Galloglass return home with thrilling Top Girls

CLONMEL-based Galloglass Theatre Company is returning home next week after a triumphant tour with its latest production.

Since opening in Dublin in early August, Caryl Churchill’s iconic Top Girls has received universal critical acclaim.

Audiences throughout the country have lauded performances from the all-female cast and now, Galloglass bring this production to the White Memorial Theatre in Clonmel, for four performances next week — September 23 to 26.

First produced in 1982, the issues raised at the fantasy dinner party hosted by Marlene resonate just as strongly for a contemporary audience.

Marlene, played by Kate Nic Chonaonaigh, has just been promoted in her job and finds herself facing the kinds of choices that have had to be made by women through the ages.

Lesley Conroy, recently seen in the award-winning drama Eden takes on multi-faceted roles of Marlene’s sister, Joyce; the Victorian Explorer Isabella Bird and Mrs Kidd, the wife of Marlene’s Boss at Top Girls Employment Agency.

Win, who also works at the agency and is involved in a relationship with a married man, is played by Janice Byrne, who stars in Zoned, the new movie from John Carney, director of Oscar-winning Irish movie Once.

Directed by Jason Byrne, the play is a mixture of fantasy and reality, history and heresy, and builds to an emotionally-draining climax, leaving many questions unanswered but open to the audience’s interpretations.

As well as Nic Chonaonaigh, Conroy and Byrne the other roles are played by Liz Fitzgibbon, Elaine Fox, Louise Lewis and Nyree Yergainharsian. The set and costume designer is Alyson Cummins and lighting design is by Sarah Jane Shiels.

Next week’s performances of Top Girls will be followed by the final performance of the play’s nationwide tour, at the Watergate Theatre in Kilkenny on Saturday, September 27.

* www.galloglass.ie