Life of Lady Mabel Annesley to be re-enacted in Castlewellan Castle

28 October 2015

THE last time local audiences saw Maria Connolly she was weeping, purring and strutting round the Down Arts stage in Two Sore Legs as Belfast woman Bridget — outcast after having six children by a married man.

Used to feisty parts, the Belfast actress is a familiar face on stage and screen, with the BBC’s Line of Duty among her many credits. Her new role as Castlewellan Castle’s Lady Mabel Annesley may seem like a departure, but Maria is unfazed by her leap into the aristocracy and is relishing her flesh and blood portrayal of this fascinating woman.

Maria, in full costume, is wandering the corridors of Mabel’s 19th century home in an innovative new co-production between Kabosh Theatre Company and Down Arts Centre which opens this week. Entitled simply ‘Mabel’, the audience is led through the grounds and castle in a theatrical promenade-style performance.

This mix of drama, music, fact and fiction traces Mabel’s travels across the world as well as bringing to life the home she loved so dearly and the art she helped create inspired by the beauty of the Mournes.

Professionally, Mabel was a very successful watercolour artist and woodcutter, inspired by the family pets and animals around the estate as well as the County Down landscape. Her work is in many collections including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Gallery of Canada.

But the performance of Mabel will also provide an insight into her personality, with a taste of her eccentric and colourful friends and family and a charting of the many losses she suffered in her personal life.

Maria explained that she was having a family caravan holiday in Castlewellan Forest Park three years ago when she came across the Ulster History plaque that marked the home of Lady Mabel.

“I love the Mournes and always have done,” she said. “We went walking in the gardens and I saw the blue plaque and I thought ‘I wonder who she is?’ Me and my sons were wandering around all pretending to be her.

“The place was just so beautiful, I could not believe it. I thought this would be a fantastic place for a play. I kept wondering who Mabel was. When I was back home I went to Belfast Central Library and read her unfinished autobiography and wondered if I could make a play from it.

“I suppose I just fell in love with Mabel Annesley. Her love of art, Northern Ireland and the Mournes was just so moving to me and the way she articulated it.”

Raising two sons while working in the unpredictable and demanding world of acting doesn’t leave much time for anything else, so Mabel was very much a labour of love for the 42 year-old.

“It took a long time to put together,” she said. “My family has been brilliant. When I am acting or writing I am absolutely passionate about it. I do not have all the time in the world so it has to be something I am passionate about.

“It felt right for me to do it, I really connected with her. I connected with her as an artist. Mabel Annesley went through an awful lot in her life; her mother died when she was young, then her brother and her father and her husband. It was art really that got her through it. I completely understood that as an artist. It has a very strong message. It surprised me how I identified with her really.

“I was surprised by the amount of deaths she experienced in her life, how when she went away she always came back to Castlewellan. It was always a part of her that castle. I was aware of the comfort she received from that and her need to be there.”

In interpreting Mabel, Maria is conscious she is portraying someone from a privileged background who also needs to appear locally rooted.

“I went to drama school and we weren’t ever doing Irish plays, so I was always playing someone who wasn’t myself,” she said. “I am used to that. But I have decided to give Mabel more of a Northern Ireland feel.

“Andrew Forseon from the Christian conference centre that is based in the castle has been so welcoming at our rehearsals and things are going absolutely brilliantly, I am so excited to be doing it.

“I have a lot of friends come up to Castlewellan and they have never heard of Mabel so it really is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about her.”

Maria also feels that for those not necessarily into traditional theatre, the opportunity to get up close and personal with the actors on a site specific play such as Mabel is one to be relished.

“It is a very different experience,” she said. “It is also the better one in my opinion.”

Performances of Mabel run today and tomorrow at 11am, 12:30pm, 3pm and 4:30pm, and on November 7 and 14 at 1pm and 3pm. Limited time slots remain.

For tickets (£7.50) contact Down Arts Centre on 028 4461 0747.

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