HONOR MOLLOY’S “CRACKSKULL ROW” AT THE IRISH REPERTORY THEATRE

Honor Molloy’s play “Crackskull Row,” which is directed by Kira Simring and stars Gina Costigan, John Charles McLaughlin, Terry Donnelly and Colin Lane, will be performed at the Irish Repertory Theatre from February 3 to March 19. Click here for ticket info and details. 

OUTCRY

By Honor Molloy

Playwright Honor Molloy

My Father. John Molloy was born in 1929 and came of age during a bleak time in Ireland’s history when a third of the nation’s children left school at the age of fourteen. He was one such child.

He left because he couldn’t read. He couldn’t read because he was taught in Irish, an impenetrable language to a dyslexic boy. He left because he was flogged. He was flogged because he was a joker who subverted the Christian Brothers’ extreme disciplinary practices. He stood up for the persecuted. He drew attention to himself because he couldn’t shut up, wouldn’t shut up about the injustice happening in his world.

Home was no better than school. His father was a man quick with the belt and the fist. Dick Molloy beat his wife when she was pregnant and killed an unborn baby. He did this several times. He beat my father.

He beat his rage into his family again and again. But his anger, his disappointment in life was never put to rest.

Dick Molloy was a dairy farmer with a bad case of tuberculosis. The family hid his disease from the customers, but he couldn’t keep it from his son. He gave my father TB.

From the age of 17 to 23, my father toured the chest hospitals of Dublin. Conditions in the sanatoria were dire. The shame of being poor was added to the shame of being sick. A starvation diet and death all around.

My father left the sanatorium with half a lung and a burning desire for all the sex and booze and theater he could grab. A rogue and a charmer, he married his exact opposite: my mam.

Together they made theater and children and life was marvelous for a time. But my father was sinking into a sea of mental illness, addiction, self-annihilation. He was drowning.

And he was punching.

Any Irish person knows the particular way personal and national history are intertwined; we are cursed with an especially vivid sense of ourselves as figures in an historical continuum. As an eighth-generation Dubliner and expatriate, such is my lot.

Just before I turned five, the IRA celebrated the semi-centennial of the 1916 Easter Rising by blowing up Nelson’s Pillar. As granite chunks thundered down upon O’Connell Street, my father happened to be passing by. He picked up Lord Nelson’s sword and hid it under our couch. I always thought he brought war home in that sword because, soon after, my family was shattered to bits. And we fled to America without him.
  I can’t fix my father or repair our family, but I can try to understand why this happened. How. I took a long hard look at the illness and sadness. Hunger and bloodshed.

So, in my imagination, I walked down Dublin’s laneways to my childhood home – a carriage house behind the Georgians on Ely Place.

I went back into the black of Crackskull Row and dug up the stuff of the past – mine, and my homeland’s – the endless cycles and repetitions.

I mean. Can we not stop.

Crackskull Row is not a play, it’s an outcry.

 

AWoW’s SHOWCASE at THE CELL: PHOTOS by MITCH TRAPHAGEN

Mitch Traphagen’s photos from Artists Without Walls’ Showcase at The Cell Theatre, April 26, 2016.

Christopher Dean Sullivan
Christopher Dean Sullivan
Gina Costigan and Cav Eire
Gina Costigan and Cav Eire
Kazuki Kazuru
Kazuki Kazuru
Mala Waldron
Mala Waldron
Premix Russell Tubbs
Premik Russell Tubbs
Celeste Muniz
Celeste Muniz
John Ambrosini
John Ambrosini
Jean Huff
Jean Huff
Jim Hawkins
Jim Hawkins
Richard Cashman
Richard Cashman
Michelle Macau
Michelle Macau
Patricia Schneider and Honor Molloy
Patricia Schneider and Honor Molloy
Kazuki Kazuru, Paul Roberson, Celeste Muniz and Al Foote III
Kazuki Kazuru, Paul Roberson, Celeste Muniz and Al Foote III

