Events » Theatres » The Birthday Party production at Smock Alley Theatre

His first full length play is a dark comedy set in a dingy boarding house in a down at heel seaside resort. Run by the matronly landlady Meg and her deckchair attendant husband Petey. Their only tenant Stanley Webber seems to live a life of quiet desperation and seclusion until the arrival of the sinister Goldberg and McCann from an unnamed organisation. They arrive on Stanley's birthday and insist on having a birthday party for him. Who are they? What do they really want with Stanley. Who is Stanley and what's he hiding from?

Hilarious, dark, violent and unsettling , this play has lost none of it's power since it first appeared in 1958. Pinter the eventual Nobel Prize winner came out fully formed

with this amazing piece of drama. Notoriously slated during it's initial brief run it has since been recognised as a classic piece of theatre. Personal guilt, anonymous powers at work, a crime not articulated wrapped in a veneer of the banal, Pinter began here with a style that would lead him to be regarded as one of the worlds greatest playwrights.

Cast Terry Orr, Anne Brogan, Nick Devlin, Aine Lane,

Paul Kealyn and Vincent Fegan

Directed and Designed by Peter Reid

Lighting design by Sinead Ronan

Produced by Alex Cusack

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Since 2004 AC Productions have pursued classic modern drama. Starting out as a company formed to produce one play (ANNIE WOBBLER by Arnold Wesker) the company has expanded to having produced ten plays which have toured all over Ireland, London, Brussels and Hong Kong. With a regular company of actors and crew we are heading into our most exciting year yet. After The Birthday Party , our production of KRAPP'S LAST TAPE has been invited to be a highlight of the Prague Fringe Festival in May.

Later this year we will take on our biggest challenge to date by producing Samuel Beckett's HAPPY DAYS in English for three weeks featuring Alex Cusack and Vincent Fegan, followed by the French translation OH LES BEAUX JOURS with the same cast for the following week.