While Marie Jones could be heard on radio this week sounding relieved that a London court judged her the sole author of her international hit play Stones in His Pockets, Pam Brighton's Dubbeljoint theatre company was firing off press releases around Belfast claiming that it wasn't so much a win for Jones as a draw, writes Róisín Ingle
"Pam relishes a fight," says an acquaintance of both writer and director. "Marie has always been much less confrontational."
Jones will now have to rewrite a small part of the beginning of her hit play which is about two extras in a Hollywood movie being filmed in Co Kerry, as the judge ruled that while she was the sole author, she must get consent from Brighton, the English-born director, to use her notes. It's a convoluted story that has cast a shadow over a brilliant theatrical success.
"It's sad that one of the best things ever to come out of Northern Ireland should have ended up in court," said playwright Martin Lynch this week.
Marie Jones (52) grew up in a Protestant working-class family in East Belfast and knew from her mid-teens that she wanted to work in theatre. After getting involved in school plays she auditioned for legendary female impersonator James Young at the Group Theatre in Belfast, and began acting at night while working in a clerical job.
In the early 1980s she was among a number of actresses who had become disillusioned with a Northern Ireland theatre scene which forced them to scratch around for decent female roles. Charabanc, the company they formed together, became an overnight success with plays that told the kinds of stories audiences immediately recognised as their own. Lynch was asked to write Charabanc's first play Lay Up Your Ends which was about the 1911 mill strike in Belfast but, after spending some time with them, he suggested the women should try and write it themselves.
"I brought Pam Brighton over from Edinburgh to direct it," he remembers. "Marie emerged as the only one who showed any real writing spark so she wrote a couple of scenes and went on to write her own plays after that." Lay Up Your Ends, which toured community centres around the North was a rave success with audiences on both sides of the political divide, packing venues on the Shankill Road one night and West Belfast the next.
They were heady days when the actresses lived together in a house in Ravenhill Park which became a kind of headquarters for Charabanc. It was, recalls Lynch, a hive of artistic activity.
"One day you might meet Brian Friel there or maybe Shane MacGowan, it was that kind of place. Marie was at the centre of things, always bursting with energy and charm. She can still get anybody to do anything, she has that sort of way with her," says Lynch.
Brighton directed some of Charabanc's early plays before she and Jones had a falling out and went their separate ways. Jones continued as writer-in-residence with Charabanc until 1990 before teaming up with Brighton, a qualified barrister, again to co-found Dubbeljoint theatre company, writing hit plays such as A Night In November and Women On the Verge of HRT.
The first production of Stones In Their Pockets didn't set the theatre world alight when it was performed in 1996. It was around this time that Jones and Brighton parted ways again.
"Pam and I just went different ways artistically," Jones said this week. 'Stones' was reworked by the author and a few years later, with her husband, actor Ian McIlhinney, at the directorial helm it began wowing critics across the world.
But for all her plaudits, Marie Jones fatigue appears to have set in around Belfast in the past year. "Her work has sort of become a plague on Belfast theatre," says one member of the Belfast arts community. "The Lyric Theatre, which has had a bit of financial trouble, decided last year to drag out all Marie's early plays, calling them world premières - which was a bit disingenuous, and they simply don't stand the test of time."
These include "new" productions of Weddins, Weeins and Wakes and The Blind Fiddler of Glenadauch. Suggestions that Jones might be running out of ideas were sparked by the fact that the author of a play called Christmas Eve Can Kill You penned another one in recent times called New Year's Eve Can Kill You. But putting Jones's name on the bottom of a poster in Belfast (and the rest of the island) virtually guarantees a sell-out, which is good news for the financial administrators of the Lyric.
"But it's irritating for those of us who take theatre seriously," he says.
Jones, who received an OBE two years ago for her services to drama, is thought to be extremely wealthy but this week claimed her millionairess status had been greatly exaggerated. "I still have a mortgage," she said. She and McIlhinney have two sons.
"The wonderful thing about Marie is that despite her great success she has hardly changed at all," says one acquaintance, pointing to the writer's wide circle of friends, many of whom have nothing to do with the theatre. "She is continually surprised by her own success. Also as a couple Marie and Ian have the great gift of not being badly affected by criticism. They are highly self-critical of course, but they have that ability to just carry on and paddle their own canoe."
While it's said she is "generous, big-hearted, good-natured and jolly," some are less convinced about the authenticity of Jones's earthy image.
"She still affects what must at this stage be an entirely invented unsophisticated air," says one more cynical observer. "She carries on as though she is still that Belfast caricature of a woman with a wee cup of tea in her hand. She still adopts that persona which can be seen in a lot of the early Charabanc plays but it just doesn't wash when you consider how successful she has been," he adds.
But what cannot be questioned is the success Jones's plays have enjoyed around the world, winning awards and acclaim from New York to Tokyo. Most critics agree that Stones in His Pockets is her most assured work and indeed it has spawned a mini-industry with several productions in different countries, a kind of theatrical version of international dance sensation Riverdance.
And never mind the input of Pam Brighton, some say what is never recognised fully is McIlhinney's contribution to his wife's career and that he was integral to the success of Stones in His Pockets. This week, McIlhinney was directing John Anderson's On Eagle's Wing, the mammoth play due open in Belfast's Odyssey next week, while Jones was attending a student production of The Canterbury Tales in Belfast.
"I think what Marie probably needs right now is a good break," says one acquaintance. "But it just wouldn't be like her to sit still for long."
Who is she?
Acclaimed Northern Irish playwright Marie Jones
Why is she in the news?
This week she won a High Court case in London against theatre director Pam Brighton, who claimed she should be credited as joint author of her West End play Stones in His Pockets.
Career high
Her Tony award nominations for Stones in His Pockets
Career low
Eddie Bottom's Dream, a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream set on a golf course in Co Donegal
Most likely to say
Och, I can't believe the success of my wee play.
Least likely to say
Any aul' pointers for my next one, Pammy?