On the Town: Stephen Rea, Colm Tóibín, Pauline McLynn and Ronnie Drew were some of the well-known faces in the crowd at Heavenly Bodies on opening night at the Peacock this week.
The play, which is about the life of the 19th century Irish playwright, Dion Boucicault, was timed to coincide with the staging of The Shaughraun by Boucicault, currently running at the Abbey Theatre next door.
The late Stewart Parker, who wrote Heavenly Bodies, "was ahead of his time as a writer", said Rea afterwards, recalling his friend, who died in 1988. "He was immensely genial, witty and funny. He liked to entertain and make a serious point as well. He was a man of great intellect."
John Fairleigh, director of the Stewart Parker Trust Awards, which were set up to honour the Belfast playwright, said "he never lost the ability to get across a very serious message". Like Rea, he had never seen Heavenly Bodies before. "The joy is the way it [the play] has mixed all the techniques and tricks of Victorian theatre with the pathos of Boucicault's life."
Others at the opening were Tony Ó Dálaigh, former director of the Dublin Theatre Festival, playwright Hilary Fannin and Eithne Healy, the chairwoman of the Abbey board. The Arts Council chairwoman, Olive Braiden, with her husband, Seán Braiden, was "thrilled" with the appointment, earlier that day, of Mary Cloake as director of the Arts Council.
Afterwards there were congratulations for the cast, who included Declan Conlon (as Boucicault) and Owen Roe, and for the director, Lynne Parker, who recalled her uncle as "one of the loveliest people I ever met, who combined enormous humour and warmth with a ferocious intellect".
Heavenly Bodies continues at the Peacock Theatre until Saturday, July 31st