DMC. After the death of Fr. O’Flynn, as we know, the loft continued on….
PG. Well it did too because, at that time we still had the original founders like Gus Healy and Eileen Curran and, and others: Tom Vesey, Teddy Healy, Norry O’Brian, Norry,…..Norry Healy, sorry as and. Quite a number of others that, that,…..Jonny Gallaher, she was another woman that, who came into that as well and, and they, they were there with us as well. So they brought us along another step of the way, and Gus Healy was absolutely wonderful that he was able to bridge that gap because he knew Fr. O’Flynn from the time that the loft was founded in 1924, right up until he died and then came in and then took over the role of, of chairman. And was chairman up till the time he died in 1986. So we were lucky, and of course, Eileen Curran was Fr. O’Flynn's disciple and she had his interpretation. She knew the plays backwards. She could quote from any of the plays without ever looking at a book, you know. And we were lucky. And then, like, we were maturing ourselves. Pierce, of course, my brother, was that much ahead of me and he, he was well into it as well. And you had Pat Lehane and other stalwarts of that particular time. Now I would have to say then a lot of the others had drifted away, like the Michael Twomey’s and Marie Twomey’s weren’t as and…. those that were around at the time when I mentioned like the: Kevin Sheehan’s, the Michael Mcauliffe and all of these. They, Monn Murphy’s, they had moved on a bit. Now one or two of them, like Monn, came back and did a few parts with us at later stages, you know. I know Monn did a reprise of Hamlet in, I think the mid, the mid 60's, 1964. She came back and reprised her role as ‘Ophelia’, you know. And Tom Vesey, of course, a very old great old stalwart of the original cast. He, he was there up until he died I think 1966. So they, we were lucky, you know. But then we had matured enough to more or less bring it on ourselves and Pierce immersed himself, my brother that is, immersed himself in the work of Fr. O’Flynn and Eileen Curran. When Eileen Curran passed on in 1977. And we also had a, a, a, an outsider who's contributed hugely to the loft of the period and he was a man by the name of John Morley. And he came into the loft in the early 70's and he, he, he was quite an outstanding character. He was English, old English, retired actor living in Cork for a period and he, he was, he was a great man of theatre, you know. And he taught us a lot of things apart from…. the plays and producing and all that, you know. He taught us a lot about creating properties and you know, and settings and all that as well. And he was an extremely talented man and wonderful guy and he understood Fr. O’Flynn and where Fr. O’Flynn was coming, from the word go. He had in fact in Dublin been a friend of Fr. O’Flynn’s nephew, John O’Flynn. And when he came to Cork he, he, he, he was involved briefly I think with The Everyman Theatre. But then he came along to us. And he, he was with us for many happy years really up until….. 1977. He was producing at the time that Eileen died rather suddenly on us in the middle of the last few rehearsals for, for The Winter’s Tale in 1977. And she was; Susan Cummins was a very good girl at the time who, who filled in, in between, between the Saturday and the following Wednesday she, she filled in for him …and she took over the role that was vacated by Eileen Curran, which was quite a substantial role actually in that play. And she, she was to give a very credible performance but John Morley, he directed that. And I learnt a great deal from him because I played ‘Leontes’, the king, in that I had a major role for the first half of, of the play and he was great. But he eventually; he was a member of the high religion and he was asked to go over to Bermuda with his wife, Valery, who was a lovely lady as well. That was about the end of the period where we had come out of The Opera House. We went back into the opera house in the 70s and then did quite a number of plays in The Opera House. But eventually, the burden of, of, of mounting pro plays in the opera house became a bit heavy for us all because we were all young and married and working and that sort of thing. So we tended to go back into The Theatre of the South, a little theatre in Castle Street and then after that then, when they built the The Cork Arts Club then in Knapp’s square we gravitated to there. We kinda, generally speaking, do most of our plays there now at the, at the moment anyway, but. So, that was, we were helped an awful lot to be able to do that, you know. Now, and I'm glad to say that there’s a new generation coming on after us headed up by Ciaran O’Leary and others, and Ray Brothers and Mike O’Neill and hopefully they'll carry the organisation on further into, into the next number of years.
