ARTSCAPE/Deirdre Falvey: The Gaiety Theatre is to be refurbished in June at a cost of about €1.8m. The beautiful Victorian theatre, owned by Denis and Caroline Desmond, has needed infrastructural investment for some time and will close for five weeks while the work is carried out.
The auditorium will be re-seated - it will have the most comfortable seats of any theatre in Dublin, says executive director John Costigan - and the public areas redecorated. The theatre will be rewired and the stage and dressing-room areas re-roofed. The Gaiety, a Grade 1-listed building built in 1871, failed to secure public funding for the refurbishment, which is being paid for by the owners.
The Gaiety is a commercial theatre - and its programme is clearly not a risky one. You can make money in the theatre, Costigan says. Since he took over the job in 1996, he has made a number of changes to how it is run, such as producing the annual panto in-house and running the weekend clubs rather than renting the space out.
Nonetheless, this investment is taking place "against a background of Arts Council cuts, and cuts in general", Costigan said at this week's launch of the Gaiety programme for the rest of the year. "The Arts Council policy of simply giving a lot less money to organisations, so that they can't actually give performances, is wrong," he said later.
The programme includes popular musical acts: The Elvis Presley Story (April); the Celtic Tenors (September); The Roy Orbison Story (October); Magic of the Dance (a British-produced dance show in October). There's a return of Stones in His Pockets in September, and Druid's production of Sive comes later this month, followed by the touring The Field. At the end of the year, Ronnie Drew stars in Cinderella - not in the title role though.
One of the more unusual sounding productions is The Woman Who Walked into Doors. Not to be confused with the Helix/Upbeat production currently in rehearsal and opening on May 1st, this is a Belgian opera based on the Roddy Doyle novel and features a soprano, an actress and a large video screen (plus orchestra and jazz band). Opera Ireland is involved in presenting it, and it will run as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. Another, unconfirmed, DTF show is expected at the Gaiety, and Druid Theatre is also booked in for two weeks in November ("event to be announced in June"). Druid managing director Fergal McGrath was at the launch, but wouldn't be drawn on what the mystery November production would be. The company will also have a show in the Dublin Theatre Festival. Nor would he reveal when Druid would be producing the much-anticipated new play by Stuart Carolan (formerly Navan Man), which Noel Pearson holds the rights to, and Garry Hynes will direct.
In August, the Irish première of the West End hit, Auntie & Me, opens at the Gaiety with Anna Manahan and Risteard Cooper. Although the title makes it sound like a farce, one of the four London-based producers, Karl Sydow, describes it as a bittersweet comedy about loneliness. It's written by Canadian Morris Panych, also an actor, and a regular on the X Files.
Opera puts on brave face
Opera Ireland, whose Arts Council budget was cut to €800,000 (there is a dispute over whether this is a budget for 12 or 15 months, given that last year's funding finished in October) is presenting "spectacular concert performances" of Don Giovanni at the Gaiety this weekend, instead of its spring season. And it will not have a winter opera season either - but another concert performance instead, of Bellini's Norma, in November. This means there will be no opera season in 2003. David Callopy of Opera Ireland, also at the Gaiety season launch, said the company was attempting to retain its brand name and goodwill by putting on concert performances, as well as involvement in other projects such as the Woman Who Walked . . . and hopes the core company will be able to kick-start things again in 2004.
The absence of an Opera Ireland season this year means more than a performance deficit for audiences. A wide range of people have lost work, from set builders to costumiers, technicians, wigmakers, to stage managers. Those affected have organised under the banner Oper8 (initially there were eight people involved) and will be asking patrons attending Don Giovanni this weekend to sign a petition, which will be presented - on April 16th as part of a colourful and musical protest at the Dáil - to the Minister for Arts, John O'Donoghue. Targeting the Minister rather than the Arts Council is an indication that the focus may be switching to the ultimate decision-makers - the Government. The Minister has got off unbelievably lightly until now. Maybe the tide is beginning to turn.
