love a good party," said the actor, Stephen Brennan, when asked if he welcomed the Irish Times/
ESB Irish Theatre Awards. He did give other reasons for welcoming the award - stressing the importance of recognising the high standard of Irish theatre, and not just when it has been feted abroad - but his first comment caught the festive mood at the lunch yesterday at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham.
Brennan is currently to be seen playing as a fading rock star in the BBC series, Ballykissangel, but the episodes were all shot last year. In real time, he is playing Sidney Carton in Hugh Leonard's adaptation of A Tale Of Two Cities at the Gate ("It's a far, far better play I do now than I have ever done before", he announced) - and will play Lucky in Beckett's Waiting For Godot in the spring.
The artistic director of the Gate Theatre, Michael Colgan, looked around the hall packed with Irish theatre celebrities, and remarked that one of the great benefits of the Irish Times/ESB Irish Theatre Awards is that they will bring the Irish theatre profession together. "This room is full of talk," he said. "And that talk is ultimately work."
He added that the Irish theatre profession had done very well for Ireland internationally, and that until the awards were inaugurated there was "no mechanism for recognising that at home".
Colgan had plenty about which to talk to his fellow professionals. His plans include the second Pinter Festival at the Gate in April which will feature Pinter as an actor in The Collection and as a director in Ashes To Ashes and bringing the Beckett Festival to the Barbican in London.
Patrick Mason, artistic director of the Abbey Theatre, was fill of excitement about his production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest, which is previewing at present. "I'd wanted to bring Wilde back into the repertoire of the Abbey for some time, and we did A Woman Of No Importance last year," he said. "Then we have Tom Kilroy's new play about Wilde's wife, The Secret Fall Of Constance Wilde, for the Dublin Theatre Festival."
Other plans for the Abbey include Brian Friel's new play, Give Me Your Answer, Do, which will play in March, and will be directed by the playwright himself, and a festival of new writing which will include plays by Gary Mitchell, Jimmy Murphy and Michael Harding.
Among the actors at the lunch who were looking forward to starting work on the new Friel play at the Abbey was a "resting" Catherine Byrne, who looked radiantly rested. The work is, she said, "very new territory" for the playwright: "It's very different from Molly Sweeney - there are lots of characters."
The actor Tom Hickey revealed that he plays a writer in the new Friel and that "there's a lot of mining to be done in rehearsals".
At times it seemed there was one new play for each of the 160 people who attended. The Rough Magic director, Lynne Parker, will direct Declan Hughes's new play, Hallowe'en Nut in Andrews Lane in April, she said, while the company's administrator, Siobhan Bourke, is producing a screen version of Gina Moxley's successful play, Danti Dan.
Rough Magic also features in the plans of Fiach Mac Conghail, artistic director of the Project Arts Centre. They will stage a new play "about lives which have been destroyed by drugs" in the new Project At The Mint venue in Henry Place in May, he revealed. The venue, which opens on Saturday, will host the Project's theatre ventures for the two years it will take to rebuild the Project.
Mac Conghail's own star seems to be rising fast. He has just been appointed Irish Commissioner for the Venice Biennale. He had another reason to be pleased with himself as he was due last night to see the first rough cut of the film he is co producing with his brother, Cuan. The script, by Paul Mercier, is about a day in the life of a middle class man, played by Brendan Gleeson, who has become unemployed, and "something unexpected which happens at the end of the day".
He was also excited about a new play which Marina Carr has just written for the Project, called Ariel. This is, revealed Carr, about "a man who gives birth to an angel". The acclaimed young playwright, meanwhile, is fresh from the success of her play, The Mai, in Princeton. She has delivered a new play, On Raftery's Hill, to Druid, which should see the light of day before the end of the year: it is, she says, "part of my midlands trilogy, if that doesn't sound too pretentious"; and she is now working on a play for the Abbey.
Druid's artistic director, Garry Hynes, has a few other projects to work on before the Carr. In her capacity as associate director at the Royal Court, she will direct, in April, a production of a new play by Tom Murphy, called The Wake. In May, Druid productions of two new plays by Martin Mc Donogh will play in repertory with The Beauty Queen Of Leenane at the Town Hall Theatre in Galway, and work is on going on the major Synge Festival, which will open on Inis Meain next year.
The playwright Bernard Farrell is working on a radio play for the BBC as well as a new play for the Abbey, where he is writer in association. The veteran theatre producer, Phyllis Ryan, advised him to hit someone or something, to shake off his reputation as the nicest man in Irish theatre. "I am normal, I do fly into rages," he insisted, but was met with disbelief. The director Ben Barnes revealed he may be directing a new Jim Nolan play at the Dublin Theatre Festival, but firmer plans include directing Pinter's No Man's Land in the second Pinter Festival at the Gate, and "the first new production of Juno And The Paycock in 20 years at the Abbey" later in year.
Among the acclaimed young actresses who attended were Alison Mc Kenna, who is playing Gwendolen in The Importance Of Being Earnest at the Abbey, and a "resting" Donna Dent. Enjoying a day off from Sin bad at the Gaiety were Pat Kinevane and Mal Whyte. Barry Mc Govern is scheduled to return to the Gate in Beckett's Waiting For Godot, and is filming a major film on Sean O Riada, which will require the recording of some of the composer's work by the London Symphony Orchestra. Among the many other actors who attended were Barbara Brennan, Des Cave, Ingrid Craigie, Susan Fitzgerald, Frank Kelly, Pat Laffan, Gerard Mc Sorley, Ruth Mc Cabe, Harry Towb, Donal O'Kelly, Ger Ryan Niall Toibin, Stella McCusker, Johnny Murphy, David Herlihy, Bill Golding, Marion O'Dwyer, and Eamon Kelly, who proclaimed that at 83 he got cast very rarely, be cause "people are afraid you'll fall down dead on the stage".
Agnes Bernelle said she was getting excited at the prospect of going to New York next month to formally receive a book of her father's which was lost for many years.
Liam Cunningham, meanwhile, has been playing in London in the RSC's production of As You Like It for what he says feels like 295 years (he began rehearsals in February of last year): "It's a huge success, and they're negotiating a West End transfer," he said, but negotiations are on going as to whether he will choose to transfer as well. He is also playing in Peter Whelan's Herbal Bed with the RSC, a hugely successful new play he would love to see produced here.
Pauline Mc Lynn, who plays Mrs Doyle in Father Ted, told how she announced to her family her engagement to the Bickerstaffe Theatre Company and The Cat Laughs Comedy Festival producer, Richard Cook, after Christmas, and went away for a few days in the country "to get used to the idea". The Sun newspaper had the story by the time she returned and she had to ring as many people as she could before the following day's issue.
Others who attended the launch included designers Joe Vanek, Frank Hallinan Flood, and Monica Frawley. The Arts Council was represented by members Eithne Healy, Phelim Donlon and Vic Merriman. Director John Crowley, theatrical agent Terri Hayden, playwright Sebastian Barry and Harold Fish, the director in Ireland of the British Council, also attended.