SÉAMUS HEANEY, who was present and dedicated a poem at the official opening of Belfast’s Lyric Theatre 44 years ago, was back as Nobel Laureate to unveil a threshold stone for the new building due to open in early 2011.
The old Lyric closed in January last year, was subsequently toppled in preparation for its reconstruction, and is due to open in March 2011 at a cost of £18 million (€20.5 million). Its seating capacity will increase from 300 to 390 and it will have an additional auditorium that can hold up to 150 people. Dr Heaney joined his poet friend Michael Longley, Culture Minister Nelson McCausland and others from the Northern Ireland arts community for the unveiling of the stone at the construction site near the river Lagan.
The stone features an engraved verse from his poem, Peter Street at Bankside, which he read at the original opening of the Lyric in 1965 – a piece about the carpenter Peter Street who helped build the Globe Theatre in London where many of Shakespeare's plays were first performed.
Dr Heaney, who described himself as a “junior member of the tribe of poets” in 1965, said he was honoured that his words were appearing on the threshold stone.
“The renovation of the Lyric Theatre is a reminder of the vital artistic achievement in the past and the promise of ongoing creative vigour in the future. The renewal of the fabric of the building stands for the kind of social and psychic renewal that the entire community aspires to and needs,” he said.
“The Lyric has engaged with the life of its society and performed the classic Shakespearean task to provide ‘the abstract and brief chronicles of the time’,” added Dr Heaney.
Playwright Brian Friel, who has a long association with the Lyric, was unable to attend but sent a note of congratulations: “A new theatre can be the most exciting building in any city. It can be the home of miracles and epiphanies and revelations and renovations.”