The news this week that the Office of Public Works, on behalf of the Department of the Arts, has identified three possible locations for a new home for the National Theatre must have brought some comfort to that beleaguered institution. This renewal of commitment was a clear indication that the State is not going to abandon the Abbey in these difficult times.
It provided a positive note in an otherwise dire week for the theatre, but whether the Government might now be willing to come forward with a once-off injection of capital to get the books back in order is another matter.
While such an intervention would be a remedy to the immediate crisis, the root-and-branch problems - more often alluded to than elucidated - of the Abbey still have to be tackled, and this, quite rightly, is likely to be a prerequisite before any extra State subsidy is provided to alleviate the mounting deficit.
How, and whether, the various interests represented on the proposed review party can come to agreement on dealing with the staffing, management and structure issues remains to be seen. This group still has to contend with proposals to reduce staff by a third - and the consequences of such severe cuts. That proposition is clearly still on the table and appears now to be part of a more comprehensive restructuring blueprint for the future of the theatre, according to the artistic director, Ben Barnes.
The threat earlier in the week to the future of the artistic director is, for now, short-lived. After the initial e.g.m. motion of no confidence it appears that he convinced board members and shareholders that it was unfair to scapegoat him for the extent of the theatre's problems. Of course, he alone is not the architect of the situation facing the Abbey today. What was not heard from him at the emergency meeting to which he rushed home from Australia, was a defence of his artistic policy, nor indeed any word of responsibility for the overambitious centenary programme that ran ahead of the money to fund it.
But, the extraordinary self-serving document which he has circulated to a group of "international colleagues" in the theatre business beggars belief. It is difficult to envisage how Mr Barnes can continue to work with a board which he accuses in the document of putting a "most serious constraint" on his voice and at which he seems to feel aggrieved for taking "a more proactive role in this latest crisis".
The latter is both the right and the duty of the board: a duty that perhaps it should have attended to earlier in the process of deterioration in the Abbey's finances.