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RC: Have you ever come across any theatre superstitions in your time?
JH: Oh yes plenty you know theatre is full of superstitions. I suppose you know most people involved in theatre for any length of time would be aware of them and it’s not that they are particularly Irish in nature or in Cork for that matter I think they are just in theatre generally. So there are the usual ones, you never whistle you know it’s bad luck that’s what we’re trying to avoid. We are trying to avoid the bad luck but you never whistle in a dressing room and if you do you have to go outside the door, turn around 3 times and then come back in. And I’ve had to do that (laughs) many times because you just forget you know especially if you're involved in musical and you might start whistling one of the tunes and everybody would go “Outside the door!” and turn around. So there’s that one the obvious one you’d never wish anybody good luck you always say “Break a leg”. I don’t know where that came from, I’m sure somebody knows but one of those things you just never do you know? You just say “break a leg”. The other ones that I’ve come across over the years would be that you never say the name of the “Scottish play” as it’s called, Shakespeare’s Scottish play.
RC: Mmm.
JH: No, no I won’t say it but it’s..I know why you don’t say that because I did read up on it and it’s simply that in those times when Shakespeare’s plays were you know being toured around in theatres that when they weren’t doing very well they needed a hit. They would always roll out the Scottish play because it was a guaranteed hit because people loved it and it was full of gore and witches and everything else. So they would always roll that out so it’s not that the play its self is unlucky it’s just that if you're doing it, it’s a sign that the theatre group or company isn’t doing very well so that’s why it has this tag of being an unlucky play.
RC: But you still won’t say it.
JH: Still won’t say it because I’m in a theatre at the moment and I’m not going to say it here but no you’d avoid saying that. What else is there? Trying to think now there’s a lot more. Oh, you never give…you give flowers to the leading lady but you never give them before the show, before the show opens because again it’s bad luck because if you like the leading lady hasn’t earned them at that stage. You would give them immediately after the show but never before because it’s bad luck. So there’s, there’s lots of things like that, that you just don’t do you know? And it’s not that I’d be in any other aspect of my life that superstitious but when it comes to theatre I just adhere to the traditions you know? And these are the traditions, so it’s part of what you do and I suppose it’s out of respect as well for the theatre traditions that are there and to continue them you know?
RC: You would view it more as a tradition than a superstition maybe?
JH: Well I suppose it’s mixed because again even though as I said for me it’s the traditional side of theatre. I still will you know if necessary go out and turn around 3 times and come back in.
RC: Even if no one tells you too?
JH: Even if no one tells me too you know I still will because theatre is you know that sort of profession where fear goes along with it and fear is an interregnal part of it. You know the fear of will I remember my lines, will I make a fool of myself or will it go, will it be accepted? So and that fear is necessary to have an acceptable performance, you need some level of nerves. So it’s an interregnal part of it and people involved in theatre just live with fear and thankfully it only relates to when we’re in the theatre but the fear is there and the traditions the superstitions if you like that raise their heads every so often are part of that. That if we don’t it this way then it won’t be as good as it could. The last show I was involved in it was funny to see backstage the people all had their little rituals you know and again it’s part of the rehearsal thing that we do. Everything is repetition, everything is getting it right down to the last detail and people had their little rituals where they’d have everything in its place in the dressing room and you know God forbid if you moved it you know that’s the place for it and that’s where it is. Then you’d have people walking up and down backstage pacing because that’s what they do just getting into the role. There are little things that you know are technical things that we need to do as actors before performance and part of that is trying to loosen up the face, the muscles in around the mouth so there are little exercises that we can do which sort of stretch the mouth into you know very contorted shapes at times and I remember one instant where there was an actor in the wings doing these contorted faces and the exercises and someone thought they were actually having a heart attack because it was so strange looking but these are the things unless your involved with theatre you do think they are very strange but anyone involved in theatre thinks it’s quite normal you know so it does have it’s own quirks but yea I mean even though we accept that the fear will always be there and should be always there we're still quite happy to do you know because it is it’s very fulfilling at the end of the day.