Thursday 5 November 2009

Seven Drunken Nights

I did a show once where the accent required was standard American, and yet one cast member arrived on day one with a broad Southern Belle accent which remained undimmed from the first rehearsal until the last performance. This was on the fringe, where you're sometimes quite lucky if people can speak at all, but you get the point. It was just awful.
So I'm throwing myself wholeheartedly into mastering the Galway brogue. Except there doesn't seem to be one. Every video on YouTube with a Galway tag seems to have a bloke in it saying "Sure, no such thing as a Galway accent is there, now" or a scene from Riverdance.

So I approach the Zen master of the Galway accent, Alan DeVally, who plays Ray (Pato's brother) and actually hails 20 miles from Leenane itself.

"All your vowel sounds are right there, they are..." he breathes, in a melting tone. I'm listening so hard to his accent I find it hard to hear the words, "...and I suppose Pato would be likely to have met a good number of Dubliners over in London on the sites".

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would you like a cup of tea? Ahhh Gowaaan...

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, yah will. Yah will, yah will, yah will...

Steve Dineen said...

I guess Craggy Island is closer to Leenane than Dublin...isn't it?