Home Page > Entertainment > Theater > 'The 39 Steps,' an irresistible comedy caper on Broadway

Blogs

News

Sport

Entertainment

Advice
- Green Card

Roots

Make a comment

Larger Text

E-mail

'The 39 Steps,' an irresistible comedy caper on Broadway

Dubliner Sean Mahon is back in Broadway starring in "The 39 Steps." It's another major coup for an Irish actor who started at the top on his first attempt. He talks to IrishCentral about his American adventures and the roles that have made him a star

CAHIR O'DOHERTY

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Monday, March 23, 2009, 12:55 PM

Updated Thursday, July 23, 2009, 5:23 PM

Read more: Mahon, Dublin, United States, Conor McPherson

Francesca Faridany as Annabella Schmidt and Sean Mahon as Richard Hannay in "The 39 Steps"

Photo by Joan Marcus

For Irish actor Sean Mahon, a Broadway dream has become a reality — twice.

When the Dublin-born actor first moved to New York in 2007 he instantly won a role in Irish playwright Conor McPherson’s “The Seafarer.”

Now Mahon’s back on Broadway playing to packed houses in “The 39 Steps,” an irresistible comedy caper based on the 1939 Alfred Hitchcock film.

Back in 2007, when Mahon auditioned with a long line of other hopefuls for a part in the McPherson play, he thought it would be a long shot. He was astounded when the playwright cast him right away.

He was soon sharing the stage with seasoned Irish veterans like Jim Norton and Ciaran Hinds, and his own subtle performance was one of the hits of the 2007 season, striking a chord with audiences and critics alike.

Acting on Broadway does wonders for your confidence, Mahon discovered, and he soon saw his star ascending when he was later cast in “The 39 Steps.” He was on a roll.

But it wasn’t just his boyish good looks (Mahon has starred on soaps like “As The World Turns” and the drama "ER") or his acting skills that won him the part in “The 39 Steps.” It was also his physical fitness. Mahon has moonlighted in the past as a personal trainer, and his natural athleticism really comes to the fore in this new show.

Their countless scene changes and knockabout antics of “The 39 Steps” mean the actors must do all the heavy lifting. Plus Mahon is on stage from the first scene to the last.

Marathon stamina is required for the starring role of Richard Hannay, the stiff upper lip era Brit on a desperate mission to clear his name for a murder he did not commit.

Seeing your name in lights on Broadway is certainly a thrill, as is playing to packed houses and taking curtain calls and standing ovations, so it’s hard to believe that Mahon got his start in amateur dramas back in Dublin. He had always loved performing, but there didn’t seem to be a future in it.

“What do you do if you grow up dreaming of being an actor in Ireland in the recession hit eighties?” Mahon said during a recent interview. “You go to marketing school, that’s what."

“It was the only option open to me. I’d acted as a kid and I’d always wanted to pursue it. But in Dublin in the eighties there was nowhere to go. There was no Gaiety school of acting or anything like that. It just wasn’t an option. My mum thought I should get a job at the bank and get serious about life.”

Mahon grew up in Dublin and went to school in Rathfarnham at the Christian Brothers-run Colaiste Eanna. Later he studied at Dublin’s College of Marketing, where he got his business degree.

“I got a job in the lending department of the Industrial Credit Corporation. After a few years of that I thought, God this isn’t for me,” he says.

Then America beckoned.

“I was lucky enough to get the Donnelly visa in 1988. A friend told me about a job with An Bord Bainne. For the hell I just applied. It was a job marketing Kerrygold cheeses to America. I ended up getting it. I was the marketing director in their head office in Chicago.”

Being the face of Kerrygold was a more interesting gig than it sounds.

“I traveled around the country, I got to know America in a great way. I would drive to all these distribution outlets in all the major cities, in Florida, California and so on. It was a great way to discover America, but eventually I got wanderlust and set off on my own.”

1 2 Next page >

Vote now - Buzz this story up!

RELATED ARTICLES
RELATED TOPICS

E-mail

Be the first to make a comment.

Join us - follow IrishCentral.com

Fan us

Google Buzz

Join us - follow IrishCentral.com

Facebook

Buzz

Twitter

A sea change in the history of the Irish theatre came with the establishment in Dublin in 1899 of the Irish Literary Theatre, later to become the Abbey Theatre. The history of this theatre is well documented, and its importance can be seen from the list of writers whose plays were first performed here in the early days of the 20th century. These included W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, John Millington Synge, George Moore, and Sean O'Casey. The Abbey was to create a style that held a strong fascination for future dramatists of Irish plays. Indeed, it could almost be said that the Abbey created the basic elements of a national style for Irish plays. This period also saw a rise in the writing of plays in Irish, especially after the formation, in 1928, of An Taidhbhearc, a theatre dedicated to the Irish language. The Gate Theatre, also founded in 1928, introduced Irish theatre audiences to many of the classics of the European stage. The twentieth century saw a number of Irish playwrights come to prominence. Samuel Beckett is probably the most significant of these. Beckett had a long career as a novelist and poet before his first play, Waiting for Godot (1953) made him famous. This play, along with his second, Endgame, is one of the great works of absurdist theatre. Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969. The Lyric Theatre, founded in 1944 by Austin Clarke was based in the Abbey until 1951 and produced many of Clarke's own verse plays. From the mid 1950s, the Unitarian Church at St Stephen's Green, Dublin was home to Amharclann an Damer/The Damer Theatre. The Damer produced both professional and amateur Irish plays. The world premier of Brendan Behan's An Giall (The Hostage) took place here in 1958. Behan went on to be an extremely popular dramatist, particularly through his work with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Royal in Stratford, East London. But in general, the Abbey was the dominant influence in Irish theatre across the 20th century. Beckett's example has been almost entirely ignored in Irish theatre, although his plays are regularly performed on the Irish stage. Behan, in his use of song and direct address to the audience, was influenced by Bertolt Brecht and Denis Johnston, and used modernist techniques including found texts and collage, but their works had little impact on later Irish plays. In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of Irish theatre companies emerged to challenge the Abbey's dominance and introduce different styles and approaches with regard to Irish plays. These included Focus Theatre, The Children's T Company, the Project Theatre Company, Red Kettle, Druid Theatre, TEAM and Field Day. These companies nurtured a number of writers, actors, and directors who went on to be successful in London, Broadway and Hollywood or in other literary fields. These include Joe O Byrne, Peter Sheridan, Brian Friel, Stephen Rea, Garry Hynes, Martin McDonagh, Conor McPherson, Marina Carr, Jimmy Murphy, Billy Roche and Gabriel Byrne. In the 1990s and 2000s a new wave of Irish theatre companies arrived. These include: Bedrock, Blue Raincoat, B*spoke, The Corn Exchange, Corcadorca, Fishamble, Pan Pan, Playgroup, Raw, Rough Magic, and Tardy Lasso.

Blogs

'The 39 Steps,' an irresistible comedy caper on Broadway

Dubliner Sean Mahon is back in Broadway starring in "The 39 Steps." It's another major coup for an Irish actor who started at the top on his first attempt. He talks to IrishCentral about his American adventures and the roles that have made him a star

Be the first to make a comment.

Related Items

Join us - follow IrishCentral.com

Join us - follow IrishCentral.com

news

sport

entertainment

gossip

business

travel

advice

opinion

multimedia

roots

food & drink

blogs