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Email testimonials from the audience
I attended the performance last night at the Tower Theatre in Bend, Oregon.
This was a great play! I'm an English teacher at Redmond High School, and I
was able to bring my mom to the play last night. Having travelled to
Ireland and read McCourt's books, I was laughing, singing, clapping, and
smiling from ear-to-ear for the entire show.
- Mandy Felton
RHS English Instructor
An hilarious romp of a journey through the backstreets of Irelands culture,
with true-to-form edgy dialogue here and there, always lightened by the
souls of the dancers and the musicians who gave the audience one heckuva
ceilidh -- a great Irish party
- David Eddleston
"I thought it was an ingenious show, with the way they mixed music, dance,
and storytelling. A unique blend for a stage production.
- Mike Novak
The Onion
Decider - Madison
Grab a Guinness and settle in for a night of traditional Irish singing, dancing, and heel-clicking, all set to the words of high-profile authors Frank and Malachy McCourt. The McCourt brothers, portrayed here by actors Jonathan Judge Russo and Ryan Wesley, provide a background story that mines their colorful childhood and immigrant experiences, while Irish dancers take center stage with high-energy prancing and twirling. Part musical and part spoken-word performance, Echoes Of Ireland promises to be more Irish than lying in a field of four-leaf clovers and having the Blarney Stone fall out of the sky and land on your head.
Klamath Falls, Oregan - Limelighter
Laughter, music combine with ‘Echoes’
By LEE JUILLERAT
Comic tales by celebrated
Irish writers-brothers Frank and Malachy
McCourt are combined
with live music and dancing in a new musical, “Echoes of Ireland” at the Ross Ragland Theater.
The McCourts are celebrated
internationally for their writing. Malachy is the author of “A Monk Swimming” while Frank won a Pulitzer Prize for his autobiographical book, “Angela’s Ashes.”
In “Echoes,” the two seanachai, the word for Irish storyteller, focus on the joys of growing up in Ireland.
“It’s very, very light-hearted,” said Malachy McCourt, who added playfully, “I hope people aren’t looking for Samuel Beckett. It’s based on the legends of the Irish capacity
for song, for dance, for poetry, for the appreciation
of spoken words.”
“This is not ‘Angela’s Ashes,” emphasizes director
Howard Platt, referring
to Frank’s gritty, often sorrowful book. “These are the happy stories
of growing up. They had to tell stories and sing songs. This is a looking-
back on their lives from a humorous perspective.”
Platt, a longtime friend of Frank, said the play was rehearsed earlier this year in New York before being performed and revised in Canada. The nationwide tour opened in Iowa and was not conceived
as a musical. The Ragland performance will be the seventh on the tour that will keep the actors, dancers, musicians and crew on the road into July.
“That was the challenge
for me, to blend the elements together,” Platt said, stressing that unlike the popular “Riverdance,” “Echoes” features live music.
“This has incredibly energetic singing and dancing,” he said during a telephone interview. “I get worn out just watching
the performers.”
“Echoes” is set in an Irish bar during a dress rehearsal when the brothers
McCourt happen to stop by. In exchange for free pints, the rabble-rousing brothers tell their tales, which Platt said are brought to life in song and dance.
The McCourt brothers are played by Jonathan Judge-Russo and Ryan Wesley Gilreath. Serving
as the Ceili master of ceremonies is Michael O’Grady, while the music, singing and dancing are done by The Magic of Ireland.
“It should get a lot of laughs, hand-slapping and toe-tapping,” Platt said of “Echoes of Ireland.”
“It turned out to be a highly entertaining theater event.”
“It’s first of all great fun,” Malachy said. “That’s what we need these days.”
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