'The Derry Divorcees Support Group'

From:
http://www.derryjournal.com/site_search/story/1859/

Another of me ma’s plays I’ve not seen. Just found this on the local newpapers’ website back home. She’s got a big debug of “Me Da’s Suit” happening in the Millenium Forum in a couple weeks. It’s on for 3 nights, and the place holds 1000 people!!

Another Success For Derry Playwright

Friday 19th March 2004

BEFORE NOVEMBER 2003 Irene Melaugh never had a play of her own staged locally. It was only earlier that year that she took the chance and presented her first full length script to the Playhouse for consideration.

As Derry audiences know, that play, ‘Me Da’s Suit’, was a runaway success. So much so that extra nights were put on and the production travelled to Galliagh Parish Hall and to the Gasyard Centre. Rightly so too for ‘Me Da’s Suit’ as well as being full of craic, had plenty to say, especially to local women.

Last week with the opening of her second play ‘The Derry Divorcees Support Group’ –again at the Playhouse, the big question was, could Irene repeat her initial success?

And the answer was a big resounding YES!

The first night was another full house affair, extra chairs had to found to accommodate as big an audience as the Playhouse could seat . And they roared and squealed with

laughter throughout. And once again the excellent cast lined up to standing ovations.

This may be another raucous comedy but a reworking of ‘Me Da’s Suit’ it is not. ‘Derry Divorcees Support Group’ is centred around the lives of three women - Maura, Eileen and Rosie all of whom have been ‘dumped’ by their partners. In an effort to get their lives back on track, they decide to advertise and form a Support Group and responding to their advert in the local press, three more ‘characters’ tumble into the mix all bringing their own unique stories to the group, stories which bushwhack not only Maura, Eileen and Rosie’s expectations but also ours in the audience and help carry the plotline into mad farce.

Possibly too there were a few raised eyebrows for the Derry Divorcees Support Group works into and ‘refreshes’ parts that the usual ‘Derry’ play doesn’t usually go near. You’ll see Pat Lynch as you have never seen him before in a locally scripted play . You’ll see a sexual flamboyance that you have never seen before in a locally scripted play. And at the heart of this play there is warmth and acceptance and a growth of relationship going on that doesn’t exclude opportunities for flailing humour and biting retorts. So as audience we get it both ways We have our belly laughs- don’t we need them these days- and we are got to think at least a little about what really counts in relationships, we are made ask the question ‘What is normal? And who decides this?’

All of the cast make powerful contributions to the collective success of the Derry Divorcees Support Group. Carmel Mc Cafferty as Rosie (and as director) is all heart, warm gestures and straight talking. Pat Lynch as Patti/Paddy is to be applauded for the risk-taking that this role demands. He carries off the part delicately, portraying a gentleness and wisdom in the midst of almost surreal comic mayhem. A bare arse is always going to get a laugh in farce.

Moral in tale

There’s a moral in the tale too so to speak. Glenn Simpson, a total newcomer, revels in his role as Gene devouring scenes with bits of business and expressions that keep audience laughter in full throttle- Irene is Maura vodkaswigging embittered, sassy, cutting, ‘The only man you could trust is a dead manthen they’ll never tell you no lies’ but her vulnerability is there too and visible to her great friend Rosie but also to us in the audience. Her fantasy man ‘Roger and out’ may not be her best bet.

Christine Millar is so present in her role you think she couldn’t possibly be anyone else, her focus is enormous and as the woman from up the country, abandoned 28 years ago by her man who went off to milk the cow, she extracts every ounce of humour from the situation she can with her countrified accent, her stories - ‘the bulge’ had us laughing uncontrollably- and her facial gymnastics. Cathy Deacon is a comic gem, as Eileen, who’s betrayed by her Jack who has run off with - another man ‘Now I know what he meant when he told me he had no eyes for other women - he was looking at the men all the time.’

The Playhouse deserve great credit here. They had the wit to spot the quality of Irene Melaugh’s work and support the development of both of her plays. The intimacy of the two hundred seater theatre for a production like this ensures that the laughter spilling around about creates the feel of a community event. The banter at the interval felt like we were living out the play ourselves.

The Derry Divorcees Support Group will be performed at the Waterside Theatre on 25 and 26th March.