West Clare Drama Festival Doonbeg 2025

Synopsis

Woman and Scarecrow centres on a dying woman reflecting on her life as she confronts her imminent death. Lying in bed, she is joined by Scarecrow, a mysterious, spectral figure that embodies her unfulfilled dreams and the life she could have lived. Together, they delve into Woman's regrets, failed relationships, and her dissatisfaction with her loveless marriage.

The play intertwines reality with surreal elements as Woman's pain and fear of death are contrasted with her inner dialogues. The presence of real-world characters like her husband and Auntie Ah grounds the story, while Scarecrow pushes her to face her past and unresolved emotions. Carr’s play blends stark realism with haunting surreality, creating a powerful meditation on life, death, and the choices that define us.

Synopsis

Sharky Harkin has hit rock bottom and this play is about his struggle to overcome all odds, including the Devil himself, to do right by his friends and family.

Synopsis

The play takes place in the Mundy household in Co Donegal in the year 1936. It is at harvest time, and over the course of a few weeks, their lives are changed forever due to the breakdown of relationships and scrutiny from the outside world. A story of Love and Loss.

Synopsis

The Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag, her manipulative ageing mother. Mag's interference in her daughter's first and possibly final chance of a loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that lead inexorably towards the play's inevitable dénouement.

Synopsis

On a windy dark March evening, in a small rural Irish bar, the normal routine of three local men is shaken up when an old-time friend, Finbar, enters the bar and introduces Valerie, an attractive woman from Dublin who has just moved into a nearby old house. As the night (and the amount of liquor) progresses, each local starts to tell a tale of ghostly happenings. What starts as innocent braggadocio between the men turns into stark reality when Valerie reveals a real, haunted tale of her own. Examining missed opportunity, loneliness, loss and the human need to be accepted and understood, The Weir is a haunting play with its roots in Irish folklore.

Synopsis

In this music-hall style farce, three men, Badger, Jereen and Windy, discuss how easy it would be to rob the local bank and they come up with the perfect plan. When they wake up to the news that the local bank has been robbed using their plan, they begin to suspect each other.

Synopsis

The play is set in the late 1980s.  It is the story of one Sharon Rabbitte, a 20-year-old living with her parents who becomes pregnant after encountering a man she’d rather forget.  She refuses to tell anyone who the father is.  She decides to keep the child and slowly tells her family & friends.  She quickly becomes the talk of the town and there is much discussion on who the father’s identity could be.  That is until one unlikely candidate starts to come to the fore. 

Synopsis

Heather and Carla haven't seen each other since school. Their lives have taken very different paths – Carla lives a hand-to-mouth existence while Heather has a high-flying career, husband and a beautiful home. And yet, here they are in a café having tea and making awkward conversation. That is until Heather presents Carla with an unexpected proposition...

This play is unsuitable for children.

Synopsis

World renowned tenor Tito Merelli has signed on to play Othello at a Cleveland opera company in the fall of 1934.  He arrives late and, through a set of crazy circumstances, passes out after mixing wine with a huge dose of tranquilizers.  Believing that the divo is dead, the excitable opera manager taps his hapless assistant, an aspiring singer names Max, to suit up as the Moor and replace Merelli.  Meanwhile, the tenor’s jealous wife, his ambitious female co-star, Max’s young girlfriend and the flirtatious head of the opera guild are on the scene fighting – sometimes literally – for the star’s attention.