On The Town: The Bacchae "says everything about life. It's the essence of European theatre. It's where it comes from and where it should go", said Dieter Kaegi, artistic director of Opera Ireland.
He summed up the importance of the Greek tragedy before going into the opening night's performance of The Bacchae of Baghdad at the Abbey Theatre, a new version of the play by Euripides, written and adapted by Conall Morrison and set in 21st-century Baghdad.
"It was fantastic, really provocative and really thoughtful," said Jimmy Fay of Bedrock Productions afterwards. "Andrea Irvine was amazing in her blood-covered dress," said Fay, who directs the Sam Shepard play True West, opening at the Peacock later this month.
"The thing about the Bacchae, it's about a male fear of women, and to set it in Baghdad, given the cultural background, is a fascinating idea," said Jack Bradley, literary manager of the National Theatre in London.
"Thaitin sé go mór liom," said writer and teacher Mícheál Mac Aonghusa, voicing his enthusiasm after the performance. Morrison's version in modern-day Baghdad highlights the fact, he said, that "the same values are being discussed - about fate and reality and hatred and love".
"I'll have a lot to chew on and I'll have nightmares tonight," said Des Geraghty, former president of Siptu, emerging from the opening performance.
Others who attended opening night were the writer Edna O'Brien, in Dublin to give a talk to mark International Women's Day; broadcaster Gay Byrne and his wife Kathleen Watkins; Sheila Pratschke, director of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, which is celebrating its 25th year in existence this year; Donal Shiels, chief executive of the rapidly nearing St Patrick's Festival; the writer Anne Enright, who has written on the sin of pride for the upcoming RTÉ Radio 1 series, The Seven Deadly Sins, along with other writers including Rebecca Miller on covetousness, Jennifer Johnston on gluttony, and the above mentioned Edna O'Brien on envy.
Also enjoying Bacchae was the poet Tony Curtis, whose book The Well in the Rain, comprising new and selected work, is due out next week, and actor Karen Ardiff who opens on Wednesday, April 5th next in a play which she says is "loosely based on Ulysses" called Thesis, at the Civic Theatre.
• The Bacchae of Baghdad runs at the Abbey Theatre until Saturday, April 15
Shrew'd judgment at Project
The opening of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew on Monday night at Project Arts Centre in Dublin stimulated much debate afterwards.
The message is that "love is mad", said Finbarr Madden, a teacher at Alexandra College, afterwards.
The play's message was "obey your husband!" suggested Marie Rooney, deputy director of the Gate Theatre, her eyes twinkling and her tongue firmly in her cheek.
"They made a pact, took the money and ran," said Mary West, an art teacher at St Andrew's College in Booterstown, Dublin, of the two lead characters, Katherina, who is played by Pauline McLynn, and Petruchio, played by Owen Roe.
"She got to hold the purse strings," said Gerald Murphy, playwright and winner of the Stewart Parker Award 2005. The play at the end "comes down on the side of men but you have to subvert that a little for today's audiences," he reasoned after the lights had gone down on the opening night of Rough Magic's production.
Among those at the performance were barrister and actor Virginia Cole; the newly-appointed chair of the RTÉ Authority, Mary Finan; John O'Donnell SC and poet, who is chair of Rough Magic, and Mary Cloake, director of the Arts Council.
Playwright Charlie O'Neill, who is writing about his family's dodgem business in Co Clare and collaborating with choreographer David Bolger, of Coiscéim, to produce a work based on this, chatted to Raymond Keane, of Barabbas Theatre Company. Keane is preparing for his upcoming one-man show which draws on his former profession as a hairdresser.
• The Taming of the Shrew runs at Project, Dublin, until Sat, Mar 25
Dance comes of age
Up to 10,000 people are expected to attend this year's International Dance Festival Ireland at venues around Dublin. "The aim from the start [in 2002] has been to present as broad a diversity of dance as possible and in that way build on audiences," said Catherine Nunes, the festival's artistic director, at the launch of the programme.
This year, she said, "we are starting with a very bold company at the Abbey Theatre - Les Ballets C. de la B. It's very disturbing, at times challenging," she said of the production of vsprs, which the Belgian company staged for the first time in Paris only two weeks ago. It was inspired by archive film of psychiatric patients suffering from hysteria, she added.
The work of Chinese choreographer Shen Wei, who lives in New York, is a "fusion of the two cultures", Nunes said. It is "very serene and visually very sumptuous". This year's bold and confident programme "reflects the fact that the festival has come of age", she said.
Olive Braiden, chair of the Arts Council, said "the festival has a responsibility to develop dance in Ireland and this it does in many ways other than simply showcasing the best of contemporary dance from around the world". Arts Council funding is now in place to hold the festival every year.
Dermot McLaughlin, the Derry-born fiddle player, chief executive of Temple Bar Properties and chair of the festival's board of directors, said he's particularly looking forward to seeing sean-nós dancer Seosamh Ó Neachtain joining forces with Tamango, a dancer from French Guiana.
And Prone, which McLaughlin saw in New York in January, will involve the audience lying down while the dance performance happens around them, he said. "Dance, like theatre, should always be pushing the boundaries," added arts consultant Tony Ó Dálaigh.
• International Dance Festival Ireland runs from April 21 to May 7
Crazy about their craft
They are passionate, tenacious, mad and self-critical. That's how craftspeople described themselves at a reception in Dublin on Tuesday night. "You have to be passionate," said woodturner Roger Bennett, who is one of 38 craftspeople to be featured on Portfolio, a directory of Ireland's leading designer-makers that will be distributed on CD to international collectors, galleries, architects and design commissioners.
"You need to be tenacious and also to constantly upskill yourself," said Bernie Leahy, whose stitched drawings are also in the Portfolio collection. "You need to be critical of your own work." Being selected for inclusion in Portfolio means "we are all linked together on a level of excellence that I am very proud of," she said.
"We must be mad, there's a certain madness because ceramics can break at any time but you learn to let go," said Jane Jermyn, a ceramicist based in Lismore, Co Waterford, who believed being included in Portfolio was "extremely exciting".
Mark McSwiney, chair of the Portfolio selection committee, said the Crafts Council of Ireland CD initiative will encourage viewers to "imagine this Ireland to be a land of polished sophistication and purposeful insightfulness".
Craft is "the most essential component in the creation of art," said John Mulcahy, editor of the Irish Arts Review, which will distribute 13,000 of the CDs around the world.
Portfolio, which was compiled by an international selection committee, "shortlists the makers of quality craft in the country for the first time," said furniture maker Knut Klimmek.