Serca Festival of Irish Theatre returns with a mix of humour and melodrama

The Serca Festival of Irish Theatre has returned to present a week of wondrous theatre.

Returning for its sixth season today until March 20, it is filled to the brim with stimulating artists plying their craft at Alberta Avenue.

Festival producer Mark Stubbings has programmed three plays that reflect the superb quality of Irish theatre in a blend of humour and seriousness.

This afternoon Maralyn Ryan commandeers the stage with Princess Fiona and the Leprechaun, Kaybridge Productions colourful puppetry show. Trunk Theatre’s artistic director Amy De Felice presents The Colleen Bawn and Theatre Prospero’s artistic director Mark Henderson stickhandles A Night in November.

Celebrating its 32nd year producing colourful puppet shows, Kaybridge is a staple at festivals, schools and libraries.

“We’ve been doing this since the 1980s but we’re totally under the radar,” says Ryan, also the founding artistic director of St. Albert Children’s Theatre.

Princess Fiona and the Leprechaun follows a day in the life of a young Irish princess.

“She’s never caught a leprechaun. She’s never even seen one and she’s trying to catch one. But if you catch one, you can’t take your eyes off him. Leprechauns also grant wishes, but beware what you wish for,” Ryan laughs.

She encourages both adults and children to attend because the play is sprinkled with both familiar and obscure Irish folklore.

Tonight and tomorrow, the festival showcases playwright Dion Boucicault’s The Colleen Bawn, an adaptation of a beloved Irish melodrama.

Director Amy De Felice likens it to modern soap opera complete with a secret marriage, an obsessive hunchback, romances, an attempted murder, a blackmailing landlord, a rogue moonshiner, a villainous magistrate, an alcoholic priest and a lot of laughs.

“Even though there are trappings of melodrama, there are still the relationships between the landed gentry to the poorer, more authentic Irish who have a hold on their roots,” De Felice says.

Originally written for 16 principal characters and a chorus, this production is cut down to four remarkable actors playing all roles – Clarisse Eckford, Sheldon Elter, Kristi Hansen and Cody Porter.

“You lose some of the spectacle, but instead of spectacle you have more character work,” says De Felice. This is her third production with Serca following Mojo Mickybo and This Lime Tree Bower.

The more politically themed comedy A Night in November instead runs Wednesday to Friday. Directed by Mark Henderson, it follows Kenneth McCallister, a prejudiced dole office clerk in Belfast that delights in making Catholic claimants wait all day. He is even more ecstatic when he’s invited to join a golf club his Catholic boss will never be allowed to join.

Kenneth’s worldview is shaken after witnessing malicious bigotry and abuse at a football World Cup match between Northern Ireland and the republic.

“He questions his own discrimination, but it’s funny. He’s almost like Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, but with a conscience,” Henderson.

His answer is to set off to America to support a match between the republic against Italy and in doing so discovers his true self.

“It’s a story of letting go and becoming one of the lads.”

Playwright Marie Jones, also responsible for Stone in His Pockets, has written this as a one-man show that demands a virtuosic performance. Edmonton actor Frank Zotter inhabits the skin of 20-odd different characters.

“Frank relates to the Irish heart in a special way and the way he relates to the audience is uplifting. I knew he would be the perfect actor because he understands Kenneth’s bigotry and he understands there is a shining person underneath. Kenneth has a certain innocence that Frank can embrace. He’s confident and keen to do it.”

Admission to Serca is by donation with a portion going to the Theatre Network Fire Rescue Fund.