The career of Melina Mercouri was entwined with that of the great Greek composer, Manos Hatzidakis who magicked up the music for ‘Never on Sunday’.
Manos Hatzidakis was, ar bhealach, the Seán Ó Riada of Greece in the way both explored and enhanced alike the folk music of their native countries. If Hatzidakis (like his fellow great Greek composer, Mikis Theodorakis, of Zorba fame) joined the Greek Resistance during the temporary German Occupation so too did Seán Ó Riada enlist in the Irish Resistance, the cultural version opposed to the seemingly permanently contemporary English Occupation.
Seán Ó Riada was also associated with Amharclann na Mainistreach (aka the Abbey Theatre) as indeed was The Druidess, though not simultaneously; besides, she would order the names of the same theatre differently, with Abbey gaining alphabetical precedence over Amharchlann, to put it mouldly.
As musical director (1955-1962) the sophisticated cosmopolitan who was Ó Riada worked under Earnán de Blaghd, that Northern blight on Southern Shoneenism, at whom the sniffy Tolerentia of Theatreland on Liffeyside to this day have nothing but an inexhaustible supply of brickbats to fling.
These were the years when Geamaireacht Ghaelach na Nollag / Irish Pantomime was a satirical feature every Festive Season: an adult romp which drew on a diversity of traditions and talents, from sparkling writers such as Eoghan Ó Tuairisc, the manic techniques of commedia del arte of Italia, the inspired antics of the bilingual ensemble and of course, the goldfingers of O’Riada, vamping on an unpredictable piano.
It shone like a dazzling foot light in the mainstream mask of the Maureen Pottery for potty-trained Panto-loving Anglicised ‘adults’ over in the Gaeity, on the other bank of the Liffey.
That was then, and this is now: the Abbey has since matured from the Green Room and the Leprechaun Panto Hiss, post the Druidess, to the Pink Room and the Panti Bliss of tolerant today.
Edwin Drood was the unfinished novel Dickens was working on when he passed on. It would appear the Druidess’novel approach in the Abbey is still unfinished.
Incidentally, to offset any accusations of bias (Una Mull forbid !) one must point out that just because Melina Mercouri kept a photo of her co-star in the movie Phaedra (1962) on her bedside table for many years, is neither there nor here. That co-star was (gulp):
-Anthony Perkins.
Only a pyscho in dire need of a shower and with a limited knowledge of the Thespian world would suggest that this is a biased posting: girls allowed.
Colm Tóibin, novelist and former theatre critic of the Sunday (gasp) Independent, says Garry Hynes, aka The Druidess, attracts criticism because ‘she doesn’t suffer fools gladly’.
Hmmmm.
Colm Tóibin shows himself here to be a master of the euphemism; or if not, he is doing that which is de rigeur for the Cultural Consentia in giving his fellow Establishmentarian a dig out. And by doing so, shows, frankly, he does not fully comprehend the lingua of the locals on Liffeyside.
As a Wexican praising a Corribean, this could well be the case. For to the average Dubliner dosser to opine that ‘someone does not suffer fools gladly’, is a toss up between fluent obituary for or a taximan’s detour to describe a:
-BX.
(Or whatever the tender gender equivalent of that succinct two-letter text word is).
One still wonders just exactly how The Druidess would have suffered a cultural fooleen such as Seán O for Omadaun Riada.
This is just the kind of petty parochialism which the likes of Melina Mercouri and Manos Hatzidakis would find difficult to grasp.
-It would be, erm, Greek to these global Greek nationalists.
If Melina Mercouri of Never on Sunday fame was to be the first chanteuse with whom Manos Hatzidakis achieved his global hatrick of hit songs for females, then Nana Moskouri with that most sublime of poignant melodies was the second:
-The White Rose of Athens.
To be truly international, of course, it is a fundamental first step to be national. This is such an obvious sine qua non it follows naturally that the Fine G’s of Groveldom do not come within a Long Mile Road of grasping it, especially, in Leo de Janeiro, 2017.
Since The Druidess first began to bestride the Thespian stage like a Corribean Collossa, is é ceann de na clocha is mó ar a paidrín/ one of the biggest beads on her rosary has been a loathing of the Leprechaun. Which rosary indeed she has opted to wear like a crown of thorns:
– Katleen Ni Houlihan, your way’s a thorny one.
Bemoaning, if not ullagowning, about the merciless conjoining at the lip of compulsory and Leprechaun, involving six of the best, that sorta thingy.
Perhaps that is possibly why, the six plays The Druidess directed in her own peculiar way, turned out to be Six of the Worst productions EVER on the stage of Amharclann, oops, the Abbey Theatre.
- King of the Castle
- The Plough and the Stars
- The Power of Darkness
- Famine
- A Whistle in the Dark
- Portia Coughlan
And of this Six perhaps the very world’s worse was:
-The Power of Darkness (1991).
This was John McGahern’s unfortunate excursion into drama, with an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s original (in translation). Now whether the sheer awfulness of the production was down to John or Leo or The D is a moot point (still) but one image is still emblazoned on The Perkin’s memory: that of an aquaintance beating a hasty retreat to a nearby pub or possibly the Liffey itself after the first act.
Although it was still only at the Interval phase one glance at his distraught face was enough to convince the commonality that therein was etched:
-Post Dramatic Stress.
Coincidentally, the next stage prouduction to be up in lights in a (dark) Amharclann, oops, Abbey Theatre is that which most clearly delineates the contrast (stark) between the healthy Hellenic parochialism of Greece and the diseased Hibernian provincialism of the Free Southern Stateen:
-Ulysses.
(To be contd).
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