John Murphy’s "The Country Boy"

Chorlton Irish Club

• Starts at 7:30 pm
• Admission: £10

John Murphy’s play, The Country Boy was one of the most notable Irish plays to come to The Abbey Theatre in the late 50’s and early 60’s.
It delighted discriminating and critical playgoers and drew large and popular audiences into the theatre, week after week.

There were fears that it would not appeal to American holiday makes who might take offence at the aspect of American life depicted in the play. In fact, it was quite the opposite, many Americans contacted the Irish Press to express their admiration for the remarkable play they had seen at the Abbey Theatre and what most delighted them was it’s unusual but faithful delineation of an aspect of Irish American life.

John Murphy chose for “The Country Boy” an ordinary scene and filled it with normal people but his keen and sympathetic vision and his creative gifts enabled him to fashion his material into a straightforward play which is quiet out of the ordinary. He himself emigrated from the Irish countryside of County Mayo to America and came back obviously able to see both sides of two pictures. This, no doubt, helped him to treat matters like emigration and rural marriage from an original angle.

In The Country Boy, real problems, personal and social are penetratingly discussed, not for the sake of reaching conclusions or suggesting remedies but for the correct dramatic purpose of revealing the thoughts and feelings, hopes and fears of the people in the play. If there is a trace of sentimentality in “The Country Boy” it is so well spiced with satire and laughter as almost to defy detection. Years later we are confronted with similiar situations in Brian Friel’s powerful play “Philadelphia Here I come”

This play is set in a more modern Ireland but the heartrending problems of emigration still abide. John Murphy captured this in a simple, direct fashion in 1955. No one who views “The Country Boy” cannot but feel the truth and honesty which Murphy portrays in his masterpiece “The Country Boy”

The Erris players were formed in 1984 under the title of “Kiltane Players” Their first play, “The Country Boy” has a cast of local people from the Kiltane Parish. Soon the group increased as members joined from the whole Barony of Erris, hence the name changed to the Erris Players. Since it’s foundation the drama group have become more proficent and performed plays by almost all great Irish dramatists. Last year they very successfully presented “The Playboy of the Western World” and were invited by the Mayo Association in Dublin to perform “The Playboy” in the Liberty Hall Theatre. This venture was very demanding but “the Players” rose to the occasion and were declared a huge success by a capacity audience. They also won the Mayo County Coucil Drama Award last year, 2009, for the second time.

This year, 2010, they are undertaking a very demanding programme presenting “The Country Boy” in Aras Inis Gluaire, Belmullet on February 27th and 28th, in Ballycastle Hall, March 7th and Bangor Erris, March 14th. They are also invited to perform in the Town Hall Theatre, Galway on April 7th.

The success of “The Players” could not be achieved without the competance of the backstage staff, director and committee

Play starts 8.00pm
Tickets on the door or from the Chorlton Club Tel: 0161 881 2898