SHAW BIRTHDAY PLAYS 2002. To 28 July.

Ayot St Lawrence

SHAW BIRTHDAY PLAYS 2002

The Gaol Gate by Lady Gregory
O'Flaherty VC by G.B. Shaw
The Shadow of the Glen by J.M. Synge

Shaw's Corner, Ayot St Lawrence To 28 July 2002
Sat-Sun 6.30pm
Runs 1hr 55min One interval

TICKETS 01494 755572
Review Timothy Ramsden 26 July

A brief chance to catch one-act treasures in considered open-air productions (bring your own seating and picnic).Never mind souvenirs: the best tribute to major dramatists is performing their plays. For over a decade Ayot Productions, a dedicated professional fit-up company, has presented Shaw on the weekend closest to his birthday, offering many short, little-performed pieces by the Irish sage and his contemporaries in the gardens of his quiet Hertfordshire home (now owned by the National Trust).

This year the weekend opens bang on Shaw's 146th birthday, aptly celebrating his Irish origins – even if the man's own contribution is somewhat disenchanted. Ever perceptive, ever controversial, in O'Flaherty VC Shaw has fun puncturing an English pompous-ass officer, who owns estates in Ireland, while also being rude about the constrictions of Irish life.

The tenant-hero not only turns out to be a practised poacher, and his loyal seeming mother a Fenian fanatic. Home on a recruiting tour, O' Flaherty finds the gentle life of the trenches were more peaceful. By the time physical warfare has broken out between Toni Kanal and Jemima Abey, as his mother and his girl, you see his point.

It backs up Shaw's cheeky argument in his Preface to the play: that the English in 1914-1918 were wasting their time trying to enlist the Irish on patriotic ground (patriotic for what, being the question). Much more persuasive to tell the Irish male that enlisting lets him escape the bothersome Irish female.

Preceding it is a rarity, a brief, intense piece by the backer of the Irish Dramatic Renaissance a century or more ago, Lady Gregory. Two illiterate women wait outside prison for their man; unable to read the letter they'd been sent, they don't realise they've arrived too late. All that matters to them is that he was no informer.

It really needs the focus of an indoor stage, decor and lighting, but there's still a punch as we see to what values the bereaved women cling. Synge's comedy of an old man trying out his young wife's affections suffers from some choppy and inelegant phrasing -–plus some generalised cadences - but gains, at least till the rather muted end, from a clear production that ably exploits the comedy in the situation.

Performers:
Donald Pelmear
Paul Firr
Jemima Abey
Anthony Spargo
Toni Kanal

Directors: Richard Digby Day, Michael Winter

2002-07-26 23:31:55