SET for a Broadway run in January at The Manhattan Theatre Club, after endless applause here in Ireland, Boom?’s all female cast is coming to a theatre near you this week – Lime Tree this Friday 17, 8pm.
Boom? is “a suburban farce” in the words of its creator, actress and playwright Isobel Mahon. She plays the lead role of Selma Mae – “and she’s one of the quieter characters.” The skits and giggles are set in South Dublin’s well-to-do belt, while Selma Mae, an architect’s wife, goes to throw a party to show off their fancy new house extension.
Ooops. The ructions begin, driven by her catalytically mobile mother Carmel/ Maria McDermottroe, “from Cork, and the silliest woman in Dublin.”
Arts page has more TV names to drop as Mahon, a writer for ‘Fair City’, secured the soap’s Claudia Carroll and Rose Henderson, as well as Karen Egan of The Nualas. Maria McDermottroe has lived in every Irish household through years of work in ‘Glenroe’ and ‘Killnascully’.
Critics and audiences love this show that funny as it is, raises big questions. Isobel Mahon looks back:
“It had its origins in the Noughties, around 2007/8, on the cusp of the crash. There was interest from The Gaiety and various other theatres in its boom and bust theme.”
A production did not materialise. Mahon admits humbly she was not ‘name’ enough to merit investment and “the bottom line is it got shelved, shoved into the bottom drawer. Bringing it to stage has been a real life journey.”
Now a peek into the plot of this comedy “which is, of course, a family drama but with a touch of existentialism”.
With her marriage on the rocks, “Selma Mae is in denial, fully convinced they are just taking a break.” The dynamic, all set in the one party, in the one night, concerns “people papering over the cracks…everyone loses something, everyone gains something. Everything including the extension comes apart and at the core of this, is what is solid in life? What is going to sustain you?”
Well, a laugh a minute works for the rest of us so take a seat at this hit gig on Friday 17 night.
Pictured, left, Claudia Carroll, Isobel Mahon, Rose Henderson and Karen Egan. Book for this lively shower of hysteria, laughter and denial on www.limetreetheatre.ie
