Longford drama: Charlie takes charge

Backstage Theatre Group recently topped off a sell out run in their home town with a further two sell out nights in Carrigallen. The Snapper proved to be immensely popular with local audiences.
The group enlisted the skills of a foreigner, drafted in from Leitrim to bring an exotic flavour to the work.
Charlie McGuinness is an actor and director who's been involved in a whole pile of dramatic productions staged hereabouts, particularly with Seamus O'Rourke's Big Guerrilla Productions.

From key roles in plays like Victors Dung and An Ogeous Brose to a lead in the film 'No Party for Billy Burns' by Cavan film maker Padraig Conaty the Carrigallen actor has clocked up a good deal of performance time.
He recently oversaw the county town's amateur drama group on their sell out run: “Ollie Kenney (BTG Chairman) rang me up and asked if I would be interested in direct their play,” Charlie said of directing Backstage Theatre Group's 2023 Spring production, “So we did Sive last year. Sive went very well and they asked me if I would come back for The Snapper.”

Charlie is 'a full time theatre professional'. That means he needs to support himself and his family through his involvement in drama, which, apparently, is not all sipping champagne while reclining on chaise longues: “It's difficult enough to make a living, but at the same time, you do have a lot of opportunities.“It's just about getting them, and taking them. I'm lucky enough to do acting, writing and directing. To be honest it's been a treat.”
The reward of engaging in something you love is the clear incentive, but there is risk too: “I suppose there is, but you've just got to give it a go sometimes and hope for the best.”

Both Backstage runs enjoyed a sell out theatre, a luxury that unburdens some of the stress of keeping amateur drama groups on the go. There's no magic formula to say why shows sell out. Since the enforced closure at the start of 2020 theatre managers have been perplexed by audience patterns.
Exceptionally high quality productions have often played in front of sparse audiences. Full houses aren't the norm, so the sold out runs are lighting in a bottle.
“I've done lots of shows with nobody in the audience, or very few in the audience,” Charlie explains, “I suppose it was just luck with Backstage.“They both went very well. The plays are well known, and the audience knows the actors involved are very good.

“People like the actors, when you have popular actors in a popular play, that's a great recipe for success.”Having just finished up with Backstage TG, McGuinness is moving on to work with Mostrim Players as they take on Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan.
Whereas one is particularly urban, the other is specifically rural. Both are very Irish and have a balance of comedy and drama. Each presents challenges for the actors and the director.
“The Cripple was written as a play for the stage, whereas with the Snapper was a novel adapted into a film first, and then adapted into a play.“The Snapper script was the one Roddy Doyle adapted for The Gate production. There's challenges with every play you take on. Going from The Snapper to The Cripple is quite different.

“The Snapper had almost 40 scenes in each half, whereas The Cripple has nine scenes in the whole play.”Sive, The Snapper and The Cripple of Inishmaan are funny, but a humour that plays with sinister aspects of the human condition.
“The Snapper, it's a very funny play, but there's a certain amount of darkness in it. McDonagh's play is 50% dark and 50% humour,” he says, but denies it's a reflection on his character, “I didn't pick any of the plays. The groups come to me with the plays,” he insists.Charlie says picking the correct play is an art: “These are really well-known, well-regarded plays. If you think about any of the classic plays, Tom Murphy plays, there's comedy in them, but there's a harder edge. The same is true of Beckett, some of it's comedy, or clowning, then the other part of it is really hard hitting. It's a mix of both.”

The love of counterpointing comedy with the darkness of the human soul is not exclusive to Irish playwrights: “It's there in a lot of theatre, look at David Mamet, or Sam Shepard, there's a lot of light and dark in their writing as well.“I don't think of it as being specific to Irish theatre. It's a general kind of thing. There's only the two masks in theatre, comedy and tragedy.”
Between his two directorial stints at Backstage Charlie will show up as an actor in The Determinator. Transitioning from director to actor poses challenges: “When you're acting in a show, the great thing is that all you have to worry about is the character. Who is your character? Whereas when you're directing, you're trying to think of the overall thing.“Your mindset is different when you're going to perform in a show as opposed to directing a show.”

The Determinator follows Herbie Hoctor on his epic trek from Dowra in Leitrim, to New York City in a last ditch attempt to win back his ex-girlfriend’s heart. Written by John McManus and directed by Padraic McIntyre it's a real audience pleaser: “It's a great hour-long shaggy dog story. It's a love story, with loads of comedy.

The writer, John McManus, loves a good shaggy dog story. It's good fun and a nice evening of theatre.”The Determinator will be staged on Thursday, April 11, while Mostrim Players will stage The Cripple of Inishmaan from Friday, May 17 to Sunday May 19.