GIVEN the relationship between Dolan’s Warehouse, Dock Road and La Boutique and now Dynamique gay discos, it is fitting venue for the 2012 return of ‘Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens’. Directed by Myles Breen, it is musical theatre seared with social insight, delivered through verse and song.The production is a joint one between Bottom Dog Theatre Company and Music Theatre West as it requires 19 actors and four professional singer/ performers to deliver its life stories, beautifully.
“We are blessed with the talent we have, a whole bunch of Limerick actors and singers, actors such as Zeb Moore, Peter Hayes, Róisin Connolly and Ann Blake,” Myles Breen feels. “Our singers are Brian McCann, who made it big in the West End with ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and ‘The Rocky Horror Show’.
There’s Jenny McGann, now based in Dublin, who has been involved in every Tops of the Town, so much theatre locally, and Liam O’Brien. Nicole Gainey, whom we know from ‘Girls Night Out’, was trained in Mountview Academy, London”.
Noel Lennon is Breen’s music director in the narrative of how AIDS broke the lives of 19 different people, these monologues inspired by the NAMES quilt project, which is a memorial to people who died of the virus.
“The verse has really beautiful language and writing, seaming easily into the songs. All humanity is evident in these stories – the Grandmother who caught AIDS from a blood transfusion, she addresses the element of shame in being known to have disease. The nurse who was pricked by an infected needle. There is the lover of a man who died from AIDS, talking about how his that man’s family have treated him, badly.”.
His song and others concern the feelings of those left bereaved by such deaths, and dealing with the consequences.
The fine impression made by ‘Elegies for Angles, Punks and Raging Queens’ when it platformed for Limerick Pride 2010 in Loft Venue secured an invitation to Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival 201, ongoing until May 12. ‘Elegies’ comes to Dolan’s Warehouse on Thursday May 17, Friday 18 after a six night run in Trinity College.
See www.dolans-pub.ie for booking; 8pm show; special thanks to Mick and Valerie Dolan for supporting the project.
