‘The Dead’ hits right note in new version

When things get too dramatic or heated and if people panic, I get calmer. That comes from working in theatre,” says Galway actress Clare Barrett who returns to her native city next week in a new musical production of James Joyce’s much-loved story, The Dead.

The theatre Clare is referring to here is a hospital one, not an artistic space. After leaving school, the Renmore woman trained as a nurse in Portiuncula Hospital before specialising in paediatric theatre nursing. And it was only once she had secured a career in a safe job, that Clare turned her attention to theatre in her mid-20s. She studied drama at the Dublin Institute of Technology, graduating with distinction in 2003.

Music and drama had always been a passion and like so many other Renmore people, Clare was involved with the Renmore Pantomime for many years. She singles out Paddy Daly – solicitor and oft-time choirmaster – for the grounding he gave her in singing and music with that organisation.

Clare’s acting talents combined with her musical ability mean that she’s always in demand and she’ll be working for the first six months of the year in musical theatre – all revivals, she says with a laugh.

The first of these is The Dead, from Dublin’s Performance Corporation and Breda Cashe Productions, which was first staged in late 2015 and is now on a national tour, thanks to an Arts Council Grant.

Composed by Ellen Cranitch with a libretto by Tom Swift, The Dead arose from a course that the pair did on opera-writing in 2014, explains Clare who was involved in its creative process from early on.

Her ability to switch characters with ease, which has led Irish Times theatre critic Peter Crawley to praise her ‘protean’ ability, made Clare an ideal collaborator for the budding project.

The completed opera had a cast of four when it was staged in 2015; Clare, Ruth McGill, Lisa Lambe and Rory Musgrave, who hails from Cleggan.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.