Season 2008

6 - 21 June

The Playboy of the Western World

by J M Synge

Directed by Leo Wockner

A sweeping Irish tale, set in Michael Flaherty's public house, in County Mayo during the early 1900s.

It tells the story of Christy Mahon, a young man running away from his farm, claiming he killed his father. The locals are more interested in vicariously enjoying his story than in condemning the morality of his murderous deed. He captures the romantic attention of the bar-maid Pegeen Mike, the daughter of Flaherty.

The favourite play of Fr Hanrahan the founder of Villanova Players.

29 August -
13 September

Edith Stein

by Arthur Giron

Directed by Brian Cannon

Edith Stein was a German philosopher, who was born a Jew, became a Catholic in 1922 and then a Carmelite nun in 1934. She was rounded up with other Jews under the Nazi holocaust and died at Auschwitz in 1942. 2008 marks the tenth anniversary of her canonisation.

The play traces Edith's journey from the university, to the convent and eventually to the gas chamber. Girón also dramatises the tensions between Christians and Jews that have developed around a woman that incarnates both identities.

21 November -
6 December

Enchanted April

by Matthew Barber
adapted from novel by Elizabeth von Arnim

Directed by Ali Kerr

The story of four very different women who leave damp and rainy post-World War I London to go on a holiday to a secluded coastal villa in Italy.

Two housewives meet, each in her own way suffering through an empty marriage and facing the prospect of a lonely and isolated middle age. After seeing an ad for an Italian villa for rent, they set about finding two other ladies to share expenses. Joined by a beautiful young socialite and an elderly dowager, the four find rejuvenation in the tranquil beauty of their surroundings.