Library to Host “Quiet Man” Play Readings

In honor of the 60th anniversary of the release of the beloved 1952 film, The Quiet Man, starring John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, Barry Fitzgerald, Victor McLaglen and Ward Bond, Lunch With Books at the Ohio County Public Library, in partnership with Oglebay Institute’s Towngate Theater, will present two readings of the pub-version of the play, The Quiet Man, adapted for the stage by Frank Mahon. Directed by the great John Ford, the film version was based on the same source material as the play, a short story by Irish writer Maurice Walsh first published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1933.

A screening of the original film will be offered at the library on Thursday evening, August 23, starting at 6 pm. Free popcorn and beverages will be served. The film premiered in Wheeling on Thanksgiving Day 1952 at the Victoria Theater.

The first performance of the pub-reading, a dress rehearsal, will be offered at Lunch With Books during its usual day and time on Tuesday, August 28 at noon. The second performance, a staged reading of the pub version, is scheduled for Thursday August 30 at 7 pm. A cast of seven actors from Towngate Theater will read the play. The evening performance will include music by Matt Smith and Erin Huffman of the local Irish band, Black Slaney plus free Irish style “pub grub.” Tickets for the evening performance are $10.00 and 100% of the proceeds will benefit Harmony House Children’s Advocacy Center.

As attendees will discover, the three versions of The Quiet Man (book, film and play) are very different, and the differences are intriguing. A discussion of the three versions will be offered at the library sometime after the second reading. A date and time will be announced this summer.

Playwright Frank Mahon began writing professionally for ABC TV’s Emmy Award winning series Equal Justice. He has also written for America’s Most Wanted. Maurice Walsh’s The Quiet Man, earned Mr. Mahon a nomination for a Jeff Award for Best New Adaptation (under the title The Quiet Man Tales). In 2011, he created and produced, along with Brigid Duffy, The Stone Hearth Reading Series for The Irish American Heritage Center. Mr. Mahon is currently working on a new play concerning the Irish War of Independence. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, Irish American Artists & Writers, and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.

When asked permission to do the readings at the Ohio County Public Library, Mr. Mahon said “What a great compliment to have a library want to do a reading of our play.” He also promised “to let the Walsh family know right away…” as he believed it would “mean a lot to them to hear that their grandfather ("Mossie") will be back in a library.”

The Quiet Man play has been well received by audiences and critics in Mahon’s hometown of Chicago and across the country, including at the John Wayne Museum in Iowa. Maureen O’Hara herself called it “A wonderful script…” featuring “strong and interesting” characters and a “tale well told…” that “brings us into the homes and lives of the Irish living in those difficult times.”

For more information about the readings or the screening of the films, or to purchase tickets to the August 30 fundraiser, please send an email to lunchwithbooks@yahoo.com or call the library at 304-232-0244 and ask for Sean.