Disturbing the peace

Peter Crawley

ONCE AGAIN, the Northern Irish stage is a site of conflict. A community riven with religious extremism, political distrust and sectarianism is tearing itself apart. It is May, 2011, and as Conall Morrison’s staging of Arthur Miller’s hardy classic The Cruciblemarks the opening of the new Lyric Theatre, with its magnificent and much celebrated design, it raises the question whether this represents a new dawn for theatre in the North, or business as usual?

The Irish Times

The Cruciblecertainly allowed for an uncluttered appreciation of the new theatre – allied by Sabine Dargent’s set – while its performers’ stew of Northern and southern Irish accents encouraged the audience to see itself in the folds of Miller’s drama. At the time, however, dissenting voices wondered if it gave the Lyric – and by extension contemporary theatre in Northern Ireland – a fresh start.

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