John McDonough [photo: courtesy J. McDonough]
Preview by Brad Balfour
Origin Theatre Company
“Plays in May”
May 16th, 20th, 22nd, 2024
American Irish Historical Society
991 5th Ave
For the month of May the Origin Theatre Company is presenting a trilogy of plays and readings from contemporary Irish playwrights looking at the diaspora and life of Irish people. “Plays in May” runs May 16th, 20th and 22nd at the American Irish Historical Society (991 5th Ave).
Scheduled for May 16th is John McDonagh’s “Off The Meter,” a one-man show about driving a Yellow Cab in NYC for the last 40 years. The show has sold out in Boston and New York and more recently Ireland.
On May 20th is “Dry Rot,” a comedy by Don Creedon. The Burgess family find themselves at a crossroads amidst Dublin’s tumultuous housing crisis. Betty, sober for five years, is refusing to leave the family home, while Martin, her estranged husband, is adamant they sell. Their daughter Nuala is caught between the two. Dry Rot depicts the absurd new realities of Dublin’s housing market.
The final play to be performed on May 22nd, “Dublin Noir” by Honor Molloy, is set in neutral Ireland on the eve of World War II. Set in 1941 and 1939 – moving between Mountjoy Prison and a farm near Drogheda – the play grapples with the terrifying growth of fascism in 1930s Europe. On a day trip to Drogheda, Dubliner Tadgh Steele is captured by a dairy farmer and locked in a cowshed. Is Tadgh a poet as he claims or a Nazi spy? Makes no difference to the farmer’s slop girl who falls head over heels for the handsome stranger and casts him as the hero of a “fil-um in her head.”
The series was quite a hit last season,so give one if not all of the plays a shot.
To learn more, go to: https://www.origintheatre.org/playsinmay