Abbey 100 Part 4: The road ahead: In his small office, several shabby flights up in the building that in the organisation's centenary year remains the unbecoming home of Ireland's national theatre, Ben Barnes is defending his artistic programme for the year ahead.

It sits on a low table between us, slick, almost incongruously modern with its minimalist white cover and thin red lettering; abbeyonehundred, it reads.

Although it features work from Poland, Hungary and Slovenia, as well as new plays by Eugene O'Brien, Colm Tóibín and Paul Mercier, among others, and although if offers more than 20 productions over the course of the year, the programme faces the same charges that have been levelled at Barnes and his artistic direction of the Abbey over the four years of his tenure: familiarity, conservatism, a heavy reliance on revivals as proven
crowd-pleasers and a dearth of new voices on the directing front.

Practised by now at rebuffing criticism – he refers to the more newsworthy productions of his time at the helm, most frequently mentioning Barbaric Comedies, the Abbey’s 2000 collaboration with the Spanish director Calixto Bieito, and Hinterland, Sebastian Barry’s controversial drama based on the life of the former taoiseach Charles Haughey – Barnes claims to be baffled by negative reactions to the programme.

"I am genuinely nonplussed at the idea that people could see what we do as in any way retrogressive or conservative," he says. "And I think it is unfair to say that a programme that has yet to unfold, particularly with the new work, is not reflecting a modern ethos or a modern Ireland.

We’re bringing in ground-breaking companies from abroad, forging relationships with companies whose directors we hope to be able to bring here.

We’re trying to open the debate between the way we make theatre, which is very much a writer’s theatre, and the European way of making theatre, which is much more to do with the director, the auteur, to do with a more visual theatre."

But although Barnes has produced a centenary programme of which he, at least, is proud, he admits that change is due. "I think the time is coming when the remit of the Abbey, and its mission as a national theatre, need to be looked at," he says.

Some would argue that the time for re-examination has come and gone already, but Barnes has an eye on the future: January 1st next year, to be precise, when what he calls Act 2 of the Abbey story begins. Asked by the board to provide a template for the future shape of the theatre, he responded by producing a document – a document he retrieves from his
desk now to read aloud.

Although still in draft form, it is lucid, pointing out that the Abbey can no longer define itself by the development of a canon of Irish dramatic literature. It is no longer, he goes on, the only producer of new writing here; new writing is a high priority for every theatre company in the country.

Meanwhile, the document continues, the recent transformation of the economy, together with greater integration of the EU and access to global markets and influences, has made Irish theatre-goers "more sophisticated and demanding", more expectant of excellence and less tolerant of the "trial-and-error developmental ethos which characterises much of the work of the Abbey".

Combine these two perceptions – of a diminution of the Abbey’s responsibility to produce new writing and of an audience that demands only perfectly realised work from its national theatre – and what emerges is a proposal that, at first glance, will alarm many.

Talking of the need to emphasise quality over quantity, Barnes believes the Abbey may best serve young writers, directors and designers by allowing them to pursue their art "behind closed doors".

It all seems to point to a depressing paucity of new writing at the Abbey in the future, in favour of something altogether more polished. "Well, that’s what your headline is going to be, and that’s not what I want," Barnes interjects.

"It’s not that there will be a radical diminishment of new writing onstage or that we won’t continue to service it. It’s that we will do it in a different way."

Although at this stage only an idea, and requiring, he adds, endorsement by "a lot of people whose voices will have to be heard", Barnes’s plan for the post-centenary Abbey seems to be a direct response to the problem identified by the judges of this year’s Irish Times ESB Irish Theatre Awards: new writing all too often finds itself onstage before it is ready.

"I would advocate the setting up of a proper studio for the interrogation and development of this type of work," says Barnes.

"Not just for workshopping new plays but for workshopping ideas, things that might not be as textually driven as the type of work that we are producing at the moment, out of which will come, hopefully, new ways of making theatre."

It’s encouraging news, as is Barnes’s suggestion that, as audiences move away from traditional social and religious mores, the Abbey should reconsider the priority it gives to revivals of plays from the canon.

And, after this double curtailment, in the space that remains, Barnes proposes to tackle the problem of how the Abbey can be the voice for a "fractured and fractional, multicultural nation". There will be, he says, a greater concentration on international work, on international writers, directors and designers.

But studios, and international productions, don’t come cheap, and the Abbey has been vociferous in recent years about the cuts it has suffered in Arts Council funding. Rolling out the figures – a 9 per cent cut in 2002, followed by a 15 per cent cut last year and a near return to the 2002 figure with this year’s €4.5 million – Barnes proposes overhauling the way the theatre garners its income, driven by the establishment of an income-development office.

He talks about sponsorship, about switching the theatre to a "seasonal model" – in which the Abbey programme would run for 40 rather than the current 52 weeks, with a separate summer run geared unabashedly towards capitalising on the tourist season – and, most enthusiastically of all, about setting up a subscription base for the theatre, by which patrons would purchase tickets for the season ahead as a package.

And then there is the trust for the Abbey recently set up in the US and fundraising nights such as the one held in New York shortly before Christmas. It all revolves around one key insight. "The Abbey is a brand name, not just in Ireland but internationally," Barnes says.

