Eamon Kelly

by Eamon Kelly

  The first paper the magazine man in the lobby gave me was Newsday, and Amei Wallach said that ‘In My Father’s Time, which is devised and written by Éamon Kelly and nicely directed by Michael Colgan, deals with another side of Ireland from that dealt with in the Abbey Company’s first offering, Seán O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars. In contrast to the fierce fighting and carousing of Dubliners depicted by O’Casey, Kelly is telling of a more gentle people in rural Ireland and their less belligerent pleasures … He elicits laughter while evoking the past.’

  Mel Gussow of the New York Times remembered me from Philadelphia, Here I Come! some ten years earlier, and pictured me thus: ‘with his hat sitting squarely on his head, his baggy suit looking freshly crumpled, and wearing the bemused look of an aging leprechaun, he begins to populate the stage with fathers and mothers, stonemasons and parish priests, beautiful young women and anxious young men. In My Father’s Time almost becomes a one-man Irish approximation of Under Milk Wood. In the end this is an enveloping evening. We are drawn into Mr Kelly’s world – folksy, amiably far-fetched and with a touch of vinegar.’

  Patricia O’Haire of the New York Daily News headed her piece with ‘An Emerald Darlin’ of a Storyteller’ (you’d have to go to the States to get that one) and ended by saying, ‘His theatre training shines through every word he speaks. His timing is beautiful, not a word wasted, not a thought thrown away.’

  There were others who saw the show, including Joe Murphy of the Irish Echo. No one knocked me and all agreed that my run at the Brooklyn Academy was too short. Nearing the end of the week Michael and I waited anxiously to hear from the Abbey management about our next engagement. We were part of the tour and, before we left Dublin, had received a preliminary list of venues at which we were to appear after New York. Our success at the Brooklyn Academy whetted our appetites for what lay ahead in places like Boston, Philadelphia and Washington.

  We checked out of the Algonquin and booked into a cheaper place down the block. It turned out to be a hotel where the homeless on social welfare were housed. On my first day there, who should I see sitting in the lobby but an old actor, James L. O’Neill, who played the part of the schoolmaster in Philadelphia, Here I Come! on Broadway. He didn’t know me and I realised from the deadness of his eye that he was in his dotage. I told him my name and he mistook me for Emmet Kelly, the great American circus clown. I tried again, mentioning the play we were in together and the Helen Hayes Theatre where we played.

  ‘Sure, I know you,’ he said with conviction, ‘you were in the cast of Abbie’s Irish Rose.’ I left him to his dreams with his unquestioning eye staring into space.

  Michael and I waited for the call. Someone from the Abbey had promised to come and talk to us and we hung around the lobby in case we missed him. While we were having a break in the coffee shop he did come but left again without seeing us. We did the most ridiculous things to pass the time, like trying to figure out how the Algonquin got its name. We called on the ghost of Myles Na Gopaleen to solve that one, and he did.

  It seems that the Algonquin was first owned by Quinn, a Clareman, when Manhattan was sparsely populated. One day the Apache and Sioux Indians joined forces and invaded Manhattan. The people, fearing for their lives, flew through the Hudson tunnel into Queens. After some days the Clareman and his staff stole back to the island. They saw no Indians, and what was more important, no arrows. They took shelter where Time Square is now, and the Clareman sent one of his staff to reconnoitre around the hotel. The servant came back in high glee, and said, ‘No Indians! I looked inside. All gone, Quinn.’

  Dark clouds loomed large on our horizon. The Abbey must have failed to firm up our part of the tour, because we heard no word from the powers-that-be. Our inclusion in the visit had enabled the Abbey to fulfil the American Equity stipulation and get into the States. Now that they were here we felt that we weren’t needed any more. This was a severe blow to us, abandoned as we were in New York with one hand as long as the next. Michael Colgan, ever a man of action, proposed that as we had a successful property on our hands, why not try and get some dates and do the show ourselves?

  Then a gap came in the clouds and an angel appeared in the form of Paddy Noonan. Paddy owned the Rego Irish Records and Tapes Company and had issued some albums of mine. He was also the leader of a band which toured the States wherever Irish were to be found. We located Paddy in Garden City and he was willing to set up a number of dates for us in Irish neighbourhoods around New York State.

