You thought it was just the Abbey Theatre but no, it was the "Second Abbey". The National Theatre Society's plush redevelopment plan, which we received into our hot little hands this week, sees the theatre's present building as the Man of Java to the new millennium's Man of Today. "The Third Abbey" developed on the same site but looking and feeling radically different, could be built, says the society, by the millennium (2001), if a decision to allocate funds to it was made this month or next.
The plan is an extension of the 1995 plan commissioned by the society. The main innovation involves the purchasing of 24 Lower Abbey Street to further extend and build a new rehearsal room.
The most exciting part of the society's brochure is the description of the redesign as a "peeling back" of the present building. There would be three layers of foyer, the Peacock would be located over the Abbey and there would be a rooftop restaurant. There is a possibility that "a powerful vertical statement" might be made at the roofline.
The present fan-shaped Abbey auditorium is described as "soulless" but typical of the cinema-type auditoriums being built at the time. The new Abbey auditorium would bank the audience around the stage in a much more intimate way. The society says that the theatre could act as a catalyst for the redevelopment of a "forgotten" area of Dublin - timely, as Dublin Corporation has just started work on an Integrated Area Plan for O'Connell Street and its surroundings. The society would also hope to act as a catalyst in its two-year absence from the theatre, by renovating and occupying the Antient Concert Rooms in Pearse Street, which are now derelict and which were used exactly 100 years ago for the opening season of the Irish Literary Theatre Society. The fact that Liszt played there and its links with Joyce's Dubliners are important emotional factors too.
The combined bill for the Abbey rebuilding and the temporary home are estimated at £25 million. Fianna Fail will get few better chances to make a national statement.
