ArtScapeThere were a few murmurs of surprise at the launch of the Dublin Theatre Festival this week at the absence of the Minister for Arts, Séamus Brennan, who was in Galway wearing his Minister for Sport hat and creating his own bit of drama among the race-going Fianna Fáilers with his comments on his party's fund-raising tent in Ballybrit.
Nonetheless, it did seem odd that the Minister missed out on the opportunity to address a sizeable and important gathering of the theatre community, to lend support to one of the country's longest-running internationally-recognised arts events, and to combine his arts and tourism responsibilities, as the festival has huge potential for developing Dublin as a cultural destination.
On the other hand, Ulster Bank's taking on of title sponsorship came in for much kudos, and the promise that the festival boost apparent in this year's programme would not be a one-off was very welcome. Ulster Bank's chief executive, Cormac McCarthy, made the point that the bank's financial commitment would be reflected again in next year's programme.
The programme itself, the first to come from new director Loughlin Deegan, has a particularly strong international component. Again it could be said that there is a disappointing dearth of original new Irish plays (the Abbey's offerings are an updated version of Synge's Playboy and Marina Carr's Woman and Scarecrow, which has already had a run in London's Royal Court). It's great, of course, to see a new work by Sebastian Barry, The Pride of Parnell Square, as well as the chance to see whether Christian O'Reilly fulfils the promise of his first play The Good Father, with his latest, Is This About Sex?
With three Chekhov productions, it might seem like a case of the Russians are coming, but it's actually the Hungarian who are coming: two Chekhovs, The Seagull and Ivanov, are visiting Hungarian productions. The third is a new staging, in the Gate, of Brian Friel's version of Uncle Vanya.
Other anticipated imports are the National Theatre's production of The History Boys, one of Alan Bennett's most popular plays, and veteran director Peter Brook's return to Dublin with a number of Beckett's lesser known plays as well as The Grand Inquisitor, based on Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Perhaps one of the most intriguing pieces of theatre promised for the festival is Radio Macbeth, adapted, we are told, from Shakespeare and creating "an extraordinary vivid sound environment reminiscent of the era of 1940s live radio plays".
This being the festival's 50th anniversary, it comes as no surprise that it is indulging in a little bit of retrospection this year. A number of special anniversary events will recall such occasions as the cancellation of the festival when O'Casey's The Drums of Father Ned came in for clerical objections, and the brouhaha surrounding The Rose Tattoo in 1957. The plan to project the ghosts of festivals past - performers and productions - onto night-time locations around the city should evoke some nostalgia among theatregoers.
The new director is setting out his stall with some programming innovation, including an expanded music segment and initiatives to draw in an audience from beyond the regular festival-goers through the inclusion of a a late-night season of burlesque, drag and cabaret from New York, as well as a free event at
George's Dock, Legs on the Wall production On the Case, which neatly ties in the new sponsor, as tickets will be distributed through Ulster Bank branches.
Baltic music, Pärt excellence
It's Arvo Pärt and Baltic music season in Ireland. Booking has opened for next month's debut Irish tour by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Tönu Kaljuste, writes Michael Dervan.
Two of the four concerts will be given over to just a single work, Pärt's Kanon pokajanen (Canon of Repentance), an austere, monumental work (90-110 minutes long, in the composer's calculation), written for the 750th anniversary of Cologne Cathedral in 1998. The Irish premiere is scheduled for Ballintubber Abbey in Co Mayo on Friday, September 21st, with the unusual starting time of 10pm. There will be a repeat performance at St Mary's Pro-Cathedral in Dublin on Sunday 23rd, with an 8pm start.
The choir's concerts in Galway (in the Augustinian Church at 8.30pm on Saturday 22nd) and Drogheda (in St Peter's Church of Ireland at 8pm on Monday 24th) will feature different music, including pieces by Toivo Tulev, Cyrillus Kreek and Veljo Tormis, as well as four works by Pärt: Dopo la vittoria, The Woman with the Alabaster Box, Tribute to Caesar and 7 Magnificat-Antiphonen. Tickets for the concerts are €30, and can be booked on 0818-205205 or via www.epccireland.com.
Pärt is to be the featured composer of next year's RTÉ Living Music Festival, with leading Scottish composer James MacMillan as the festival's artistic director. The festival is scheduled for the weekend of February 15th to 17th, and just in advance of that Irish music-lovers will have the opportunity to hear the premiere of The Deer's Cry, a piece commissioned from Pärt by the Louth Contemporary Music Society. It sets text from St Patrick's Breastplate, and the first performance, by another leading Baltic choir, the Latvian State Choir, will be conducted by Fergus Sheil, at St Peter's Church of Ireland in Drogheda on Wednesday, February 13th, with a repeat performance at St Joseph's Church in Dundalk the following day. The choir's programme will also include new works by Latvian composer Georgs Pelecis (setting Joseph Mary Plunkett's I See His Blood upon the Rose) and Irish composer Deirdre McKay (whose Comendo Spiritum Meum sets the last words of St Oliver Plunkett).
Can Gormley repeat feat?
One of the most instantly recognisable and popular public works of art in Britain is undoubtedly Antony Gormley's Angel of the North, which stands at the entrance to Tyneside. It attracts up to 150,000 visitors a year and is listed among the 12 official icons of Britain. While it initially caused some local opposition, few would argue today that it is not a magnificent landmark.
Dublin Docklands Development Authority must now be hoping that Gormley can repeat the success of Angel on its Liffey-side patch and create a work that can enter into the public affection in much the same way here.
The authority this week announced that the British artist has been commissioned to design and build a structure on a similar epic scale, which will be a "signpost for the realignment of Dublin's epicentre eastwards".
His appointment follows an international competition and year-long selection process. Six Irish and international artists, including Gormley - the others were Dorothy Cross (Ireland), Luis Jiménez (US), Andrew Kearney (Ireland), Thomas Schütte (Germany), and Grace Weir (Ireland) - were selected and asked to develop proposals to create works for any Docklands location. (Sadly, Jiménez was killed in his studio last year, when a large piece, a mustang intended for Denver International Airport, fell on him.)
Gormley emerged out of the selection process with a proposal for a structure that will be 48m high - his Gateshead Angel is 20m high and 54m wide. Locals on Tyneside were quick off the mark with an irreverent nickname for Angel, christening it the "Gatehead flasher".
It was way back in 1992 that Belfast composer Paul Boyd presented the first of his 35 musical productions. Fifteen years on, the perennially boyish Boyd is still going strong, and his irrepressibly cheery brand of musical theatre continues to pull in new audiences, writes Jane Coyle. One of the most successful, The Little Mermaid, which he created in 2005 with Zoë Seaton of Big Telly theatre company, has played to almost 30,000 people in swimming pools all over the world. The two are now engaged in a new aquatic spectacular, Sinbad, which goes on tour in May 2008.
Over the next couple of weeks, Boyd's company, Purpose Built Musicals, will be presenting two training programmes for young people interested in musical theatre. They will be held at the Baby Grand at the Belfast Grand Opera House (August 6th to 11th) and Letterkenny's An Grianán Theatre (August 13th to 18th), with which the company has had a long and productive association.
The summer schools will be based on a specially rewritten version of McCool, the rock musical that was premiered at the Lyric Theatre in 2002 and aimed specifically at notoriously hard-to-please teenage audiences. Participants, aged between eight and 20, work in a rehearsal room environment with a professional team of performers, thereby getting a real taste of the industry, warts and all.