 

AN EXCITING and DIVERSE EVENING of ENTERTAINMENT: ARTISTS WITHOUT WALLS’ APRIL SHOWCASE at THE CELL THEATRE

“Artists Without Walls has has gotten off to a fantastic start this year. I’m so very thankful for the artistic, cultural and social benefits I have reaped from this organization. Thanks, Charles and Niamh. Thanks everyone for your support.” Mark Donnelly

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Rick Ashman
Rick Cashman

We’ve got a great evening of diverse entertainment planned for Artists Without Walls’ April Showcase at The Cell Theatre, Tuesday, April 26. One of the group’s newest members, songwriter Rick Cashman, will be making his first AWoW appearance. Joining Rick will be jazz pianist John Ambrosini and saxophonist Premik Russell Tubbs, who has performed with Lady Gaga, Sting, Whitney Houston, Carlos Santana, Jackson Browne and James Taylor. Rick is also the creator, writer and producer of a weekly comedy podcast called “The Hickory Bench Playhouse”  

 

 

Gina Costigan
Gina Costigan

 

 

Actress Gina Costigan will be performing a scene from Honor Molloy’s short play, “And in My Heart. ” The play is a young woman’s account of love and revolution during the 1916 Easter Rising, which is drawn from Honor’s Great Aunt Florence Kane’s eye witness account of the week when Ireland changed, changed utterly.

 

 

Mala Waldron
Mala Waldron

Mala Waldron, a New York City native, balances local performances with regular tours in Europe and Asia. Currently, the songstress is excited about her upcoming solo release, “Deep Resonance.” The project is an intimate, unplugged, personal glimpse into the heart of the artist, featuring her lush vocals and piano accompaniment. Mala’s recordings include her CD debut, “Lullaby,” a tribute to her godmother, Billie Holiday and a duo project with her father, pianist/composer Mal Waldron, “He’s My Father” and “Always There,” which, in addition to being her first U.S. release, was also licensed by Columbia Records (Japan) and voted one of the Top 20 Jazz CDs of 2006 by JazzUSA.

 

Jenai Huff
Jenai Huff

 

Jenai Huff, NYC based singer/songwriter composes songs that address life with its nuances, contradictions, and challenges. Working with acclaimed cinematographer and cameraman, Arthur Jafa (Selma, Crooklyn, Seven Songs for Malcolm, Beyonce, Lauren Hill), has put two of her songs to film, which she will be showing at Tuesday’s Showcase. One of the songs, “Just Like Me,” subtly addresses racism and how we really are all mostly a like. 

 

 

Jenai Huff
Michelle Macau

 

 

 

Michelle Macau will be presenting a reading of selected poems from “The Surrender Tree” by Margarita Engle about Cuba’s struggle for freedom, experimenting with percussive sounds to enhance the story. Joining Michelle will be Al Foote III, Celeste Muniz, Paul Roberson and Kabuki Kozuru.

 

 

 

Jim Hawkins
Jim Hawkins

 

Storyteller Jim Hawkins will pay tribute to the men and women of 1916 Ireland, with passages from Sean O’Casey’s writings and the song, “The Foggy Dew.” Jim has spent decades telling stories, with a sly, folksy understated humor, like the seanchaís of old, whom Hawkins emulates. Jim tells the stories of nearly vanished Irish folkways to audiences far and wide, in public libraries, pubs, churches, universities, in Ireland and here in the United States. “I wish to be a vehicle that carries the history, culture and traditions of the Irish people, and to share the stories, songs and poetry of this great culture with the world. It will be my contribution to keeping this wonderful art-form alive and well.”

 

Artists Without Walls’ Artistic Directors Niamh Hyland and Charles R. Hale will be hosting and emceeing the event. The Cell Theatre is located at 338 W23rd. St., NYC. The doors and bar open at 6:45. The Showcase begins at 7:30. For more information about the event click here