SOME of you will remember the reach of tenderness to Mikel Murfi’s show, ‘I Hear You and Rejoice’ which staged at Belltable a couple of years back. Written as well as performed by Murfi, this is one man’s (Pat Farnon) love story to his wife that is wild, witty and unguessably original.
The play’s title has a bearing on their dynamic and some of the production’s beauty – other than the acting – is that death has not withered the joy to their union. Mikel Murfi is coming back to Belltable for May 31m 8pm with this work of art.
He has an earlier, connected show set for tonight, May 30, that was first performed in October 1978, ‘The Man in the Woman’s Shoes’: “It follows Pat Farnon as he walks to town and back again.”
So successful has ‘The Woman in the Man’s Shoes’ been that it toured to Manhattan and Philadelphia and sold out a three week run at The Peacock. It then played to full houses for the same term at London’s Tricycle and other venues embraced it.
“We’ve been here before with both shows separately but they work really well as a pair, although you don’t need to see them in any particular order to follow the story,” Murfi assures us. “The shows come from the same source in that they were made in conjunction with the Bealtaine Festival in the Hawk’s Well Theatre Sligo, with the support of the Sligo Arts Office.
“I met groups of older people in Co. Sligo as research for both pieces and I’d like to think that I’ve captured the spirit of those people in the shows.”
Booking on venue manager www.limetreetheatre.ie for Belltable.
