Patrick's days (Part 1)

The balance sheet is a surprise. After six years as artistic director of the national theatre, Patrick Mason has succeeded, and failed, in ways one never would have expected. He came to the job as the most acclaimed Irish theatre director of his generation, having been given a soccer player's absolution from his English birth on the basis of his talent.

He had won a Tony Award for his direction of Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa, and those for whom this play was not the highlight of the previous couple of decades in Irish theatre often chose instead Tom Murphy's The Gigli Concert or Frank McGuinness' Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching towards the Somme, both of which were directed by Mason. Too text-based? Well then there was The Great Hunger, developed from Patrick Kavanagh's poem of the same name by Tom MacIntyre, with - you guessed it - Mason.

But the role of artistic director of the Abbey comprises many jobs, among them politician, office manager and media personality, as well as theatre director. There were reservations in many quarters as to Mason's suitability for these tasks. Bluntly put, he has been considered to be better with art than with people.

He reinforced the perception that he was aloof and lofty - PR danger zones in Ireland - soon after he took the post, by publishing a manifesto for the Abbey - which he insisted on calling the National Theatre Society - called A High Ambition. Here, in a tone not far removed from that of the American Constitution, he wrote: "The National Theatre Society is called on to be the leader in the field, the main and major resource for Irish playwrights, and to stay faithful to the aesthetic, theatrical and literary values formulated by its founders." This solemn vow to stay true to the aspirations of the Abbey's founders stretched to a stated belief in the primacy of the written word in the work of the theatre: "The Society is, has been and must remain a writer's theatre." he wrote.

Why, why and why again? people asked. Why should a contemporary theatre take its artistic agenda from the ideas of three long dead Victorians? And why should the theatre prioritise a writer's theatre in the context of the exciting world of visual, physical theatre, and the audio-visual industry? That was bad enough, but Mason risked alienating the rest of the Irish theatre sector by seeming to overlook the importance of the theatre which was going on outside his own walls. Indeed, the Abbey's Statement of Needs published in 1995 apportioned some of the blame for the Abbey's low box office to "The greatest proliferation of the performing arts ever seen in Ireland . . . small theatre groups (which pose a) new challenge to the Society in those very areas in which it was traditionally held itself to be most proficient".

There is no acknowledgement in the document that the punters might have been opting for independent theatre because it was better. Right from the start, Mason expressed a strong disrespect for the box office as a measure of success. Even in 1997, when he agreed to stay on for a further two years to implement on-going changes in the theatre, he seemed to have little respect for the punters who stayed away: "The imagination of the theatre doesn't always connect with the imagination of the audience," he said in an interview. "Usually, the theatre is blamed, which I think is a fairly futile exercise."

You'd imagine, then, that we would be faced now with a theatre with a shaky management structure, poor relations with the independent theatre sector and seriously in the red. But nothing could be further from the truth. Mason is, arguably, handing on a theatre which is in better shape than ever. In 1995 the theatre was reporting an accumulated deficit of £304,000 and a deficit on capital expenditure of £336,000. The following year, Mason circulated members of the Oireachtas with the challenge that they should agree to liquidate the national theatre if they couldn't come up with a major funding package.

This year the theatre has broken even. Admittedly, this has been at the cost of pursuing plans to fully "open up the repertoire" as he put it, to international work, as he began to do with plays such as Tony Kushner's Angels in America (1995) and Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author (1996). Kushner's Perestroika was never staged, as was planned. Nevertheless, Mason's level-headed pragmatism is notable.

Mason has good relations with his board, a hurdle which brought down his predecessor, Garry Hynes. With his support, the number of shareholders has been increased from 25 to 35, which opens the theatre to more progressive voices. Following an independent report on the theatre, which the Abbey commissioned from Richard Brierley, Mason has overseen the radical reorganisation of the management of the theatre, to include the new position of managing director. Richard Wakeley was appointed to the position in 1998.

This gives the theatre a structure which is more like that of successful national theatres worldwide. It frees the artistic director to some extent from organisational, financial and marketing concerns. Most of all, it gives the theatre the stability it has so sadly lacked, as artistic director after artistic director fell foul of the board and took themselves off, inevitably leaving unfinished business behind them.

However, the post of managing director does not take precedence over that of artistic director, as it does in so many other theatres, so that the theatre is still art-led, and that is important. This organisational strength and political ability probably didn't surprise anyone who knew Mason at all well. But the health of his relationship with the independent theatre sector is a surprise to most. I spoke to many leading directors in the independent sector and all found positive things to say about Mason.

Declan Gorman, co-ordinator of the Theatre Review, whose report in 1995 found 81 per cent of respondents thought the National Theatre's interaction with the rest of the sector was poor, insisted on going on the record. While Mason was, he says, "initially slow to understand" the interdependence of the National Theatre and the independent theatre sector, "he then did more to foster it than any previous incumbent."

From 1994 on, he brought the strong new directing talents from independent theatre into the Abbey, among them Conall Morrison, Brian Brady, Jason Byrne, Jimmy Fay, Brid O Gallchoir and Kathy McArdle. He didn't just bring them in on a once-off basis, either, but as staff directors. Among the wonderfully successful shows which this brought to the theatre were Marina Carr's The Mai, directed by Brian Brady, and Tarry Flynn, from Patrick Kavanagh, and In a Little World of Our Own and As the Beast Sleeps by Gary Mitchell, all directed by Conall Morrison. In addition, John Crowley directed a superb version of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. It was Mason who last year moved to set up the Irish Theatre Forum so that the sector could discuss areas of mutual interest before the Arts Council's new Arts Plan was written.