Play it again, Stan

There’s nothing quite like the tale of Half-Hanged MacNaghten to spark lively debate in Derry. The story has passed into folklore, is told again and again and is now the subject of a fascinating new production ‘The Wood of the Crows’ by local playwright Stan McGowan for the Playhouse later this year.

But don’t turn up expecting any easy answers, as the author explains: “With this play it is left up to the audience when they are walking out of the theatre to make up their own minds.

“Did MacNaghten intend to kill Mary Ann? Some will think he did, other won’t be so sure.

“It’s going to be up to people to make up their own minds and make their own decisions about it.”

This is actor turned playwright Stan’s third self-penned work after ‘Knock, the Hill of Mary’ and ‘The Tragedy of Dunkeer House’, both of which were very well received.

Open auditions for ‘The Wood of the Crows’ were held recently and the play has been fully cast. Rehearsals begin in a few weeks time and the production will open at the Playhouse in Derry in November.

The idea of writing a play about Half Hanged MacNaghten evolved earlier this year, which is the 250th anniversary of the story.

“I had been out to Prehen House a few times and I got to know Ken McCormack the local historian through writing ‘The Tragedy of DunkeerHouse’,” he explains.

“When it was pointed out that this was the 250th anniversary I suggested to Ken that he should write something, but he said that I was the man for the job instead.

“Initially we thought we would write a few sketches to be performed at Prehen House. But when I got down to it I felt that this had the essence of a full length play as there was so much drama in it.

“So I sat down to begin to write it and with the help of Pauline Ross at the Playhouse, we thought that we could perform it there.

“So that is where we are in the process of doing the play but we will also take a few scenes from the play and perform them at Prehen House around Christmas time with maybe a glass or two of mulled wine.”

The tale of Half-Hanged MacNaghten is one of Derry’s most enduring. He courted and professed to have married Mary Ann Knox of Prehen House against the will of her father. Andrew Knox. On the night of November 10 1761 MacNaghten ambushed the family coach near Strabane and fired the shots which fatally wounded Mary Ann.

For his crime he was sentenced to be hanged, but the first attempt at the execution was botched leading him to say that he would always be remembered as Half-Hanged MacNaghten.

“It’s a great story, full of drama,” says Stan.

“We have a cast of seven including Andrew Knox, Honoria his wife, the butler who is essential to the plot, John MacNaghten himself and there’s an aunt, Mary Ann’s great aunt. who also comes into the story.

“In doing the research for the play I discovered that John went to visit this aunt in order to plead his cause. He was always trying to get people within the family to accept the marriage.

“He was a charmer who thought he would try out his luck on her, so he went to visit her in Sligo. From what I have read, it was a very acrimonious meeting which went on for two hours as they fired insults at each other.

“Now that presented a bit of difficulty when it came to writing the play because for a production like this it is more or less confined to one set. Unless it is a big musical production like on the West End, you can’t afford to put up three or four different sets.

“I couldn’t change the set to take MacNaghten to Sligo, so I cheated instead and took her up to Derry - but it amounts to the same thing. It’s a little dramatic licence, but the key thing about it is that they met and had that discussion.

“When I sit down to write a play I like to make sure I have the background facts correct. Who was the Protestant Bishop of Derry at the time? Which boat sailed for America that year?

“The characters and their inter-relationship with each other, of course, you can bend that accordingly so that they feed off one another. But having read the background, I tried to stay true to the characters and take into account the bias that there must have been at the time. I tried to stick to the authenticity of the people and the place.”

Stan began his own acting career in the early 1970s, heading to drama school in London. That led to work in repertory theatre as roles in several West End shows like ‘The King and I’ and ‘The Canterbury Tales’.

Television work followed with roles in ‘Doctor Who’, ‘The Goodies’, ‘Til Death Us Do Part’, ‘The Life of Shakespeare’, ‘Eureka Street’ with BBC Northern Ireland and the acclaimed ‘I Claudius’.

“I only had a small part in ‘I Claudius’, but the good thing about that was that I was working with John Hurt and Derek Jacobi,” he recalls. “Even over a short period of rehearsal time I got to watch them and how they worked. My lines were with them and that was very interesting and instructive.”

The part in ‘The Life of Shakepeare’ presented Stan with just one problem - horse riding.

“I’d never been on a horse in my life,” he says. “But when they asked me, of course, you lie through your teeth, and that was it - I got the part.

“So off we went straight away to start taking lessons. We started off in Hyde Park learning to trot and then went to a place in Essex and learned how to canter and then how to gallop., so there we were after a few weeks galloping away.

“When it came to filming there was one actor who came to the set and he had been the only one of us who had known how to ride beforehand. So there we were all dressed up in our Shakespearean costumes and we had to ride down and through this archway into a mucky village.

“He went first and immediately fell off his horse and was covered in head to toe in the muck while the rest of us who had only just learned stayed on.”

After deciding to become an actor, Stan says he had no option but to head to London - and it’s pretty much the same for aspiring performers today.

“I think by now there should be a drama school in Derry so young people don’t have to leave home,” he says.

“We need something which has an agency attached to it which could look out for people who want to make acting their profession and held them to find work.

“When I was younger there was no choice but to go to London because there was nothing here. That shouldn’t be the case today, but sadly, it still appears to be.

“I’m talking about people who are serious about making acting their profession, who want to make it their career. I’d love to see that happen here.”

These days Stan lives on Inch Island in Donegal, quite a change from the hectic pace of London life.

“When I came back about 15 years ago I found it very difficult to adapt,” he says.

“You don’t realise when you are away how you get acclimatised to a certain culture and I was quite young when I went away. You get into a way of working with the people you are with and I liked London very much.

“When I came back here I noticed how much slower things were - and that people actually spoke to you which was very foreign until I got used to it.

“In London you don’t have time to say your prayers, so to speak; you are rushing around all the time. Here I live in my house on Inch with no other houses around me. It’s quite a culture shock from being on the Kings Road.”

Stan’s first foray into local drama after returning home came when he agreed to direct a play ‘My Home the Farm’ by Buncrana man John Craig.

His thoughts then turned to writing a play of his own, although for a while he struggled to come up with a suitable subject.

“I happened to be going to Knock when I saw some testimonies on the wall at the museum there and that got me thinking what it must have been like for the people there at the time of the visions.

“It stayed in my mind so I began to research the story and decided to write it as a play which I am very pleased to say was very well received here in Derry and in Donegal.

“The Dunkeer House play came about by accident as well.

“I was in a cafe in Derry one night with a few minutes to kill and came across a newspaper with the headline ‘Nurse of Horror House dies at 91’.

“It was about this nurse who had died in Wales who had spent some time at DunkeerHouse in Carrigans during the time of the awful tragedy.

“I couldn’t get it out of my mind for weeks, phoned Ken and got more information and that’s how that started.”

As well as play-writing Stan works with the Columba Community in Derry at the Whiteoaks rehabilitation centre.

“I do drama there once a week,” he explains.

“It’s a form of therapy to bring them out of themselves a little and give them confidence. When someone goes to a place like that and is confronted with strangers it takes a while to settle down and get to know people and this helps to form relationships.

“Its very pleasing to be able to contribute something like that.”

Right now it is full steam ahead for ‘The Wood of the Crows’ which is set to open at the Playhouse on November 15 to conicide with the 250th anniversary of the tragedy.

“I’d like to thank Pauline Ross and everyone at the Playhouse for their support for the play,” Stan says. “It’s a wonderful opportunity and a production we are all looking forward to.”