"Which one is the dummy?" asked a person at the front, as he stared at Australia's Blue Boys in the window of Moon's, on Shop Street. "We're the dummies," said the wag at the back.
Well, if they're dummies, there are plenty of them. As the festival nears its close (on Sunday), festival manager Fergal McGrath is meeting his sales targets, which means he's close to selling £23,000 worth of tickets. The online booking service has been a huge success, with over 30 per cent of tickets selling through the Internet.
The sun may have given way to Galway's inimitable rain, but the festival team is buoyant. McGrath even says it has "extended his shelf life" - in the job, that is. "It has been extended by having an artistic director like Parkinson in town."
Not that Rose Parkinson gave him an easy time of it in the run-up to this, her first festival: "I've never had to say `no' so often as I've said `no' to this woman. She tests me. When I say something can't be done, she keeps coming back with another way of doing it." There is agreement that Parkinson had a uniquely strong background for the job, because she was an innovator, but she also understood the festival's ethos because of her years as press officer. "She's shaken it down without shaking it up," is the expression which McGrath has been using in the pub.
Book by phoning 091-566577, calling into the office at the Corn Store on Middle Street or visiting the website: www.galwayartsfestival.ie
One innovation at this year's festival is the addition of the Bank of Ireland Theatre (modestly called NUIG Theatre in the programme) to the range of venues. This is the university theatre, revamped with new facilities, which will be programmed year-round by the university's new arts officer, Emily Cullen. It will be used by the university's Dramatic Society, but also by students on the new post-graduate Theatre Studies course which is kicking off in September. Otherwise, Cullen promises to programme "innovative, cutting-edge theatre", and she says this is what will make the venue different in its "mission" from the other venues in town. Certainly, it has started well, with plays from the Contemporary Irish Theatre strand of the festival.
As part of her visual arts brief, she plans to bring into the university gallery works from IMMA by artists such as Dorothy Cross, Janet Mullarney, Patrick Graham, Nigel Rolfe, and Michael Mulcahy. The exhibition will open on September 7th and a series of talks on Tuesday nights will accompany it, starting on September 12th. Details will follow in due course.
The Abbey has confirmed that it is working with Berlin's Schaubuhne to establish a theatrical exchange. It is hoped that a Brecht play may travel to Ireland next year, and that the Abbey may send a show back a couple of years later. The slowness of the process has to do with the repertory system in Germany, and the degree of advance planning they do. The Abbey's artistic director, Ben Barnes, has also been talking to the National Theatre of Catalonia about an exchange.
Managing director Richard Wakeley speaks of these exchanges going further in time to become co-production and co-commissioning agreements. If the Abbey is making such plans, it seems likely that the rebuilding of the venue will take place after the theatre's centenary year, 2004. By that stage, the new opera house, or centre for the performing arts, should be up and running in the docklands.
Some people who came into contact with Roisin McDonough at the West Belfast Partnership must think she is stark, raving mad to take the job of new chief executive of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, The West Belfast Festival and the Council had a very public disagreement about what constitutes "art" in the Irish News recently, and last year the council refused to fund Dubbeljoint's production of Forced Upon Us by Brenda Murphy.
The Council pleads artistic (or unartistic) grounds, but many in the West Belfast arts world think that they're biased against art or events which are openly nationalist.
Michael Scott, artistic director of the SFX venue in Dublin, is planning to turn the controversy into debate when the play goes up there on September 5th. And controversy there is sure to be, because the play, set in the early years of this century, and looking at the RUC in a historical context, presents the organisation in an extremely negative light.
Scott is planning a conference to run in tandem with the play, a suggestion made by the SFX's chair, Paddy Duffy. The Taoiseach and Gerry Adams have been invited to "headline" the conference, and to speak "from the heart" on such subjects as: "How would you hope to guide your people in joining hope and history?" The leader of the UK Unionist Party, Robert McCartney, and Cyril Ramaphosa, international arms inspector from the African National Congress have been invited to speak, as have David Ervine, Bernadette McAliskey, Declan Kiberd, Paul Bew and Martin Mansergh.
Don't forget the special tribute night to the former artistic director of the Abbey, Tomas Mac Anna, on Sunday. The night will include a performance of Hugh Leonard's A Life, with tributes from the current artistic director, Ben Barnes, and another former artistic director, Joe Dowling, a presentation to Mac Anna and a post-show reception. Phone the box office on 01-8787222 to book your £20 tickets (all proceeds will go to a fund for Tomas Mac Anna).
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