IT'S universally acknowledged within the Irish theatre industry - and it is still a peculiarly unrecognised form of industry - that there is a serious venues crisis in Dublin. A truly Irish crisis, in the sense that it's been going on for years.
Most recently, it's been exacerbated by the Project Arts Centre closing its beloved (and often accursed) hand built premises in Essex Street, and shrinking into the 120 seater Mint space in, Henry Place. Meanwhile, Project awaits the construction of its new, glittering building on the old Temple Bar site: one main 250-300 seater theatre, and a more experimental "Cube", seating maybe 120.
But that'll be a long time coming, projected optimistically at late 1998/early 1999. In the meantime, independent theatre companies, both regional and Dublin based, clamber too find a suitable place to strut their stuff.
Ponger it. All over the country there is a network of small to medium range, purpose built venues: Cork's Everyman, Waterford's Garter Lane, Tralee's Siamse Tire, Limerick's Belltable, Sligo's Hawkswell, Longford's Backstage, Kilkenny's Watergate, etc. It seems incredible that, considering the concentration of population, there isn't a serious, recently built theatre in the country's urban capital. And while the Arts Council's 1994 audience survey showed overall theatre audiences to have grown enormously in the preceding 15 years, the growth in rural areas, at more than 100 per cent, far outstripped that in urban areas.
The Auditor and Comptroller General's Report on the Abbey, published two days ago, takes us back to the situation of 1995, when the now defunct Groundwork were working out of the Gaiety, and the Riverbank and the SFX were still functioning theatres. The Abbey then cited as a difficulty the overcapacity of theatre seats in Dublin.
Since then, the Abbey has experienced a slow, steady increase in both audiences and revenue. But, in any case, the question is surely not how many seats we have, but in what kind of houses, and a detailed study of infrastructure and audience is very much needed.
If companies from outside Dublin - and not just heavyweights like Druid or Red Kettle, but say, Sligo's extraordinary Blue Raincoat Company (who have never visited Dublin) or Cork's Corcadorcha want to come to Dublin, they have the headache of choosing between the prohibitory costings of a variety of not entirely suitable venues.
There are the commercial theatres: the Tivoli (£8,000 rental per week for a 540 seater, with maximum seating, before you consider running costs), with its image, outside Theatre Festival time, as a populist, comedy driven venue. Or there is Andrews Lane (220 seats £2 600 a week) with a shallow, difficult stage.
If you want to go perilously up market, there is the Olympia (£18,000 per week), part owned by MCD and keeping itself afloat with late night rock gigs. The Olympia's theatrical programme is now dominated by big, musical theatre buy ins; as is often the Gaiety (ditto, rent wise), now taken over by the Break for the Border group.
Even among subsidised theatres, the Abbey doesn't take in outside shows because, well, traditionally it simply doesn't. Its celebrated "remit" is as a production house, not a receiving one. And even considering the dark months in the Peacock late last year, suitable companies would not have been able to afford the astronomical union bound rents.
You've also got Trinity College's laboratory space, the Samuel Beckett, an ill established, if relatively well provided space. The Project's Mint is simply too small to be commercially viable. Then there is the City Arts Centre, a pillar ridden, accoustically challenged space, along a number of other problematic venues.
The problem is felt, just as sharply, by the dozen or so maturer Dublin based companies, followed by a plethora of younger companies snapping at their heels (Pan Pan Loose Cannon, etc.). The Rough Magics and Passion Machines have long outgrown the old Project - and certainly the Mint, with their more ambitious shows - and so, a constipative bottle neck has resulted.
There is simply no medium scale theatre into which these companies can expand, which really seems a shockingly wasteful neglect of world class product. To prove the point, Druid routinely romp off from Galway to London (bypassing Dublin entirely), while Rough Magic, Pigsback and a number of others regularly evaporate onto the London stage.
Efforts have been made by a network of Dublin companies - as well as the Association of Regional Theatre Producers - to appeal to the Arts Council to make available venue rental subsidies. These detailed suggestions were submitted as part of the Theatre Review process last year, and then imported into the rhetorical Going On Policy document its informed optimis beginning to wear a little thin in the wake of this year's grant awards.
This year, the Project was given a modest increase (to £17,000) in its grant to take in regional work. The City Arts Centre was given a small £3,000 as a start up programming grant. ,But, most surprisingly, Andrews Lane Theatre received, for the first time in its seven years of existence, a guarantee against loss of £35,000 for, hosting independent companies.
One stipulation - unique among such programming grants - is that director Pat Moylan must use it to subsidise only those companies already funded by the Arts Council. Also, the benefits must be divided - although there is no strict quota here - between regional and Dublin based companies.
There are a number of new venue proposals floating about - for example, to redevelop the National Ballroom - but perhaps the most interesting was the ill fated North Lotts Warehouse Project, headed up by director Vanessa Fielding and Vesuvius Arts.
They conceived the idea of a flexible, in the round, 400 seater theatre on Abbey Street, with a commercial, seater club downstairs. Designed by architect Desmond Fitzgerald, the project received backing from property developer Cyril O'Brien, who bought the building and pledged £1.5 for refushishment as the required 50 per cent capital quota demanded by the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht.
Everything seemed ideal for a go ahead, but the Department spent 18 months looking at it; and the application was turned down last July. Now, without a backer Vesuvius is battling ahead with a similar proposal, this time in Collins Barracks. The feasibility study has been supported, unusually, by Dublin Corporation (to the tune of £11,250).
THIS case certainly deserves a wider hearing, but it has been overtaken by a gob smacking announcement last week of the Arts Council's vast new multi purpose Performing Arts Centre, to be located somewhere in the mostly, derelict North Docklands area. Announced exuberantly by Council member Laura Magahy (and Chief Executive of Temple Bar Properties) in last week's Irish Times Property supplement, it was followed the same day by a press statement from the Arts Council executive.
Without any formal, consultation with the Abbey, the latter has been cited by the Arts Council as anchor tenant in the new building which, apart from a £30 million price tag and a specification of three auditoria (1,800, 650 and, 200 seats) does not seem to have received any but the most outline, feasibility study; nor any detailed exploration of its financial, social, managerial, or artistic impact on the sectors (opera, dance, theatre) whose needs it claims to address.
Not even a site has been agreed, although interestingly, Magahy has recently been appointed to the board of CIE, which owns a substantial part of the docklands area. But then, this is election year, and there is a rush to appoint a board to the new Docks Development Authority within the life time of this government. Meanwhile, the Arts Council proposal has been accepted into the overall Docklands plan drafted by the Riverrun consortium, and architect Sean O'Laoire.
As Arts Council director, Patricia Quinn, puts it, the vision of such a national scale centre is an enormous leap of faith which will open up a healthy and timely debate. Certainly, it will generate a sizzling argument on many of its imponderables - not least who will fund its construction, or in deed its maintenance. It remains to be seen how divisive that debate can be, even within the ranks of the Arts Council it sell, which up to now has always presented a unified and determined face - for all its internal political and ideological variegations.