Art space in Galway
As Galway Arts Centre gears up for this year's Cúirt literature festival (April 22nd-27th), it has just opened two facilities at its Dominic Street base - the Top Gallery, literally at the top of the building, is a smaller, flexible gallery space, as well as experimental work space for artists, and a resource room, with art magazines, books and information for reference. Chairman Chris Coughlan and new artistic director Tomás Hardiman have also announced plans to renovate the centre's second building this year - the former Presbyterian church in Nun's Island, part of the GAC since 1982, but in need of renovation (the last performances were in 2001; since then it has been a base for Galway Youth Theatre). Galway City Council is putting up €317,000 for the work, and plans for the building - visual art exhibition space, performance areas and GYT base - will go on public display.
Exciting photo-finish
This year's AIB Prize, which went to photographic artist Dara McGrath this week, had a strong, diverse shortlist and a striking geographical spread, writes Aidan Dunne. That's notable because a feature of the prize, which is worth €20,000, is that nominations come from publicly funded venues in relation to specific projects.
It's especially good to see exciting projects by fine artists mooted by arts venues from every corner of the country. Even though Dara McGrath's show will be in Dublin, it is, appropriately, in Draíocht in Blanchardstown, a rapidly changing area on the periphery of the city. Appropriately because his work is about this process of change in terms of the way motorway construction is transforming the landscape.
All three other shortlisted artists are on a par. Eigse Carlow nominated the performance and video artist Amanda Coogan, Derry's Context Gallery sculptor and installation artist Aileen Kelly, and the West Cork Arts Centre printmaker Margaret O'Brien. Each project is ambitious and innovative.
And it's not betraying any confidence to note that there were many other artists who didn't make the shortlist but who might easily have done. The one disappointing feature in the overall submission was the relative dearth of good painting. A sign of the times? Surely not, because there is good painting around.
And furthermore . . .
- Long before the advent of such fine contemporary galleries as the Fenton and the Vangard, the Cork Arts Society was flying the flag for contemporary art in the region, writes Aidan Dunne, providing a vital venue for artists with the Lavit Gallery. In fact, the Lavit's current show, 63-03, celebrates its 40th birthday. It features work by 40 of the artists who have been associated with the gallery over the years. It is an extraordinary roll-call and a fascinating cross-section of Irish art. The show continues until April 26th.
- They're calling it the (real) Assembly, and they say it's where the drama takes place. Next weekend (April 11th-13th), the Crossover Theatre Project gathers in Termonfeckin for the culmination of a "participation" arts programme involving 30 teenagers and 30 adults from towns and villages either side of the border (funded by the EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation). Declan Gorman of Upstate Theatre company, which has pioneered the work, describes it as "a new and (we think) radical experiment in collaboration between theatre artists and communities, aimed at encouraging local people to devise, write and perform new and innovative theatre of their own making". This sort of project is new to rural Ireland, and the weekend will see five short works in development - "the germs not just of new dramatic works of high quality, but potentially of a whole new culture of original non-professional theatre making", says Gorman.
- Iontas Small Works competition and exhibition are inviting entries from artists working in small format (any medium, maximum dimension 60cm) on the island of Ireland. The adjudicator is Richard Torchia, artist and director of the Arcadia University Art Gallery. Awards are of €4,000, €2,500 and €1,500 and the exhibition opens at the Sligo Art Gallery on August 29th, touring to the Millennium Court Arts Centre in Portadown and Limerick City Gallery for Art. Forms and information on pick-up points (latest is June 23rd in Sligo, and adjudication is in early July) from the Sligo Art Gallery. Tel 071-9145847; e-mail: sagal@iol.ie; website: www.sligoartgallery.com
- It's good to have good news occasionally, and the Minister was no doubt delighted to announce funding of €69,733 to support Irish cultural activities abroad, on the recommendation of the Cultural Relations Committee. Among the recipients were the Kerlin Gallery (€5,000 to attend art fairs), the European Union Youth Orhcestra (€10,000), Embassy Athens (€2,000 for Irish participation in jazz festival) and Tom Hickey (€5,000 to bring The Gallant John Joe to New York). The awards ranged from a few hundred euro up to €20,000 to Opera Theatre Company for performances in Czechoslovakia. It's good cop/bad cop with the opera companies these days.