  But what were we going to do for stage scenery? Michael hit on the idea of going to Harvey Lichtenstein at the Brooklyn Academy and asking him for our stage setting. It wasn’t being brought back to Ireland and would wind up like all Broadway used scenery in a dump in New Jersey.

  Lichtenstein turned up trumps. Unfortunately, Paddy Noonan’s van wasn’t large enough to take the set, except for the freestanding door and window, but we packed in all the furniture and props down to the last egg cup for the dresser. The time was short for publicity. Paddy arranged some outlets. Michael and I spoke on neighbourhood radio – a different station each night. We sat there relaxed in front of the microphone handing out news about Ireland and lauding our show to the moon.

  As well as being engaged in publicity, Michael Colgan was the producer, the director, the stage manager and crew of the new venture. He also looked after the front of house and when necessary did his stint on tabs. Paddy Noonan brought in his musicians and we had what we called an ‘afterture’ of Irish music when the curtain came down.

  Our first stand was on Friday 10 December at the Irish Centre in Mineola, New York State. The cottage furniture surrounded by black drapes, with the freestanding door and window and a mock-up fireplace, looked great when the curtain came across. The lighting wasn’t the best and, bearing in mind what Bob Hope once said, if the artist is not lit properly his gags go for a burton, I feared the worst. But I used what light there was to my advantage and the show exceeded all expectations.

  Saturday saw us in Holy Trinity Church at 20 Cumming’s Street in the Bronx. The pastor introduced me, and Michael came to the dressing-room to say that I had better go out quick or the priest would have gone through the entire show. He had already told a story he had memorised from one of my albums, and another he had heard me tell on the radio that morning.

  On Sunday we were at Catalpa, Ridgewood in Queens. My two aunts and near relations came back to see me and introduced me to one-time neighbours of my parents, some of whom had been in America since before the First World War. Our last two shows were held under the auspices of the Boston chapter of the Irish American Cultural Institute. We played in a high school theatre at Lexington, Waltham, Mass. Paddy Noonan stored the stage furniture and props in his garage and I used them in a subsequent visit to the States when Brian Collins, Abbey designer, accompanied me.

  Back in Dublin I don’t ever remember receiving an explanation from the Abbey management about the New York cock-up, but I do recall that there was a request that Michael and I hand over the meagre takings of the shows we did there. Naturally we demurred.

  SUSPENDED!

  During his term as artistic head at the Abbey, Alan Simpson directed a play by Constantine FitzGibbon called The Devil at Work. It was set in heaven and the theme was the creation of the world. Some of us actors played parts outside our range – I was the Archangel Gabriel. I don’t think the hair hanging down in ringlets suited my cast of countenance. One ancient wag said I reminded him of a female newsreader he knew on 2RN (Ireland’s first radio station, which broadcast from Denmark Street).

  Maitias, from Paris, designed the celestial setting, and very beautiful it was too. One critic said, ‘it was most elegant, most spectacular and a joy to look at’. At the opening the stage seemed resting on clouds with angels flying about. These heavenly beings were young people suitably costumed on swings. Into the angelic merry-go-round, falling from the skies of an upper heaven, dropped the Archangel Gabriel and the Archang
el Michael, played by Geoff Golden. Before the curtain Geoff and I were hoisted high into the flies. Under our finery we wore parachute harnesses. A thin wire, invisible to the audience, was hooked into the back of the harness and we were winched aloft.

  It was absolutely essential that we sat correctly into the tackling or agonies lay ahead. It was also very important that there was no twist in the wire, or the actor would spin around and back again. Our heads spun too in the dark upper world of ropes, catwalks and fly bars. The distance to the ground instilled terror, but what was most chilling was a plywood cut-out ground-row directly below; in an accident we were certain to be decapitated.

  We were sent aloft ages before the curtain and we seemed to be hours dangling up there. At the dress rehearsal the director came to the front seats and, looking up, proclaimed that our angelic feet were showing. Heavenly hour! We had to be winched higher, which made the adrenalin race like mercury in our glands. Prior to this Geoff had been suspended without pay from the company for some misdemeanour, and on opening night he turned his head and said to me, ‘Suspended for a month, and on my first night back I am suspended again!’

