An Taibhdhearc may not have always hit high notes, but in recent years it has seen a bright, imaginative new era, writes Breandán Delap
It has survived a fire and a home-made bomb, a leaky roof that forced its patrons to use umbrellas, even a resident ghost believed to be a nun who had been walled up alive for committing some grievous sin. Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe is 75 years old this year, a bit shabby at the edges perhaps, but surviving and about to bring the curtain up on a new era.
The idea for a national Irish language theatre had been mooted in 1918 but was quickly parked due to the civil unrest at that time. Galway was perceived as the ideal location, because of its proximity to Connemara and its many Irish-speaking institutions. A committee was formed in December, 1927, to push the idea to completion.
With the Irish Free State struggling for legitimacy, the initiative was hardly the most pressing item on the agenda. But the Minister of Finance, Ernest Blythe, was keen to establish the prestige of the Irish language in the newly founded state and set aside £600 for the project.
With the funding secure, all that was left was the establishment of an entire dramatic tradition . . .
As luck would have it, the renowned Anew McMaster Shakespearian Company came to Galway a week later with its version of The Taming of the Shrew. In attendance was Professor Liam Ó Briain, the secretary of the An Taibhdhearc board, and his attention was drawn to one of the actors who Pádhraic Ó Conaire informed him had "a smattering of Irish".
The story goes that Ó Briain went straight to Mícheál MacLiammóir's lodgings and offered him a job as director of drama. Not only did MacLiammóir accept but he went on to write and direct An Taibhdhearc's first production, Diarmaid agus Gráinne, and later designed and painted the theatre's main curtain.
MacLiammóir set about his task with the energy and enthusiasm he would later employ in founding the Gate Theatre. Diarmaid and Gráinne opened on August 28th, 1928, and played to full houses.
From such improbable beginnings sprang Ireland's National Theatre for Irish language. Many years of financial exigency lay in store, followed by a period of consolidation under the stewardship of Walter Macken. When the 1950 staging of San Siobhán (Siobhán McKenna's translation of George Bernard Shaw's St Joan) drew the ire of the bishop of Galway, Dr Browne, but was garlanded with praise by the critics in Dublin and Belfast, Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe was deemed to have finally arrived.
The theatre has a proud tradition as a stepping-stone for young talent. Among the many actors who started their careers in drama there is Mick Lally, whose association with the theatre began in 1970, when he played a small role in Brendan Behan's An Giall. He took part in most productions over the next five years.
"I always had a hankering to try my hand at acting. I'd done a lot of it in primary school in Tourmakeady and had won medals at various school festivals," says Lally. "Then I went to boarding school in St Mary's College in Galway, where they used to do a couple of plays as Gaeilge every year. In those days, you couldn't go up to the priest and say to him: 'Excuse me Father, but I think I'd be good at that part'. They usually picked the brightest in the class for the lead roles, based on the assumption that they'd be smart enough to learn all the lines. It had nothing to do with acting talent. Years later, some of the priests would come to see me at An Taibhdhearc and ask: 'Cén fáth nach ndearna tú aon aisteoireacht ar scoil?', and I would answer: 'because you never bloody well asked me to'."
Lally was teaching at the time in Tuam vocational school and most of his fellow actors were part-timers. They gained invaluable experience, though, from working alongside professional directors such as Alan Simpson, Seán Ó Briain, Éamon Draper and the legendary Frank Dermody, who Lally describes as "a major influence on my life".
The past three decades An Taibhdhearc seems to have been on on a nostalgia binge and it was perceived to be operating at a very primitive level and living off past glories, a thought borne out by a succession of withering reviews. The theatre became a byword for ham-acting and missed cues. When the curtain came down on the closing night, it seemed as if the set and costumes were moved downstairs and stored under the stage, only to be dusted down for the next production. One critic even suggested that the same applied to some of the actors.
Many fine plays were hamstrung by an inbuilt language deficit, as the actors often lacked proficiency in Irish. The cast was frequently made up of an uneven mix of professional actors with little Irish and native speakers with no formal training. Production values were often low but the success of the Galway Arts Festival had exposed the audience to more sophisticated shows and had raised expectations accordingly. Something had to give.
In the face of sustained criticism, the theatre board embarked on a new artistic policy in 1999. It was decided fewer productions would be staged but more resources would be pumped into them. This policy achieved almost instant results with a string of imaginative shows playing to large audiences and favourable reviews.
The buoyant success of the past few years is due in no small measure to the appointment of an artistic director, Darach Mac Con Iomaire (25). But an artistic director can only work with the material they are presented with and perhaps the most worrying aspect of Irish language drama over the last number of years has been the apparent dearth of new material.
There has been a tendency towards the translation of well-known plays from the Anglo-Irish canon into Irish or the adaptation of classic poems or novels. Very little original work has been staged in the last 20 years.
"My first aim was to encourage new Irish writing for theatre and to prove that we could produce this work at a professional standard. Without new material, the integrity of Irish language drama is diminished but we're gradually building up a repertoire. Our audience speaks English as well and our productions need to be as good as those in other languages, if not better," says Mac Con Iomaire.
Mac Con Iomaire believes An Taibhdhearc's innovative bi-annual writers' schemes auger well for the future. Inspired by the Druid's Début series, Fuadar Feabhra and Scáilí Shamhna aim to promote a fresh wave of material in Irish and provide an opportunity for aspiring writers to stage their plays.
Among the first crop of writers who benefited was Mícheál Ó Conghaile, whose first full-length play, Cúigear Chonamara, opened on Wednesday. Ó Conghaile is one of Irish literature's most idiosyncratic voices, yet his previous forays into theatre have been restricted to translating Martin McDonagh's plays.
The current board chairman, Gearóid Denvir, believes An Taibhdhearc "is one of the most significant cultural institutions in the west". Embracing the future doesn't mean you have to forget the past and Denvir hopes the 75th anniversary will provide an opportunity to reflect on past glories and look forward to new initiatives.
Among these initiatives is Na Crosáin, a youth theatre that provides training for 40 teenagers in Galway and Ros a' Mhíl. There's also a new scriptwriting competition in honour of Walter Macken with a €7,500 prize fund.
Mick Lally too believes that An Taibhdhearc has a continuing, if shifting, validity. "It's the only outlet left for anyone who wants to stage a play in Irish. The Damer in Dublin is long gone and Amharclann De hÍde seems to be dormant. I remember adjudicating at An Féile Náisiúnta Drámaíochta in Cúil Aodha during the 1970s. I was there for over a week - there were so many full-length plays to be seen. Now there's a real dearth of plays in Irish and An Taibhdhearc is a more crucial resource than ever."
Cúigear Chonamara continues at An Taibhdhearc
Breandán Delap is a programme editor with Nuacht TG4