The Plough and the Stars | Clontarf Players

Clontarf Players are gearing up to the opening night of their latest production; Sean O' Casey's The Plough and the Stars, which runs at the Sean O'Casey Theatre, East Wall from Wednesday 20th - Saturday 23rd November. 

The group, directed by All-Ireland winning director, Myra Maguire, performed a sell-out run of O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock last year, and anticipate great interest in this year’s production.

The Plough and the Stars is considered to be one of Sean O’Casey’s greatest works, if not the greatest. The play is a tragi-comedy which focuses on the lives of ordinary people in Dublin of that time. The residents of a Dublin tenement shelter from the violence that sweeps through the city’s streets. A revolution that will shape the country’s future rages around them.

The Plough and the Stars was first performed at the Abbey Theatre in 1926. The audience rioted in the streets.

Each performance will begin at 8 pm sharp, and run for approximately 1 hour, 50 minutes with a short interval (15 mins) at the halfway mark. For anyone unfamiliar with the play, it is in Four Acts; set in a room of a Dublin tenement house, a bar, a street and another smaller room in the same tenement house, respectively. To this end, great creativity and hard graft have gone into creating a fabulous set to cover all four locations. The group are grateful to have local man, and award-winning set designer, Vincent Donohue at the helm here!

The Plough and the Stars can be considered a play for all audiences, giving an insight into the lives of the people of Dublin at the time of Easter Week. It’s rich in history, politics of the time, humour and drama - and you certainly don’t need to be a seasoned theatre-goer or an O’Casey fan to appreciate it.

Finally, this is a great opportunity to support local theatre. Clontarf Players is made up of a group of individuals, many of whom are from and living here in Clontarf (see some in the below video talking about the production). Tickets are between €12 and €10 and can be purchased on Eventbrite here.