Stories from Drumreilly Active Age Group
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Stage Fright
Amateur drama has been an important form of entertainment in Drumreilly down the years. During Lent, in times past, people were forbidden to attend dances and as the dance bands became silent, the actors took to the stage. More than six decades ago, the late Jimmy Finlay and 'The Master's Pat' Tiernan. R.I.P., were drawing the crowds in Drumlea hall with plays such as 'The Lad From Largymore' and others.
From later years, the older among us will recall the 'tour de force' of the late Paddy Rourke in the role of Hiker Lacy in John B Keane's ' Year of the Hiker'. There were many other memorable performances from people, sadly gone to their eternal reward, actors such as Bridgie Kate and Charlie Maguire, Mary Kate Brady, James Quinn, Pee McCabe, Thomas Maxwell, Ignatius McEnroy, Pat McGovern, and Con McKiernan, to name but a few. May their souls rest in peace.
We readily recall productions such as, 'A Man of Ideas', Troubled Bachelors', 'One Day You'll Find It', 'Anyone Could Rob a Bank', 'Swansong', 'No Home Tomorrow', 'That Family Feeling', and other creditable productions on a draughty, too small stage. Drumreilly Youth Club Troupe also gave us many entertaining nights in the seventies with 'The Down Express', 'Wigs on the Green', and other comedies.
As well as providing entertainment for their neighbours, the players also enjoyed their own moments of joviality during the rehearsals, and also on the nights the plays were on, even though beforehand the members of the cast got periodic reminders, that it might not be 'alright on the night'.
This brings me to the title above. One of the most hilarious scenes, which I recall, took place in the fifties, when the local Pioneer Troupe travelled to Fenagh hall to present “The Righteous Are Bold”, a drama about demonic possession and exorcism. The stage was a structure resembling a very large table, and was about two feet away from back wall, without any defining barrier at the back, save a curtain, behind which there was a treacherous three-foot drop. You'd hear a pin drop in the body of the hall, as the cast was doing well in a difficult scene. However, an unfortunate incident was to turn a moment of suspense into farce.
One of the characters was seated on a bed chair at the back of the stage, precariously close to the edge. As the actress, who was the victim of possession, entered, already going into one of her paroxysms, the man on the chair gave a jerky movement, which suddenly took the chair legs over the edge at the back, to become jammed half way down to the floor! Up went his heels in the air, and all that the on-lookers could see of him were his two Wellingtons pointing towards the ceiling. Many of the unsuspecting audience thought that the actors “levitation” had to do with the effects caused by the possessed lady's entrance.
At the end of the evening, one of them, impressed by what he saw, remarked that it was a masterpiece, both of production and acting.
Pat Conefrey
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