Never were difficulties so quickly done to death. In the space of a week, three members of the Arts Council resigned and were replaced, but by Tuesday, the Council's difficulties were not only dead but buried and "rotting". So said Minister Sile de Valera, anyway.
Who can possibly believe that those rotting difficulties aren't going to spread infection? We know that there was tension between at least two factions within the council, and we know that this was a contributory factor to the resignations. How can we expect that the three new members - Pat Murphy, retired businessman and art collector, Clare Duignan of RTE and the Provost of TCD, Tom Mitchell - will not be affected by these tensions?
We can't, particularly as it is clear that the tensions relate to cultural divisions within the council. De Valera wanted to appoint a radical council. However, the radicalism seems to have extended only to freely mixing elements from Dublin and the rest of the country, from the professional and the amateur worlds, and from a new to an old management style. It is as if she had an old-fashioned "them and us" division in her mind before she even appointed the council, and surprise, surprise, this is what she now has for real.
The tensions won't be eased by keeping them under a lid. The buttoned-up, euphemistic statements and press-releases which have brought us the news of the crisis have been reminiscent of the glory days of the Soviet Union. We all know there is more going on and this is Ireland - it will all come out in the wash eventually. In fact, when the Freedom of Information Act applies to the Arts Council in October, we may have a field day.
A frank recognition of what has gone wrong and a (truly) radical reordering of the Arts Council - to the point, perhaps, of appointing an entirely new one, when the Arts Act is reformed - these are the only paths the Minister can take if she is to restore confidence in the organisation.
It isn't just mainstream Irish theatre which is going around the world. Pan Pan's new production, Standoffish, and Bedrock's Irish Times/ESB Award-nominated Night Just Before the Forest are both touring to the Adelaide Fringe Festival in the interior of Australia (a case of the fringe going to the fringe if ever there was one), which opens at the weekend. Also Antipodes-bound is Barabbas with its wonderful version of Lennox Robinson's The Whiteheaded Boy, which goes up next week in Wellington.
Meanwhile, Glasgow's Arches Theatre has programmed a really clued-in Irish season from March 16th to April 15th which will include Greenlight Productions' The Good Thief by Conor McPherson, Calipo Theatre Company's Irish Times/ESB Award nominated Xaviers, Chambermade's production of Frank Shouldice's Journeyman and Common Currency's production of Bimbo.
The Municipal Arts Centre, which Dublin Corporation was hoping to house in 20 and 21 Parnell Square, now looks unlikely to go ahead. The community arts centre would have been beside the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, in the Georgian houses which form the frontage of the old National Ballroom. The development plan also included an extension of the Municipal Gallery in the ballroom itself, which was built on to the houses, and this proposal seems to have more chance of success.
The Corporation bought the houses six years ago. Some parts of them have been used - the Arts Office is housed there and rooms have been let to arts groups - but some parts have remained empty. Despite the fund-raising efforts of the board of the Municipal Gallery, the money to complete the development, estimated last year at £7 million, has not been forthcoming.
The Corporation's arts officer, Jack Gilligan, remains firmly committed to the idea of developing the houses as a community arts resource: "There's a huge need for it in Dublin. There's an ever-increasing shortage of space in the city. I am regularly approached by groups and individuals desperate for space." He mentions rehearsal rooms for young companies, workshop rooms and training facilities for young actors, among the facilities the new centre could have, and says: "If Dublin Corporation doesn't have the funding, it will have to come from central government."
However, Jim Barrett of the Corporation's City Architects' Department says he does not believe the money will come from Government. He says he is waiting for a new set of proposals from the board of the Hugh Lane, which can then be put to the City Council: "It's very much in our interest to add attractiveness to the area in the context of the O'Connell Street Plan. If Parnell Square doesn't work, O'Connell Street doesn't work," he says. He described the Hugh Lane as the Corporation's "jewel in the crown".
However, he added that building costs were spiralling out of control and it was questionable how long the plan could remain viable.
The director of the Hugh Lane, Barbara Dawson, is still keen to extend the gallery in the old ballroom, but is ambivalent about whether the community arts centre should be developed in the Georgian houses. She questions whether "two listed buildings with domestic configurations are best suited to the flexibility you would need for an arts centre". She suggests that "with the current property boom" the houses could possibly be developed "into more domestic spaces". She is looking to the Hugh Lane board to come up with a plan for the gallery extension which has a chance of being financed.
A right ding-dong has been going on in the Irish News between the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) and Feile an Phobail/the West Belfast Festival. Festival director, Caitriona Ruane, complained bitterly at the level of funding for her event - £12,000 as opposed, she wrote, to £600,000 for the Belfast Festival at Queen's.
Damian Smyth of ACNI pointed out that the level of ACNI funding to the Belfast Festival is, in fact, £92,000, and went on to dispute Ruane's claim that Feile an Phobail was an arts festival: "No-one", he wrote, "is going to mistake Feile's old crock's football challenge, bus run to Butlins, taxi tours, the annual black mountain walk, the Pound Loney day (all pints £1), Sooty's disco or the West Belfast guider grand prix - splendid though they are - as specifically artistic experiences."
He lists the elements of Feile's programme which ACNI does fund, and adds: "These are sensible arts events, which everyone would expect the Arts Council to fund. No one, except Caitriona Ruane, expects public money to fund hooleys."
Temple Bar Gallery is presenting a series of public interviews with curators - Rosa Martinez features on Tuesday, Patrick Murphy on Thursday, March 2nd and John Hutchinson on Thursday, March 9th, at 7 p.m. . . . Applications are invited from groups wishing to represent Ireland at the 12th World Amateur Theatre Festival in Monte Carlo, from July 26th - August 4th - contact Oliver Kenny on 046-41706 or Mary Pears on 01-4530369 . . . Christ Church Baroque is running a baroque oboe workshop on Saturday, March 4th - contact Liz Powell on 01-4539197 . . . Arthouse is running a Multimedia Day for children between the ages of four and 12 and their parents, this Saturday and the last Saturday of every month - tickets for the two-hour session cost £10 per child. To book: 016056800.
frontrow@irish-times.ie
