Co-producer Sheri Dean notes,

“The Weir, seemingly such a simple show, is filled with so many nuances and folklore that it has been a learning experience for the entire company,”  noted co-producer Sheri Dean.

Directed by Tim Cronin, The Weir runs without intermission and refreshments will be served one half hour before curtain. Performances will be on Friday and Saturday, February 26 to March 13 at 8 pm, and Sundays, February 28 and March 7, at 2:30 pm, at The Powerhouse Theatre in Waveny Park.

Tickets are $18 for adults and $15 for students and seniors. Call 203-966-7371 for tickets. 

Currently Ireland’s leading playwright, Conor McPherson penned The Weir when he was only 26 and it won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play in 1997. Set in a smoky, peat warmed pub near Leitrim, Connaught in rural western Ireland, the play is about four men who have grown up together and are spending a night at the pub. In the midst of the drinking, laughing, joking and carrying on, there is a drama going on.

When a Dublin woman arrives, they fluff their feathers and tell stories, ghostly and otherwise, to probably the first person in decades whom they haven’t seen every day of their lives.  A floodgate (weir) of tales opens, theirs and hers, each tumbling closer to the heart of the human condition.

Returning to the Powerhouse, his first theater home in Connecticut, Newtown actor Will Jeffries will appear in the leading role of Jack, a character that strikes Jeffries as “someone who has lost everything.” A veteran actor with a string of professional credits from a previous life, Mr Jeffries has since 2004 acted and directed mainly with the Town Players of New Canaan, Ridgefield Theatre Barn, and Darien Players.

At Christmastime, he was part of a staged reading of another Conor McPherson play, The Seafarer, and he believes that the playwright’s language is disarmingly simple.

“McPherson gets to the core: what we have and what we have given up, what and who comes our way, and what and whom we have passed by,” said the actor, who added that working with director Tim Cronin “allows me to get into the deepest places in my life and it will take courage to go there.”

His fellow actors for the New Canaan production are Linda Moran Branch, Raymond Stephens, Tom Rushen, and Stephen DiRocco.

“The Weir is a play you will enjoy and think about after you leave the theater,” enthuses co-producer Zuhair Suidan.