THE County Limerick based playwright John Sheehy of CallBack Theatre has staged a series of original plays at Belltable, Theatre at the Savoy and Friars’ Gate in Kilmallock. Touring the country is a regular for Sheehy and his acting/ production partner, Cora Fenton. Their site-specific works are especially exciting, mystery tours unfolding in historic sites and within the tardis of Friars’ Gate.
His 2017 play ‘Janey Dillis’ returns to Belltable for two nights, this Thursday January 25 and Friday 26, 8pm. It’s a delight, a one woman vehicle for Fenton playing a gentle nut of a loner who never leaves the house.
Janey is truly ‘queen of the wild interior’, a loopy but clued-in lady who has shut her door on the world for 25 long year. Sod the lot of us, she’s cool behind the curtains.
This story is ripe comedy, no ode to sad little spinster ladies of fractured past. I saw Cora Fenton on stage last on January 20, playing a psychotic shaman on a beach outside Palermo – a play issued by Liam McCarthy within eight hours to serve ‘The 24 Hour Plays’ concept. By gum, this actress does batsh*t real well.
‘Janey Dillis’ got off the page with a theatre bursary for Limerick Council, John Sheehy having been theatre artist in residence at Friars’ Gate for a couple of years.
Far from being a lost twig on a súgan, “Janey is a big fan of the home-delivery. She’s a modern woman with a tablet who orders supplies online. She can navigate the world from there. But a power cut interferes”.
A savage winter is the catalyst for change when wi-fi and email fail. Cora Fenton’s character is forced to scavenge new paths.
Over 70 minutes, there are conversations between Janey, jolted to twitchy awareness and vulnerability, and fictional characters in her head to which she gives voice.
Playwright Sheehy intimates they may be representations of her (undeclared) self, eloquent fragments of the mind. Booking at Belltable venue manager www.limetreetheatre.ie
