For the last number of weeks my friend Róisín Stack has been toiling away as Creative Producer on Mephisto Theatre Company’s production of Bryan McMahon’s “The Honey Spike”. The play opens tonight on the Town Hall Main Stage in Galway where it runs until Saturday. Advance word is that its something special, you can buy tickets here but hurry up as they are fast selling out.
THE HONEY SPIKE
“Here is a tale of the Irish roads, of a tinker and his wife. It’s a tale of trouble and wildness and a child that’s born to life…”
Breda Claffey has set her heart on returning to Kerry. For in Kerry is the Honey Spike, the ‘lucky’ hospital in which her child must be born.
No other spike will do. But she and her husband Martin are far from home, at the northernmost tip of Ireland – and Kerry is a long, wearisome distance by cart.
It’s a journey of endurance lightened by laughter and mischief. The travellers tangle with soldiers at the border, priests in the Midlands and feuding clans in Kerry. Breda rushes towards the future but the past is waiting for her at Puck Fair in the shape of Winifred McQueen, the gypsy girl who wanted Martin for herself. The Honey Spike evokes an Ireland of passion, wildness and beauty. Its people live as they have always lived; putting their faith in God and in magic, in religion and superstition, but their greatest belief of all is in life itself.
Playwright Bryan McMahon comes from the great North Kerry tradition of Irish writers that includes his illustrious contemporary, John B. Keane. The Honey Spike, which was first produced by the Abbey Theatre in 1961, is widely regarded as his best play.
“…There’s mating in it, birth and death and drink to flood a dyke So here’s how they raced the bloody road that led to the Honey Spike”
Cast: Emmet Byrne, Órlagh De Bhaldraithe, Jerry Fitzgerald, Maeve Gormley, Helen Gregg, Daniel Guinnane, Martin Maguire, Zita Monahan, Joseph Moylan, Séamus O’Donnell, Eanna O’Dowd, Emma O’Grady and Brid Treasa Wyndham.
Directed by Caroline Lynch
Set design by Brendan Savage
Lighting design by Mike O’Halloran
Creative Producer & Assistant Director: Róisín Stack
Stage Manager: Craig Flaherty
Image by Bradley McNeill
Graphic Design by Patrick Cuasck
VENUE Town Hall Theatre
DATE Tue 9th to Sat 13th Aug
TICKETS: €18 / €14
Tuesday All Seats €12
Family Ticket (4 People) €55
John Murphy 