Lyric Theatre – “Mixed Marriage” GET FREE TICKETS

Written By St. John Ervine, directed by Jimmy Fay

As the city’s factories come out on strike, John Rainey, the respected head of a Protestant family, acts to calm the sectarian tension being stirred up by politicians for their own ends. On the streets, Rainey successfully unites Catholic and Protestant against the machinations of the factory owners, the nationalists and the Orangemen. But at home, it is a different matter altogether when Rainey discovers that his son wants to marry the beautiful, innocent Nora, a Catholic.

Passions rise with Rainey demanding that his son put country ahead of his own personal happiness, an ultimatum that threatens to tear apart not just the Rainey household, but also the two young lovers whose engagement struggles to take the strain of such divided loyalties.

Set in Belfast on the eve of the Ulster Covenant, Mixed Marriage is a poetic tragedy – leavened with earthy humour – which dissects class and religious sectarianism through the breakdown of one ordinary family. Acclaimed director Jimmy Fay helms a brilliant new production of this rarely performed masterpiece. First staged over a century ago, but with echoes for today’s generation, locally and globally, Mixed Marriage was a ground-breaking success in its time and established Ervine as a great Irish writer who would later pen another Ulster classic, Boyd’s Shop.

“… offers an urgent, powerful and still-topical account of the destructive impact of religious sectarianism on family life” The Guardian review of 2011 London production

Dates available for free tickets:

01/02/13 at 7:45 PM
02/02/13 at 2:30 PM , 7:45 PM
03/02/13 at 2:30 PM
05/02/13 at 7:45 PM
06/02/13 at 7:45 PM
07/02/13 at 7:45 PM
08/02/13 at 7:45 PM
09/02/13 at 2:30 PM , 7:45 PM
10/02/13 at 2:30 PM

To get FREE tickets. Click here!

Test Drive the Arts NI is an audience development initiative, funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and managed by Audiences NI. Similar initiatives have run across the UK and further afield, including Sweden and Australia. The initiative takes the concept of taking a car for a test drive and applies it to the arts. Research shows that many people who try the arts for the first time will discover how much they enjoy the experience and go on to become attenders. The initiative uses unsold tickets and therefore availability is strictly limited. A range of arts organisations are involved in the initiative, including Belfast Film Festival, Belfast Waterfront, the Grand Opera House, Lyric, Moving on Music, Queen’s Film Theatre, Ulster Hall and Ulster Orchestra with many more to come.

http://www.testdrivetheartsni.org/