Established in 2008, Award-winning Parke Drama Group embark on a tour of selected stages around Mayo with 2 short but significant one-Act plays – one drama and one comedy – both staged in a one evening sitting!

Last Panto in Parke by David Tristam – Parke Amateur Dramatic Society is in trouble. The membership has dwindled to four – the audiences aren’t much bigger – and if they don’t come up with some rent money soon, they’re going to be thrown out. “There’s only one thing that sells tickets these days” argues Gordon the Chairman. “Sex!”

Thus begins the chaotic and hilarious build-up to an evening of extraordinary home-grown drama – an evening the locals would never forget!

A Galway Girl by Geraldine Arun is a one act drama that takes us through the stages of a marriage, from early disillusion to late acceptance. We are initially inclined to side with the honest to goodness working-class Dermot, as he decries the airs and graces of the upwardly mobile Maisie, who mediates her entire understanding of life through the prism of the neighbours’ opinion. That is, until Dermot shows his nature as a violent bully. While it is possible by the end of the play to sympathize with Dermot’s inability to connect with his family or others in a meaningful way, it is Maisie who deserves the real sympathy. Her strength of character and resolve makes her a character worthy of admiration, even while we hope that this kind of ‘for worse’ marriage is a thing of the past.

Geraldine Aron’s script is a masterclass in the economy of time and scale, evoking a lifetime of coexistence through the monologues of husband and wife.

Some adult themes – not suitable for underage

Tickets €15/€12        Book @ www.westporttheatre.com