Here Are Ladies (1971)
Directed by John Quested
Genres - Language & Literature, Theater |
Sub-Genres - Literary Studies, Performance Art, Sketch Comedy |
Run Time - 60 min. |
Countries - Ireland |
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Synopsis by Eleanor Mannikka
Here Are Ladies could easily be amended to say "Here are some famous Irish women" -- made famous by Samuel Beckett, George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, and other Irish writers who have brought the country and its culture to the heights of literary attainment. The one-woman show of stand-up actress Siobhan McKenna has been taken like a nomad to several appropriate settings as the talented McKenna brings the women to life. She interprets Shaw's "St. Joan" while in an Irish jail cell, Beckett's "Winnie" under a mound of sand at the beach, or women washing clothes in a river from "Finnegan's Wake." An excerpt from "Drama at Inish" by Lennox Robinson -- in which a broadly overacted version of Russian drama is put on for two nonplused Irish spectators -- is particularly funny. McKenna's interpretations will entertain most viewers quite adequately, even if they are not Irish.