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Jimmy’s Hall is the theatre adaptation of Ken Loach’s 2014 film, relaying the true story of Irish communist James Gralton, and his plight to avoid deportation from post-Civil War Ireland. His crime? Setting up a dance hall, a safe space for his Leitrim community to mingle, celebrate and learn from poetry and music as opposed to the clergy, much to local priests’ dismay who protest to have the hall shut down. The story begins in 1933, when Jimmy (played adeptly by Richard Clements) returns from America, where, like de Valera, he fled to during the Civil War. In a time where patriotism is on the rise in sundry countries around the world in tandem with the right wing, it is a rare success for nationalism in a production to brand my nationality with such poignance. Running in the Abbey after a short stint in Leitrim, Jimmy’s Hall lavishly immerses the audience into Irish culture, matching the bleak with the bright to showcase a polished production perfect for the summer season.
This production does not follow a linear structure; the audience are kept on their toes with popping narrators and the lights repeatedly being turned on over our seats during this part-musical, part-love story. You walk into our national theatre to the entire cast already on stage, banging out a céilí – like that scene from Titanic, only right in front of you, person-to-person, completely immersed into the stage from the get-go. Music is the immersive focal point of the play’s structure, a collection of wonderfully talented musicians thumping tunes we haven’t heard since the Irish dancing classes of Seachtain na Gaeilge in school. While the tunes were not strictly faithful to the 1933 setting (with numerous Christy Moore songs) they remained traditionally folk. Occasionally the cast would launch into a Celtic version of pop, such as Whitney Houston or The Clash – a rather odd move which did not seem to add much to the production.
The voices of Ruth McGill (Tess) and Lisa Lambe (playing Gralton’s love interest, Oonagh) stand out from a slightly lacklustre cast, although perhaps the often-trite script proves to hinder the actors’ ability to portray the emotional difficulties, so instead dance and song are focused on. Vicki Manderson, as movement director, balanced the emotional vulnerability of the characters’ positions and their inner strength beautifully. Lambe is a particularly stand-out, bringing an energy to the trad-modern dance that was missing in some of the other characters. Jimmy and Oonagh’s romance added a strand to the plot but was overall slightly redundant, with the movements more choreographed than romantic. Bosco Hogan as Fr. Sheridan was terrifying – the black of the clergy’s robes has never looked more menacing. The Leitrim accent was represented fairly, if inconsistently. The production heralded excellent use of slow motion to suspend time, and technicalities such pyrotechnics, smoke, and a rotating set to add drama.
The production began and concluded with a Michael D. Higgins’ voiceover, questioning our nationhood since the “dreadful 1930s” – serving as a reminder to the audience of the progress our country has made since its dark past, as well as how the history has manifested itself into different problems for this age: property and bodily autonomy remain urgent issues. Like Patrick Kavanagh’s “The Great Hunger,” the play showcases an era in history this country has been judged harshly for and rightfully: the ignoring of small and medium farmers in rural Ireland, of the economically marginalized section of our society people. The play remains historically accurate (even if the production took some liberties), with various cast members acting as narrators, reading out legal documentation such as the Carrigan Report.
The story explores ideas of feminism, of Irishness, of communism, of the power of the arts and need for creativity in self-expression, of the power of hearing something new for the first time that makes sense. A memorable moment is the characters hearing jazz in the hall for the first time, from the gramophone Jimmy brings home from New York, and their inability to control themselves grooving to the insane beat. Overall, this play was affecting, representing “a country of blind fools” without embarrassing us, yet playing homage to our global reputation and the huge number of Irish-American tourists attending our national theatre during this summer season. I have never experienced an audience standing to ovation so immediately after the final note as with this production, eager to bask in the cast’s bows. You would do well to depart the play without a tear in your eye, and sweat on your back from carrying the weight of our history.
Jimmy’s Hall runs at the Abbey Theatre until 19 August.
