By Amanda Estes

Staff Writer

As co-founders of the premier classic and contemporary Irish theater
company in New England, Tony and Susan Reilly of South Portland, are
pulling back the curtain on a dark aspect of Irish society people have
only recently begun to talk about.  

“We’re ready as a company – to start pushing some boundaries,” says
Susan Reilly, a professional marketing writer by trade and managing
director of the American Irish Repertory Ensemble (AIRE). Tony Reilly,
her husband, is the theater company’s artistic director.

Approaching its fourth year of existence, AIRE is performing on a new
stage, the St. Lawrence Arts Center in Portland – a “big step up,”
Susan Reilly says. Previously, the company performed in a smaller venue
at the Portland Performing Arts Center.

 “I think our next big dream is finding a home,” Susan Reilly says.

Her husband adds, “I think our dream is to find a place in South Portland.”

Currently, AIRE’s box office is run out of their home.  

“I think we’ve shown with Lyric [Music Theater] and [The Stage at] Spring Point, we can support theater here,” he says.

In addition to finding a permanent home, Reilly says their goals for
AIRE include producing on a regular basis or performing at least two
shows a year.

Far from being a niche theater, the Reillys say they choose works with
heart that appeal to any audience and not just Maine’s Irish
population.

The couple, however, has long been immersed in Irish culture. Susan
Reilly says her Irish heritage comes from her mother’s side and – being
quite proud of that ancestry – says she used to hang Irish flags in her
college dorm. Tony Reilly says both of his parents are from the “old
country” and recalled spending the summer in Ireland from the time he
was a boy until he was a teenager.

Sitting next to a fire in their living room, as Monday’s storm made the
sky thick with snow, Susan Reilly says they first came to Maine in
1997. They stayed in the state for about a year, becoming associated
with the Irish American Club of Maine and performing a piece they wrote
entitled, “Women of Ireland.”

The Reillys returned to their native New York  – Susan is from
upstate and Tony grew up in the city –  but say they were
impressed with Portland’s theater offerings.

They returned to Maine in 2003 and a year later put on their first AIRE
production, “The Tinker’s Wedding and Other Tales,” a series of one act
plays. Enough people came to the performance to convince them to
continue.

In 2006, AIRE received the New England Theatre Conference’s Moss Hart
Memorial Award for the best production in the professional division for
“A Christmas in Kerry,” a series of Christmas stories written by John
Keane.

A Julliard-trained actor who helped form a Shakespeare theater company
in New York City, Tony Reilly also acts in AIRE’s performances. In
their latest production, however, Reilly will remain behind the scenes,
directing a largely female cast.

“I wouldn’t look good in a nun’s outfit,” he says.

Currently playing Thursday through Sunday until Jan. 27, “Eclipsed,”
reveals the stories of the Magdalene Laundries. Under the supervision
of the Catholic Church, the laundries evolved from a refuge for
prostitutes to a place where unwed mothers and promiscuous girls were
forced to work as servants in harsh conditions under the supervision of
Catholic nuns, according to AIRE’s Web site. Laundries also existed in
England and Scotland, but the last laundry in Ireland did not close
until 1996.

The playwright, Patricia Burke Brogan, was a nun in a Galway laundry in
the 1960s and through, “Eclipsed,” tells the story of a young novice’s
crisis of faith.

“The whole topic is pretty stunning,” says Tony Reilly. “The stories only came out [during] the last 15 years.”

Like any artistic director, Reilly has put his own touch on the play through his direction to the core female actresses.

“The thing that I strive to do in this play [is] create an ensemble with the women,” he says.

He is impressed, he says, of the way the women have bonded and created a small  world on the stage.    

Because there are so many women’s roles in the play, Reilly says they
had to reach out to actors outside of their familiar cast and they
relished the chance to bring in new faces.

Susan Reilly, who plays one of the nuns supervising the laundry, says
it’s easy to focus on the abuse the penitents suffered while in the
laundries, but she says the deeper story is about the novice’s
questioning of her faith and her courage to challenge the powerful rule
of the church, represented by the older Mother Superior.

“What do you do in that situation?” she says of the novice’s struggle. “Do you speak up?”

Reilly says “Eclipsed” represents darker, more controversial material
than previous AIRE productions, but she says people want to be moved
when they go to the theatre. Irish theater, in the Reillys’ opinion, is
particularly beautiful.

“It’s the language,” says Tony Reilly. “There’s a poetry to the
language, a musicality to the language. [The Irish] just have the gift
of gab. They love to talk and it comes out in their theater.”

Irish theater is often bittersweet, Susan Reilly says, and
representative of the coping spirit of the Irish. The struggle to
survive is leavened with humor, something she estimates Mainers can
relate to as we deal with our sometimes unforgiving climate.

Tony Reilly agrees Maine and Ireland aren’t so different.

“We just said, ‘Oh my God, it looks like the west of Ireland,” he recalls. “It looks like Galway.”

For more information about the American Irish Repertory Ensemble, visit
www.airetheater.com. “Eclipsed” performances run Thursday through
Sunday at the St. Lawrence Arts Center in Portland until Jan. 27.
Performances start at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays, 8 p.m. on Fridays and
Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets are $17 general admission and
$13 for students, seniors and Thursday shows. For reservations call
799-5327.