  The gong sounded, and on the third reverberating stroke the curtain rose and Geoff and I floated down (I forget now if we spread our wings) into a cherubim- and seraphim-filled paradise and alighted on a rostrum upstage. Hands came from behind a masking drape and unhooked us from the wire. God, were we happy to find our feet on firm ground as we walked down and mingled with the other angels. With music, lighting, costumes and a heavenly setting, it was a wonderful sight. A member of the audience told me afterwards that Geoff’s descent and mine looked like two figures from the famous painting of the Assumption going the wrong way.

  On a bugle call from Gabriel the heavenly host got busy. Architect and engineer angels began work at the drawing board mapping out our wonderful world. The seas were soon filled with fish and the earth populated with animals. The Garden of Eden was created, and the last thing we see at the close of the play is Eve throwing that unfortunate, for us, apple to Adam.

  In between there was much activity, and as each animal was planned, a painted cut-out of the creature was run on a wire upstage with a witty comment from the angels on each invention. On beholding a strange shape whizzing across one angel inquired, ‘What’s this?’ and was told, ‘That’s a yak – useful for crosswords.’

  There was also the angels’ revolt. Desmond Cave played Lucifer, and Harry Brogan, as Zerubabbe, was one of the dirtiest looking devils you could wish to see. The Irish Times described Alan Simpson’s production as excellent and the Abbey Company as grand. David Nowlan continued: ‘Eric Sweeney’s music and Leslie Scott’s lighting add to the air of sophistication with which the whole production is endowed, and it is for this sophistication – not all that commonly seen in theatrical terms in the Abbey – that the evening is ultimately to be commended. Had we been told, even a year ago, that we would have seen its like in the Abbey, we might not have believed it. To be believed it must be seen.’

  STONE MAD

  Apart from Tomás MacAnna and Frank Dermody I worked with many directors at the Abbey. Ray McAnally, who had left the permanent company for a while, came back to direct. I was fortunate to be in his production of Kolbe, set in a concentration camp and written by Desmond Forristal. Clive Geraghty played the part of Kolbe, a Polish priest who sacrifices his life so that another inmate of the camp may live. I was a Jewish tailor. Shaven-headed and emaciated looking, Kolbe and I languished in an Auschwitz prison cell. As the Jew and the Catholic priest prepare for death the Jew, with the characteristic humour of his race, suggests that they hear each other’s confession.

  I ever relished working with Ray McAnally. He got performances out of me which I didn’t think I was capable of. He directed The Loves of Cass Maguire by Brian Friel and gave me the role of Mr Ingram. I was fortunate to be around at that time and to have the privilege of appearing in so many of Friel’s plays. To the other practitioners who excel in the art of play-writing in Ireland give dukedoms, earldoms and knight them, but for Friel reserve the jewelled crown. He is the king.

  Like Ray McAnally, Joe Dowling was an Abbey actor who became a director. I remember the two Friel plays in which he cast me. One was Translations at the Abbey and the other Fathers and Sons at the Gate. It was a joy to work with him. His ability to reassure an actor abated the terror which always seizes me at my first entrance from the wings. Acting is a nerve-racking business. Fellow players have likened opening nights to going over the top in the Great War.

  It was Lelia Doolan who introduced me to Patrick Mason. ‘This young Englishman,’ she said, ‘comes to the Abbey as our new voice teacher.’ I couldn’t help remarking, with as much humour as I could muster, ‘When the conquered speak in the tones of the conqueror the conquest is complete.’ Patrick laughed heartily, assuring me that no attempt would be made to change the tenor of the native lilt.

  Patrick, who at first assisted Hugh Hunt in his production of The Well of the Saints, went on to become a director of international repute. He directed Noel Pearson’s and the Abbey production of Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa in Dublin, London and New York, where the play won Tony Awards for the author, director and players. Patrick is now artistic director at the Abbey.

  I remember I was in his production of The Cherry Orchard in which I played the part of the old retainer, Firs. The play was in a new translation by Michael Frayn. When he came to a rehearsal one day Patrick asked me to repeat for him what I said about speaking in the tones of the conqueror. I was a bit embarrassed but I did it. Like Patrick, Michael Frayn took no umbrage. The British are bricks when it comes to tolerance, and he agreed with me that small communities should try and hold on to their distinctiveness at all costs.

