Druid have announced that John B Keane’s ‘Big Maggie’ is set for the stage once more with a run in Galway’s Town Hall Theatre (November 11th - 19th) and Dublin’s Gaiety (November 21st - 26th). Culch.ie have announced that they’re rather delighted by the news!
One of Keane’s best, it deals with all the go-to themes of Irish theatre: money, land, and in this case some secretive sex and black humour as title character Maggie, recently-widowed, becomes the steadfast matriarch in the face of her squabbling, inheritance-hungry children.
If you’ve never seen or read Big Maggie then we recommend making it your business this time around. It’s ten years since Garry Hynes directed it for The Abbey and it was commended for how well it was brought into the modern day at the time (it originally premiered in 1969). Hynes is once more in the director’s chair for this production while on the cast side of things, Aisling O’Sullivan takes the role of Maggie with a supporting cast of Paul Connaughton, Nancy E. Carroll, Keith Duffy (in the role of Teddy Healin - we were wondering about the accent ’til we saw that bit!), Sarah Greene, Amy Molloy, Charlie Murphy, Des Nealon, John Olohan and Joan Sheehy.
Druid are currently touring The Silver Tassie and put on a fantastic showing of The Cripple of Inishmaan back in February. Here’s some early warning: we expect this will be another cracker.
