandwiches herself.
Silence fell over the auditorium as the tale of the ‘factory girls’ dilemma of a three-day week, new work rate and impending redundancies unfolded; they clapped loudly as, ‘Una’ the workers’ spokesperson went at Mr Rohan, the boss, shouting, “What would you know about quality shirts!’ The adaptation of a scene from ‘The Odd Couple’ (female style) – earrings, cold turkey and hot tongue brought chuckling and a resounding response from the theatre goers.
Shauna Kelpie, drama tutor, skilfully knitted the varied excerpts smoothly together.
Stage props were minimal ensuring expediency/ movement. Photographic imagery gave an individual backdrop to each scene. Musical cue and verbal explanation flagged up change of tempo and scenarios.
Poetry and monologues were performed by poet Patrick Mc Nichol, of Black Box fame, Margaret Maloney as new Director of the Lazy Daisy Theatrical Company, directing her first night of ‘Macbeth’ and Pauline Gallagher’s lament of failed relationships and food fads rehab.
My favourite scene was the tongue-in-cheek scenario of two guys as they sat at a small table fingering polythene cups with a backlit of Harley Street behind them, discussing being sperm ‘donators’.
There was a good play on words as one man tried to explain to the other the purpose of sperm donation and why he did it. Questions like’ How do you do it?” and Do you get help?’ lead into double meanings explanations that left the audience laughing out loud.
The diversity of plays, monologues, poetry and popular TV favourites worked well together.
For the actors, all of whom have sight loss, it was the culmination of a year’s work in which they developed new skills, enhanced their confidence and self-expression by, putting themselves ‘out there’ and performing on stage in a public forum
Gemma Hill
Gemma Hill Writeyou Writeme 