  My last appearance with the Abbey was in a play directed by Patrick Mason. It was The Only True History of Lizzie Finn by Sebastian Barry. I had known Sebastian Barry ever since I had been in his Boss Grady’s Boys at the Peacock Theatre in 1988. That play turned out to be the talk of the town and a great favourite with the critics. ‘Barry’s writing has a subtlety which puts Boss Grady’s Boys into a different league from the vast majority of plays that have been written about rural Ireland since Synge,’ Tim Harding said in the Sunday Press.

  Of Jim Norton and me, who played the principal parts, David Nowlan said in the Irish Times: ‘… two of the best performances seen on the Dublin stage this year … seldom have two characterisations been so nicely balanced in emotion and intelligence. Seldom have words been so well spoken to convey feeling and clarity of thought, silences and actions full of mutual communications.’

  Caroline Fitzgerald’s superbly sensitive and imaginative production was talked about in the Sunday Tribune, and in the Sunday Independent Hugh Leonard said the play craved to be seen. Later I was in Sebastian’s Prayers of Sherkin and saw his magical The Steward of Christendom at the Gate with Donal McCann.

  Seán McCarthy directed me in Seamus Murphy’s Stone Mad, a one-man show which had been adapted for the stage by Fergus Linehan and was set in a monumental mason’s yard. In the book Seamus tells of his apprenticeship as a stonecutter and describes his work with a gallant gallery of eccentric craftsmen, men with names like the Gargoyle, the Tumbler, the Goban, the Dust, Bulltoes and Danny Melt.

  Bronwen Casson designed a very realistic stoneyard (it won her an award) with examples of work in progress – statues, Celtic crosses and headstones – together with all the appurtenances of the trade, including bankers to work on and a small forge. The setting was in the round in the Peacock Theatre and the audience had ringside seats as I worked the stone and told the tales which have made Seamus Murphy’s Stone Mad the classic that it is.

  To give a sense of authenticity to my work with mallet and chisel I went and studied with the stonecutters in Roe O’Neill’s quarries in Ballyedmonduff near the foot of the Dublin Mountains. Having worked as a carpenter in my youth gave me a decided facility in the handling
and use of tools. In no time, under expert tutelage, I was able to block off the waste on a Celtic cross, and I mastered to a degree the cutting of letters on a monument.

  Beforehand each evening I arranged the pieces of stone I had to work on during my almost two hours on stage. One job was the cutting of an inscription on a headstone: ‘Walter Poplin. Died March twenty-fifth, nineteen sixty-three. Aged sixty years. RIP.’ (Walter Poplin was Big Maggie’s husband in the play of that name by John B. Keane, and that’s what was written on the note she handed to the stone-cutter Byrne the day of his funeral.) Another task was the sculpting of a design on a Celtic cross.

  I left the using of the forge for the opening of part two. Then I heated a chisel in a gas flame in the wings. I came on stage in the blackout with the glowing red chisel concealed from view, and beat it to a cutting edge on the anvil as the lights came up. When finished I plunged the hot iron into water, making a sizzling sound and sending up a cloud of steam. Whatever about the interpretation of the lines, the portraying of a craftsman doing his work with precision and fluidity gave me immense satisfaction. And to my mind nothing like it had been done on the stage before.

  Among the messages of goodwill on opening night there was a note from Joe Dowling the artistic director. It read: ‘Warmest congratulations on Stone Mad, and every good wish for tonight and the run. You had great courage to undertake such a mammoth job, and you have scored a major achievement. It is a personal triumph for you and the theatre is deeply grateful to you. Good luck.’

  Seamus Murphy’s widow, Mairéad, and her son Colm were in the theatre, which made me a little apprehensive. The only one who noticed this was Con Houlihan. Writing in the Evening Press he said I was nervous at the outset but before long I had the audience eating out of my hand. The critics didn’t know how to describe the evening. It wasn’t a play. I suppose you could call it a ‘docudrama’, a visit by the audience to a stoneyard where I populated the scene with Seamus Murphy’s celebrated ‘stonies’, told their tales, did their work on stone and paused to blow the chisel dust from the lettering on the limestone tablet.