Every week, The Women’s Podcast asks listeners a question and this week, in preparation for a special food episode of the podcast next week, presenter Kathy Sheridan wants to know: What is your guiltiest food pleasure?
Confessing to her own, rather mild food crimes, “endless biscuits ... and salt, lots of salt” on she wants listeners to spill the beans about their guiltiest food habits.
You can respond by email thewomenspodcast@irishtimes.com or via Facebook or twitter @itwomenspodcast.
We had a huge response to last week’s question which was sparked by the #wakingthefeminists debate in response to the lack of women on the 1916 programme at The Abbey Theatre. We asked: What is your favourite Irish play written by a woman. Here are a selection of your responses:
Mary Ellen Tynan: "I wish that there were a plethora of great women's plays to choose from but the reality is that if they exist we don't get to see them on stage. In fact, while I frequently attend the theatre, I've seen only a handful written by women in the last ten years as opposed to around a hundred by male playwrights. I actually had to Google to try to jog my memory as I kept thinking there must be more but no, I can only think of three that I have seen in the last few years; 'B is for Baby' (Peacock), 'Little Gem' by Elaine Murphy and 'Marble' by Marina Carr in the Abbey. I loved all for different reasons but was particularly moved by the power and the raw emotion in 'Marble'. I still have vivid images of the Abbey staging of this play and often recall moments in it."
Kasia Lee: "I recently acted in the Canadian debut of a play called 'Elvis' Toenail' by Fionnuala Kenny, staged by the Toronto Irish Players. It stars a cast of seven women and two men and is set in a 1960s Dublin clothing factory, and it touches on the issues of the Magdalene laundries. The play is so well written and so wonderfully touching. The play may focus on the darker parts of Irish history, but it also captures the bright, enduring spirit of the Irish people. I loved every moment of being a part of it, and Fionnuala and her sister Cliona, who was also the director, were amazing, talented women who definitely deserve recognition."
Sheelagh Coyle: "The play I like best by a woman is 'Eclipsed' by Patricia Burke Brogan. It is set in a Magdalen Laundry with nuns and young single mothers in the cast. The author was a 21 year old novice in a laundry in Forster St. in Galway and so writes about some of the young women she encountered, the conditions in the laundry and their huge sadness at having to give up their babies."
Emma Cassidy wanted to recommend 'A Night in November' by Marie Jones. which she said explores identity with lots of humour. Lisa Fitzpatrick provided a lengthy selection from the past 20 or so years, all by living playwrights:
Geraldine Aron ‘The Donahue Sisters’, ‘Bar and Ger’
Patricia Burke-Brogan ‘Eclipsed’ and ‘Stained Glass at Samhain’
Marina Carr: ‘By the Bog of Cats’, ‘Hecuba’, ‘The Mai’, ‘Portia Coughlan’, ‘Woman and Scarecrow’
Sylvia Cullen ‘The Thaw’
Anne Devlin ‘Ourselves Alone’, ‘After Easter’
Stella Feehily ‘Dreams of Violence’ and ‘Duck’
Hilary Fannin ‘Doldrum Bay’, and ‘Mackerel Sky’
Marie Jones ‘Stones in His Pockets’
Lisa McGee ‘Girls and Dolls’
Gina Moxley 'Danti-Dan'
Ursula Rani Sarma ‘Blue’
Abbie Spallen ‘Pump Girl’, ‘Strandline’
Finally, Aedamar Kirrane was not alone in nominating ’By The Bog of Cats’ by Marina Carr “as my favourite play, period, by any playwright - male or female.”
“So no shortage of work by women to choose from and hopefully change will come sooner rather than later,” said Sheridan.
Last week, in our discussion about women in Irish theatre, Fintan O’Toole mentioned that the playwright Teresa Deevy’s work was being revived in New York. One of our listeners contacted us to say it’s also being revived in her hometown of Waterford.
The Garter Lane Theatre, in collaboration with the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) will produce Teresa Deevy’s ’The Wife to James Whelan’ next October. The Abbey Theatre rejected the play in 1937.
There will also be a reading of another one of her plays, 'Katie Roche'. A Teresa Deevy exhibition is planned at WIT in April 2016, as part of the Irish Society for Theatre Research.
