Curtain call

>> Colleen Curran brings the mythic Emerald Isle to life in Ireland’s Own Carmel O’Reilly Tonite! and theatre critic steps off stage

PERPETUATING THE “TOP O’ THE MORNING” MYTH:
Curran and Glenn Roy

by AMY BARRATT

It’s been over 10 years since I first sharpened my index fingers to tap out a theatre review for the Mirror. It seems fitting that this, my last column, deals with the work of several people I’ve known since long before my critiquing days.

Colleen Curran, the author of Ireland’s Own Carmel O’Reilly Tonite!, opening March 4 at Théâtre Ste-Catherine, is, of course, one of the country’s foremost comic playwrights, not to mention an all ’round fun-loving gal. Though it has often taken a backseat to her writing, Curran also has a background as an actor. She formed Triumvirate Theatre Company with Penny Mancuso and Corey Castle and played roles in several productions with them.

If memory serves, I first met Curran through Castle, with whom I did shows with Lyric Theatre when we were both impossibly young. Castle is in the director’s seat for this new venture from a newly formed company called Derry Queen.

“Corey and I both have the same Broadway musical sensibility,” says Curran, “but we’d never done a musical together.” Carmel O’Reilly will change that.

Curran doesn’t always feel the urge to take the lead in her own plays, but with Carmel O’Reilly, she had little choice. The character came to her well before the story took shape.

“Carmel O’Reilly is a character I’ve been playing for a couple of years now, at parties and concerts,” she explains. At times, she even succeeded in convincing people she was this eccentric actress from Ireland.

In the play, the premise is that the audience has been brought in on a coach tour to Ballymalarkey Castle in the fictional town of Bailefailte, where Carmel and her piano-playing brother Michael (Glenn Roy) will give them exactly the “top o’ the mornin’” image of Ireland that tourists want. It’s also the Ireland, Curran says, “that many of us were brought up with.”

“My mother’s parents were from Ireland, but my mother never got there. So her Ireland was this Bing Crosby place that didn’t exist anymore, if it ever did. When we took her to see The Commitments, she was shocked. That wasn’t her idea of Ireland.”

As for Carmel O’Reilly, in between the singing of songs, she tells “unbelievable stories that just might be true.” Curran likens the piece to Forever Plaid or The Putnam County Spelling Bee, shows in which the audience is encouraged to participate. There will be skill-testing questions on Irish/Catholic/Hollywood trivia, and if you know your stuff, you might just go home with a lovely prize.

Putting in a cameo in the show is Janis Kirshner, with whom I have been friends since we both worked in the Centaur box office 20 years ago. Janis tells me that one of the songs featured in Carmel O’Reilly is “The Parting Glass.”

So while I slip out of the building, for one last time, during the curtain call, I’ll let that traditional Irish song have the last word:

But since it falls unto my lot, that I should go and you should not,
I’ll gently rise and I’ll softly call: Goodnight, and joy be with you all.

Ireland’s Own Carmel O’Reilly Tonite!
at Théâtre Ste-Catherine (264 Ste-catherine E.),
(514) 284-3939, March 4–9, $20