Abbey play absorbed by an audience impervious to shock

The Dublin Theatre Festival got off to a quiet start last night with a play featuring rape, incest, sacrilege and - in what many thought was a deliberate attempt to shock - a scene with Eamon Morrissey in his underpants.

Nobody expected Barbaric Comedies to provoke the riots which accompanied other opening nights at the Abbey Theatre down the years, or even the mass walkouts alleged during its run at the Edinburgh Festival.

But the lack of even a single protester outside the National Theatre had seasoned observers wondering what the country was coming to; never mind the rain and the televised football which clashed with the opening.

In fact there have been protests, according to the Abbey's spokeswoman, but mainly in writing: "The letters are still arriving, and we've had about 500 signatures on a petition, accompanied by messages like `sons of Satan' and `the devil treats as vermin those he gets to do his work.' The phone calls have quietened down, though."

Barbaric Comedies was written by a Galician, Ramon Maria del Valle-Inclan - described variously in the programme notes as "Shavian", "Brechtian", "Joycean", "Beckettian" and, generally, "ahead of his time". His work prefigured 20th century dramatic movements such as expressionism and the Theatre of Cruelty. But he died in 1936, just in time to be ignored for four decades in Franco's Spain.

At a total length of four hours, including the two intervals, Barbaric Comedies might seem like theatre of cruelty at its worst. But an opening night audience which included Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush, writer Jennifer Johnston and singer/songwriter Paul Brady seemed thoroughly absorbed; and in the play's few quiet moments the silence was such that you could hear General Franco turning in his grave.

The festival as a whole gets under way tonight.

Reviews of the Dublin Theatre Festival are available this year on the website of The Irish Times, ireland.com