One of the big hits of the Arts Festival’s first week was Freefall, an imaginative and insightful drama about a middle-aged Irishman who suffers a stroke.

It mightn’t sound the most engaging of stories, but the excellent script, combined with the play’s use of flashback and video made this a highly moving piece.

The cast for the Galway production of Freefall included Loughrea born actor Declan Conlon, returning to his home county with his second successful theatre production in a matter of months; he was here in May with Bespoke Theatre’s production of Tom Murphy’s Sanctuary Lamp, directed by the playwright.

Declan was a latecomer to Freefall, which premiered at last year’s Dublin Theatre Festival, winning Best Director and best New Play at the Irish Times Theatre Awards.

When the play was revived for the current production he had just a week to rehearse the show before Corn Exchange travelled to a theatre festival in Germany, prior to their Galway appearance. With just a two-and-a-half hour rehearsal there to iron out technical problems Declan really was thrown in at the deep end.

“It was very nerve wracking,” he says but the adrenaline kicked in and carried him through. And the audience loved it, something that was reflected here in Galway.

Declan, who is one of the country’s finest actors, was suitably slick and oily in Freefall as the cousin of A, the man who suffers the stroke. This oily behaviour included having a little sexual liaison with A’s wife the night before A’s stroke.

The Loughrea man’s ability to play shifty characters also made him perfect for Francisco in Tom Murphy’s The Sanctuary Lamp, which visited Galway’s Town Hall in May. He is a big fan of the Tuam born playwright and says that for somebody who spent six years as a boarder in St Jarlath’s College in Tuam, playing Francisco was “cathartic”.

On a more serious note Declan loves Murphy’s plays. He previously appeared in a production of The Sanctuary Lamp in Manchester some years ago, but being directed by Tom Murphy gave him a deeper insight into this extraordinary play, which features three dysfunctional characters who take refuge in a church.

He also appeared in last summer’s Abbey Theatre production of Murphy’s play, The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant, again directed by the writer.

The family drama, based on a 19th century Russian novel “was a huge epic piece of theatre, much more in the European canon and it was a shame it didn’t travel anywhere. It would have been a great Abbey play to tour to other European cities”, he feels.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.