St Mary’s Staff and Alumni to Star in Irish Play

A number of past and present staff and students from St Mary’s University, Twickenham are performing in an award winning play at the Mary Wallace Theatre in Twickenham this week. St Mary’s Multimedia and Learning Support Specialist Lisette Barlow will be playing one of the lead roles in Irish author Dermot Bolger’s From These Green Heights. This play, which is being performed for the first time outside Ireland this week, is based on true events and tells the story of two families living in a tower block in Dublin between the 1960s and 2004. It won the Irish Times ESB Prize for Best New Irish Play in 2004. For its London staging, the show will be choreographed by recent St Mary’s Physical Theatre graduate Ben Hansell, while former Drama student Lee Akram is the Assistant Stage Manager. Dermot has been involved with the production and said, “Twickenham may seem a long way from Ballymun in Dublin, yet the towers where this play is set may be familiar as the backdrop to so many Irish films over recent decades. When the play was written all seven towers still stood: now only one remains to be demolished and a new Ballymun has arisen on the same site.” Lisette said, “I’ve recently become very interested in Irish literature and theatre having discovered that one of my ancestors was a founding member of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and a friend of Lady Gregory. Despite the very long hours at rehearsals after work, I've enjoyed getting back into acting and re-learning my Irish accent with hints and tips from my family in Dublin. I'm hoping to do more Irish plays in the future.” From These Green Heights will be staged in association with the Richmond Shakespeare Society at the Mary Wallace Theatre from Sunday 1st to Saturday 7th June. For more information, please visit the website.