After the tumultuous, weather-besieged parade on Saturday, Macnas was just about ready for another party and Tuesday night's opening of Pat McCabe's The Dead School, with director Joe O'Byrne at the helm, provided just such an occasion. McCabe himself was there with his wife Margo, and several of his friends also arrived to see the show. Singer Jack Lukeman, who often performs with McCabe at readings, came along as did young Eamonn Owens, who played the title role in Neil Jordan's film of The Butcher Boy.
The "party of the festival" in the Rowing Club afterwards attracted Leo Moran, Pierce Doherty and John Donnelly a.k.a. The Saw Doctors; singer Mary Coughlan; playwright Martin McDonogh; Murray Lachlan Young, the English performance poet; Liam Rellis of Red Kettle; playwright Tom Murphy; Paddy Hayter and Rod Goodall of Footsbarn, and Brendan Flynn of the Arts Council.
Mikel Murfi of Barabbas was also there and looking forward to the next Macnas show at the Dublin Theatre Festival. He is devising, with Patrick O'Reilly, an as-yet-unnamed Macnas show at the Olympia about Van Gogh. Patrick is a wellknown artist who opened his own show of moving sculptures and bronzes at the Aula Maxima last Saturday.