Ben Barnes is a persuasive speaker, but reports suggest the positive result was more to do with escaping the mire of crisis, writes Belinda McKeon.
When Ben Barnes, artistic director of the Abbey Theatre, arrived at last night's gala performance of Playboy of the Western World, he came fresh from a crucial victory.
At Tuesday's emergency general meeting of the National Theatre Society, he survived a motion of no confidence put forward against him by shareholders in the theatre. Ever a persuasive speaker, Barnes would appear to have had little difficulty convincing the shareholders and the board of directors that his blueprint for the future of the theatre was worth supporting. This was despite the announcements of job cuts, low box office figures and a predicted end-of-year deficit of €2.5 million, which have this week seen morale at the Abbey sink to a desperately low ebb.
However, reports from inside the meeting suggest that what ultimately swung the vote in Barnes's favour was less a general belief in the substance of his vision than a general desire to escape the mire of crisis and recrimination in which the theatre presently finds itself. Barnes's case for his survival hinged on his presentation to the meeting of a document known as "Act 2", in which he detailed his artistic and administrative plans for the Abbey as it enters its second century.
The document sets out Barnes's vision of a redefined National Theatre. Its earlier draft contained ideas including a studio in which new work could be developed without the pressure to attract large audiences; an increase in international work; a reduction in revivals; a change from a 52 to a 40-week seasonal model for the theatre; a separate summer season; a subscription system; and the establishment of an income-development office. To facilitate these plans, some restructuring activity was always going to be necessary.
At least some of these ideas will have been presented to the board and shareholders on Tuesday night, and sources say that the presentation drew a satisfied response from those who heard it. However, the reasons for this satisfaction are more superficial than might be wished. Until Tuesday night, shareholders remained unaware of the existence of such a document, and they are reported to be "very annoyed" that the announcement of job cuts was presented to them by management without Barnes's document as a context for those cuts.
Shareholders were also annoyed that the board failed to advise them before now of its existence, and that the document was created without consultation either with them or with staff at the Abbey.
It was the mere existence of Barnes's document then, rather than the ideas it contained, which seems to have quietened the fury of shareholders on Tuesday. One source commented that it was good to see that Barnes had "given deep thought" to 2005, but indicated the question of whether the document would actually be endorsed was for another day. To have anything at all to go on with, it seems, proved good enough.
Ultimately, it seems, it was this desire to be optimistic, rather than an overwhelming swell of support for Barnes as artistic director, which characterised Tuesday's meeting. Shareholders talked of an emerging belief that the theatre had to present "a united front" to the public.
One shareholder commented that "there was no point in going out with blood on the floor." Another said that the mood had changed from one of anger to one of sadness, with a pervading feeling that "dismissals at this time would have been a disaster for the theatre."
The turning point is said to have come not with Barnes's address, but with the forwarding of a motion for the postponement of the restructuring plan announced last week, until a working group has had the chance, over a four-week period, to "interrogate" the plan.
The working group has yet to be established, but will consist of board members and shareholders, as well as staff and union representatives.
This motion met with unanimous agreement, and may go some way to appeasing those SIPTU members of staff who have called for the withdrawal of the restructuring plan. Given that the restructuring has already been agreed by management, however, the four week process ahead can hardly prove to be anything more than an elongated information session.
The question remains as to why such a session, and such a working party, were not established before the announcement of the restructuring plan, and the job cuts, which have damaged the morale, not to mention the public image, of the Abbey so badly in its centenary year. If ultimately, this process proves to be no more than a delaying of the inevitable, the tension which is widely believed to lurk behind the theatre's new "united front" may yet do more damage.