“Toasting the Royal Family is like praying – it’s efficacious no matter when you do it”, claims Mrs. Rogers in Hugh Leonard’s The Au Pair Man.  The play concerns a rough Irish bill collector named Hartigan, who becomes a love slave and companion to this English lady, whose first name is Elizabeth.  She lives in a cluttered London town house, which looks more like a museum for a British Empire on which the sun has long set.  Even the door bell chimes out the English national anthem.  Hartigan is immediately conscripted into her service in return for which she agrees to teach him how to be a gentleman after the fashion of a reverse Pygmalion.  The play is a wild one, and is really the never-ending battle between England and Ireland.

Hugh Leonard is one of Ireland’s most popular and prolific playwrights. His Da won a Tony Award for best play of 1978. 

Milwaukee Irish Arts presented three performances of The Au Pair Man at the Irish Cultural and Heritage Center, May 5 - 7 and took the show to Toronto, Canada for the Acting Irish International Theatre Festival.  This Milwaukee Irish Arts production was directed by Jennifer LaPorte and featured Milwaukee favorites Amy and Kevin Callahan in the roles originated by Julie Harris and Charles Durning.