Theatres have unpredictable life spans, susceptible to either slow deterioration or sudden, violent endings.
As Dublin's litany of lost stages demonstrates, they may be brought down by economic starvation, controversy, or, more regularly, by a big, blazing fire.
Opening in 1741, the Fishamble Street Theatre hosted the first performance of Handel's Messiah. Closing in 1868, it was converted into an Ironworks Warehouse.
The Theatre Royal on Abbey Street became an Opera House in 1837 whereupon it promptly burned down. Rebuilt in 1841, it staggered on as the Mechanic's Theatre, then the Hibernian/ Princess Theatre of Varieties before a short-lived conversion to the Dublin Morgue in 1902. A gift from Annie Horniman to WB Yeats, it became the Abbey Theatre in 1904, enjoyed the usual riots of an emerging nation, and burnt down in 1951. Rebuilt in 1966, the current Abbey Theatre now awaits a new dawn in Dublin's Docklands.
Sadly casting off its excellent original name, Connell's Monster Saloon on Dame Street was rebuilt in 1879 as the Star of Erin Music Hall. Rebuilt and renamed several times, it became the Olympia Theatre in 1923. Its current owners MCD mainly employ its frayed grandeur for noisy rock gigs.
The Theatre Royal opened in 1935 in Hawkins Street. Capable of holding up to 4,000 people, it proved more capable of incurring massive losses. Neither George Formby or Judy Garland could make the venue profitable through a series of sold-out concerts. It closed its doors in 1962.
Perhaps the first theatre brought down by a condom, the Pike Theatre was opened in 1953 in Herbert Lane by army officer Alan Simpson and his wife Carolyn Swift (who later became dance critic of The Irish Times). Having secured the first production of Brendan Behan's The Quare Fellow and the Irish premiere of Waiting For Godot, the Pike's staging of The Rose Tattoo (in 1957) saw Simpson arrested on obscenity charges. The case was eventually thrown out of court, but not before it had financially ruined the theatre. It closed in 1964.
