Goodbye to all that

`If I don't leave, they'll throw me out." That was the explanation Eithne Healy laughingly gave on Sunday night for her decision to stand down as Chairman of the Dublin Theatre Festival. She has been Chairman for three years, but her involvement with the festival stretches back into the mists of time, when, 15 years or so ago, she came in as a volunteer after working with National Youth Theatre.

Progressively, inexorably, Healy moved her arts career towards top gear, where it has remained over the last five years, her term as a member of the Arts Council. Freed from that duty this summer, she is now casting off her second big shackle, and plans to get away from that desk and travel more with her husband, who is the Chief Executive of Independent Newspapers. She said she regarded the success of the Fringe as the greatest advance the festival had made during her term as Chair-man.

Sunday's festival opening, a performance by Circus Ethiopia at the Gaiety, boasted a clutch of "slebs": Neil Jordan held out in a very visible box, Bosco Hogan lounged past, Louis le Brocquy and Anne Madden swept up the stairs in grandeur . . . Fiona Shaw, who opened the event, was the Sleb-in-Chief, however, now filming John Banville's Elizabeth Bowen adaptation, The Last September, and playing Miss Jean Brodie at the Royal National.

She had prepared a meaty speech, but looked out from the stage at rows of childer, and changed tack very successfully. The speech still nestled in her bag, however, and very obviously in her heart: what she had wanted to say was that an obsession with buildings would starve theatre, particularly as it shaped up to film at the end of the century. A national theatre should be an office to which people came with exciting projects, not a building - at the Royal National, they had wanted to work on a barge, but couldn't, because the building needed "product".

It's a point of view worth discussing with Richard Eyre, former artistic director of the National Theatre, when he participates in the "In Conversation" series in the Dress Circle of the Gaiety Theatre at 6 p.m. on Wednesday. Make your reservation for this free event on 01-8748525.

Opening Tonight:

Main Festival: Uncle Vanya by Chekhov, adapted by Brian Friel, at the Gate; Hellcab by the Tamarind Company (US) at the Tivoli; Diamonds In The Soil, presented by Macnas, Olympia Theatre; Monster by Da Da Kamera (Canada) at the Samuel Beckett Centre.

Fringe Festival: Turnout, presented by Shibboleth (UK), City Arts Centre

Recommended:

Car Show, presented by Corn Exchange, a series of four shows in staged in the intimate settings of four cars in Meetinghouse Square in Temple Bar. Until October 17th, 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.