ArtScape: It sounds like it'll be a hit of the Dublin Fringe and Theatre Festivals this autumn. The Famous Spiegeltent, built in 1920 by Belgian mastercraftsmen and host to countless performers internationally - Marlene Dietrich sang Falling in Love Again within its hallowed canvases - is on its way to the capital.
The Dublin Fringe festival, in association with the Dublin Theatre Festival, is pitching the tent - built of wood, mirrors, canvas, leaded glass and decorated with brocade and velvet - in Wolfe Tone Park, beside the Jervis Street Centre. Fringe director Vallejo Gantner, who introduced it to the Melbourne festival in 2001, is behind the effort to get it to Dublin. The Spiegeltent will have a bar and catering and will host a variety of Fringe shows throughout the festival (September 22nd - October 11th). Gantner promises tap, tango, contemporary dance, readings, discussions and debates, as well as lots of world music, in the tent, and late at night it will become Clubspiegel, a joint Fringe and Theatre Festival club. There are only a few Spiegeltents, "tents of mirrors", left in the world, and this huge (320 square metres) temporary pavilion will hopefully be a physical manifestation of the two festivals in the city centre, as well as a festival club to remember.
It will be autumn, and we do have a dodgy climate (hence little tradition of this sort of mallarky up to now), but Gantner says the sturdy Spiegeltent can withstand a Force-9 gale.
Meanwhile, Dublin Theatre Festival announced its programme this week, with an emphasis on serious, quality theatre, and lots of it, rather than more showbizzy productions. As well as crossing divides - with opera in the Belgian production of The Woman Who Walked into Doors, music in Friel's Performances at the Gate, and dance with Fabulous Beast's Giselle - the line-up features more co-productions (and co-operative and partnership funding arrangements) than in previous years. As well as the cream of Irish companies (Thomas Kilroy's the Shape of Metal at the Abbey, Druid's Sharon's Grave, Barabbas's Hurl), the festival features provocative, large-scale international works - Rina Yerusalmi's powerful Israeli production of Mythos, Lepage's
the far side of the moon, Calixto Bieto's Hamlet, coming here after Edinburgh. And then there's RSC's Lieutenant of Inishmore.
There's an increase in the number of performances and director Fergus Linehan has decided to run shows for longer during the two weeks (September 29th-October 11th), as well as having more matinees. Indeed, the festival is putting a lot of effort into marketing itself abroad - hence the earlier launch date - and Linehan
pointed out that Dublin is a particularly good value theatre destination from Britain, with shows which would be be priced £40 there, costing, say €25 (or €15 for matinees) here. With more performances, Linehan is budgeting for higher box office returns than last year - the festival hopes to sell 20 per cent more tickets - and he's bullish about this. He's also bullish about the strength and quality of the programme, not least the presence of Arthur Miller, who's coming over for a public interview (by Joe Dowling, in association with Critical Voices), a reading of Resurrection Blues, and an open discussion with Irish writers.
Miller, who Linehan describes as managing to make "social and political interventions" without being didactic, is part of the European Stages programme on Playing Politics, looking at the role of drama in society, the repoliticisation of theatre and its role in contemporary global criticism.
At the programme launch last Wednesday, new chairman Peter Crowley talked about the educational and discursive role of the festival. He also praised the "enlightened support" from the corporate sector, which he says doesn't always receive the recognition it deserves.
He stressed that sponsorship is a necessary addition to, not substitution for, Government funding. Irish theatre is renowned, he said, and a world beater, and it is essential not to pull back from supporting the arts. See www.dublintheatrefeatival.com or phone 01-6778899 for bookings.
Anger management
In Reginald Rose's courtroom drama, Twelve Angry Men, filmed in 1957 with Henry Fonda, a jury in a murder trial is about to find the defendant guilty until convinced otherwise by one doubting member. A stage production recently had a long run in Dublin, at Andrews Lane, transferring to the Olympia. Tony Hancock and Sid James spoofed it decades ago in a TV show, and now another bunch of comics - playing straight - will breathe new life into the old theatrical warhorse at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Two of them, Owen O'Neill and Ian Coppinger, are Irish, with O'Neill (who developed the idea with director Guy Masterson) taking the Fonda role. The other 10 are Bill Bailey (who co-starred with Dylan Moran in C4's Black Books), Steve Furst (better known as Lenny Beige), Stephen Frost, Jeff Green, Dave Johns, David Calvitto, Phil Nichol, Andy Smart, Gavin Robertson and veteran Scottish actor Russell Hunter. It opens today at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, and runs until Monday, August 25th. See www.edfringe.com
Cork the new Rome?
Placing Cork as a cultural location equal to Rome or Venice is the challenge embraced by the executive of Cork European Capital of Culture 2005, writes Mary Leland. Announcing a few details of a 100-event programme for the year, director John Kennedy said some of the productions include the largest community-based spectacles seen in Ireland, while there will also be smaller, area-led events. More than 70 per cent of the programme will be unveiled later this year, with the full programme expected to be in place by next spring. A definitive exhibition of Cork silver and gold from 1605 to 2005 is one of the more prominent commitments. Its location is so far presumed to be at the Crawford Gallery and although its curator must remain anonymous at their own
request, the plan is that this will have the potential for an international tour subsequent to 2005.
Another long-life possibility is the Capital of Culture soccer tournament in which teams from cities which have had or are about to have the designation will meet in Cork; the city list includes Graz, Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, Madrid and Lisbon playing, as Kennedy said, "where soccer is played in Cork".
Venues will be a critical factor - where, for example, will they hang the Knitting Map, based on satellite photographs of the city and will involve 5,000 knitters to produce the biggest knitted wall-hanging in the world? "First catch your sheep," is the response in Cork 2005.
Author and playwright Conal Creedon has been commissioned to complete his "Second City" trilogy for presentation during the year, which will also feature dedicated television and film documentaries. Hopefully by the time the cameras start rolling Cork will have abandoned the public negativity encountered by John Kennedy, whose task is not only to fund the year-long
programme but to reveal the scale and significance of the year to the country, the world and crucially to Cork itself.
And furthermore . . .
• About the days, the first show from Muse Productions (Yvonne O'Reilly and Maureen Buggy), is an experimental work to be staged next Saturday in Project, Temple Bar, Dublin, after a short, intense rehearsal period. Contemporary short stories by Irish writers (Colum McCann, Michael Gleeson, Paul Lenehan, Michael Wynne, Susan Knight) will be presented as performance and sound sculpture, with actors Andrew Bennett, Ned Dennehy, Charlie Bonner and Rachel Hanna. The aim is fuse contemporary short-story writing and theatrical performance, with an emphasis on voice and sound technology. About the days, August 9th, Project Cube, 8.15 p.m.
• Dublin's Gaiety Theatre is the subject of BBC Radio 4's The Palace of Laughter next Tuesday (11.30 a.m.). The enjoyably nostalgic series, hosted by Geoffrey Wheeler, profiles the few famous music halls still in business. Wheeler talks to
chief executive John Costigan, George McFall, who was stage manager from 1947 to 1993, former managing director Fred O'Donovan and national treasure Maureen Potter, and plays records by some of the legendary stars who have trodden the Gaiety boards.
• Dublin City Council continues its Opera in the Open series on Thursdays at 1 p.m. at the amphitheatre at the Wood Quay civic offices. Excerpts form Alceste, Manon Lescaut, Idomeneo and L'Elisir D'Amore under David Wray's musical direction are presented with narration from musicologist Ted Courtney (until August 28th).
