Support Binlids bid for the USA
By Laura Friel
Capacity audiences and rave reviews, not only a sell-out (never
say sell-out in West Belfast) but also a knock-out, Binlids, a
community drama production by JustUs and Dubblejoint, took last
summer's Féile an Phobail by storm. ``The most accomplished piece
of community theatre yet seen in Belfast,'' said BBC Radio
journalist Joe Woods.
When a group of West Belfast women, `ordinary' by conventional
standards, extraordinary in their collective experiences of
resistance and struggle, decided to form their own drama group,
write, produce and perform their own plays, it was a leap of
faith. ``We started just as a group of people who felt we had
something to say,'' says Chrissy.
Written and performed to mark International Women's Day, Just a
Prisoner's Wife, won the Belfast City Arts Award. The group
didn't look back but threw themselves into the even more
ambitious Binlids project accessing skills from a professional
theatre company Dubblejoint.
Binlids takes us on a whistle-stop tour of one community's
experience of twenty five years of repression and resistance. ``We
went to Donegal with rolls of wallpaper and wrote down everything
that had happened to us,'' says Chrissy. Throwing conventional
settings aside, the staging, designed by Robert Ballagh, was
acclaimed for its distinctive use of five set stages and an
inspirational utilisation of audience interaction.
When a BBC critic described Binlids as ``accomplished'' and
``adventurous'', he could have been talking about the play's
performers. Less than four months after the production's
resounding success, JustUs have set themselves yet another
exacting task. ``We want to take Binlids to New York,'' says Niamh,
``we've no funding so we're raising the money ourselves.'' The
group estimates it will cost at least $300,000. Tenacity has
never been in short supply in West Belfast.
Chrissy MacSiacais and Niamh Flanaghan are both members of
JustUs. Chrissy combines a full time job with raising a family of
four. She describes her 12-week-old daughter Fionnuala as ``the
youngest member of the cast''. A community worker, Niamh, from a
family of twelve, moved from Fermanagh to Belfast after
graduating from Queens University. ``JustUs started as a group of
women,'' says Niamh, ``now there's sixteen of us, including six
kids between the ages of 11 and 16. The kids are just brilliant;
the youngest only had one line to say but he turned up for every
rehearsal.''
As working class nationalists in the Six Counties, the group felt
marginalised by the `mainstream' women's movement with its
British and American roots. ``We thought it was important to
celebrate International Women's Day,'' says Chrissy, ``but to do so
in our own way, reflecting our own experiences and the experience
of our community.'' Just a Prisoner's Wife addressed that gap,
Binlids was the obvious next step. ``We wanted to create a window
into West Belfast,'' says Niamh.
By popular demand, Binlids returns to the stage in the new year,
running in West Belfast from 16 to 28 February at Whiterock's
Community College (Belfast Institute of Further and Higher
Education). ``We can't take Binlids on tour in the Six Counties
because of the elaborate set,'' says Niamh, ``so we're hoping
people outside Belfast will travel to the city to see it.'' The
people of Garvaghy Road have already block booked for one
performance, hiring coaches for the journey from Portadown to
Belfast. ``We're hoping other communities will organise block
bookings too,'' says Chrissy. ``Without statutory funding, we're
totally dependent upon box office sales.'' The group's New York
project depends largely on the success of the play's re-run in
Belfast. ``Buy a ticket for a Christmas present,'' says Chrissy,
``and support JustUs.''
•BINLIDS February 16-28 at Belfast Institute of Further and
Higher Education, Whiterock Road, price £5
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