Matchbox to light up Galway Arts Festival

Cathy Belton and Joan Sheehy have that easy familiarity with each other that comes from long years of friendship and respect.

On a break from rehearsals of The Match Box, which is running at Galway International Arts Festival, the actor and director discuss the play animatedly, finishing each other’s sentences and sharing each other’s enthusiasms.

Cathy is playing Sal in Frank McGuinness’ one-woman play, which is being directed by Joan, herself an actor of considerable talent.

Frank McGuinness draws heavily on his love of Greek tragedies for this piece about Sal, the English-born adult child of Irish parents who has come to live on Valentia Island following a series of tragic and shocking events in her life.

“You start out thinking you have a handle on this story of a grieving mother,” says Cathy, one of Ireland’s leading actors, whose film work includes Philomena and most recently, A Little Chaos opposite Kate Winslet.

From Galway City, Cathy is a graduate of English and Drama Trinity College, a regular on the stage of the Abbey Theatre and has most recently appeared on television in TV3’s series Red Rock.

The Match Box is Cathy’s first time appearing in an Arts Festival play, although she always comes home for the Festival when work allows. “It’s like Christmas; it’s when most people are back,” she says over tea in the Student Union bar at NUIG, where rehearsals are taking place.

She and Joan first forged a friendship 20 years ago when they acted together in Mairead Ní Ghrada’s An Triail with Amharchlann de hÍde. More recently, Joan directed Cathy in a stage version of Kate O’Brien’s 1934 novel, The Anteroom, adapted by Mary Coll.

“When you know somebody so well, there is a shorthand and you can cover a lot of space much faster,” says Cathy of their relationship as we wait for Joan to arrive. “You aren’t worried about pussyfooting around somebody, so you can cut to the chase.”

Five minutes later, when Joan joins us, she makes the same comment independently. It’s obvious the two enjoy working together – which is a good thing, given the scale of this project and the emotional journey it involves.

Sal was a “carefree wan, who happened to have a child quite young and was supported by two great parents”, says Cathy. But then things went wrong.

“It’s about how one event can turn your life upside down and how you deal with it,” the actress explains.

“How something happens by accident and nobody apologises for it and how, if you do apologise, it can stop the resentment and poison building up,” adds Joan.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.