He claims not to have heard the whispers surrounding his choice of John McColgan, the Riverdance producer, to direct the Abbey’s summer run of Dion Boucicault’s The Shaughraun despite the fact that McColgan – a member of the Abbey board, chair of the centenary subcommittee, generous sponsor of the arts and instrumental figure in organising the New York fund-raiser – has never directed for theatre before.

He dismisses as ridiculous any suggestion that the arrangement may comprise another, less official step towards greater financial health for the Abbey, insisting that his approach to McColgan came long before his involvement as chairman and talking of "the panache, the theatricality, the zest" McColgan might bring to the play.

"It’s a sort of risk-taking venture on our part," he argues.

Why not, then, take a further risk by including other first-time directors in the programme, or even one Irish director under the age of 35? There follows the first, and only, pause of the interview.

"I don’t really see it as a fair comparison," he resumes. "I would hope that we have done and continue to do our bit in terms of bringing on young directors here. And there will be a lot of other directors coming in for the series of readings as well."

That series, due to take place in October, has been another contentious element in the centenary programme, with some expressing disappointment that the chance has not been taken to produce rather than simply to read plays by Lady Gregory, one of the Abbey’s founders, as well as by less familiar playwrights such as T. C. Murray and Walter Macken.

Ultimately, says Barnes, the decision not to stage some of the plays was a practical one; the physical limitations of the building, with a restrictive stage that has long been the bane of directors and performers alike, do not allow for the more elaborate scenography called for by works such as Spreading The News and Home Is The Hero.

It’s the sort of allusion to the unsatisfactory state of the Abbey’s home that crops up constantly in conversation with Barnes. It’s there, too, when he’s asked about the challenge of audience development, of attracting new patrons, from diverse communities, into what is widely considered, in the case of the Abbey at least, to be a conservative fold.

The problem, he counters, is not one of age or class profile but one that has much to do with a lack of comfort and accessibility. "I think there is a genuine attrition going on in a theatre like this, that the older the building gets, and the more problems there are with it, the less attractive it is for people to come into it. And it’s another reason why, in the short to medium term, it isn’t acceptable for this theatre to be in this building any more."

Two years after the political debacle that saw the Abbey’s option to redevelop its existing premises rather than relocate endorsed and then enforced by the Government and the then minister for the arts, Síle de Valera, the future of the Abbey as a building remains undecided.

Many lament the loss of the spacious Docklands site at Grand Canal Harbour, blaming the Abbey for bungling the chance or the Government for refusing it, but Barnes won’t be drawn much on who dropped the ball, as he puts it, in 2001.

"Things," he says, "are at a very delicate stage."

What he will share, however, are the possibilities the Abbey feels to be open to it. Its own study, in consultation with the Office of Public Works over the past 18 months, has demonstrated a difficulty with keeping the theatre on its existing site. "We would have to extensively extend the footprint of the theatre," he says, "probably up to four times its present size." This may be the option under investigation, but it is not, he reveals, the only one.

Which may come as a surprise to those who believed the Government’s stand had bound the Abbey to its present site. "If inability to acquire new property, or expense attached to that option, makes it impossible or prohibitive, then of course the theatre is going to look at other options," insists Barnes. "And there are other options.

The Grand Canal Harbour site is still available, and they have been calling for tenders on that recently. The Custom House is now vacated, and that has been spoken of as a potential site for a performing arts centre, and the Carlton site [on O’Connell Street] is still available."

If they are forced to remain on the Abbey Street site, however, Barnes envisages that the interim period of homelessness, which may last for two years, will be spent on tour. "Although it’s important, for the profile of the theatre, to continue to have some base in the city as well," he says, "it would be an opportunity for us, for example, to do seasons in other cities and towns as opposed to just going for a week to Cork and a week to Galway."

Managers of regional venues might almost wish to see the Abbey pinned once more to its present site by de Valera’s successor, John O’Donoghue, such is their wish to see the Abbey on the road once more. Angered by what they perceive as the trickling away of the Abbey’s touring remit in recent years, with the theatre failing outright to tour last year, some venue managers outside Dublin have dismissed the Abbey’s relevance as a national theatre.

They have also dismissed the Abbey’s explanation for its immobility – the axing of Arts Council touring grants – pointing to examples of companies with far less money that still managed to tour. But Barnes insists that, although touring is a priority for the Abbey, it is one that has been stymied by diminishing resources.

"If we had toured in 2003, we would have had to institute redundancies in certain areas of the operation here. And I felt that, if we cut staff, we would have been compromising the productions that we sent out on the road."

Touring is to resume this year, with The Playboy Of The Western World travelling to seven venues around the country in the summer, and Barnes hopes it will reinvigorate the theatre’s touring remit.

Barnes’s vision of the Abbey’s future is multifaceted and ambitious. He talks not only about major changes, such as the establishment of a studio and of a subscription base, but also about smaller ones, such as Sunday performances and earlier starting times, to facilitate those who need to be up early for the drive to work.

To make all of this a reality, he will have to convince the Abbey’s board, its stakeholders, its staff, its artists and, not least, its audience. But he’s confident, because he thinks changes have to come in Irish theatre, and for Irish audiences, as a matter of survival.

"This is a watershed moment," he says. "And if we don’t regard this as the moment where we frankly sit down and look at the administrative and corporate structure of this organisation, at the artistic remit, at what new performance model to put together for the theatre . . . and this is not lip service . . . if we don’t seize this opportunity, I don’t think history will forgive us."

Series concluded