ARTSCAPE:FRANK MCGUINNESS has always been one of our most imaginative playwrights, revealing himself as an original and powerful dramatist in work such as Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, Someone to Watch Over Meand The Factory Girls, writes Gerry Smyth.
He has also been something of a virtuoso in the range of subjects and themes he confronts in his writing: religion, alienation, war, politics, history and, of course, the theatre itself.
Over recent years, and more and more frequently, we hear of his new work from the distance of the British stage. So it’s a welcome return as two of his plays – something old and something new – are set to follow one another in the small space of the Focus Theatre and then the larger one of the Abbey.
As well as his version of Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman, due in the National Theatre as part of the forthcoming Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival, one of his early plays, Baglady, opens in Focus on Tuesday.
It is 25 years since Bagladywas performed in Dublin – in the Abbey – and on this occasion Maria McDermottroe takes on the role under Caroline Fitzgerald's direction. The production also marks a Focus debut for McGuinness.
Perhaps Dublin audiences might soon be given the opportunity to see McGuinness's Greta Garbo Came to Donegalwhich, when it opened in London earlier this year, was feted by several British critics as his best new work for some time.
Birthday bash for artists’ retreat
SEÁN O Flaithearta, Pádraic Reaney, Sharon Lynch, Eoin Butler, Arno Kramer, Hardy Langer, Brendan O'Suilleabháin . . . almost 40 Irish and international artists have spent time on that most westerly of arts centres, Áras Éanna on Inis Oírr, which celebrates its 10th birthday this weekend, writes Lorna Siggins.
“10 mBliana ag Fás” is the title of the collective exhibition opened last night by one of the centre’s former directors, Val Ballance, now with the Arts Council. The party, with the Inis Óírr céilí band and set dancers, Pat Quinn and The Unwanted with Cathy Jordan, wasn’t on the island, though – for very practical reasons.
As current director Mairéad Ní Ghallchóir explains, Áras Éanna has been hit by financial cutbacks, like everywhere else. The centre is determined to continue with its residencies, and so over 30 artists who’ve spent time or exhibited there, or both, have donated work to raise funds.
Once a weaving factory, the centre lay derelict for some time before artist Mick Mulcahy spent time there in the 1990s. The island co-op, Comhar Caomhan Teo, then commissioned Aonghus McCann, a Dublin architect, to redesign it. Building owner Údarás na Gaeltachta, the Arts Council and the former Department of Arts, Heritage, the Gaeltacht helped pay for refurbishment.
Best known for her work with TG4's Ros na Rún, and formerly with traditional music groups Altan and Macalla, Donegal-born Ní Ghallchóir has been director since February 2009. She has a busy season ahead, with Dr Janet Harbison playing harp tomorrow, a weekend of art tuition by Dara McGee on August 21st and 22nd, singer Sean Tyrrell on August 20th, a festival of traditional arts with Leonie King, Dolores Lyne and Alec Finn on September 3rd to 5th and Dublin singer/
songwriter Damien Dempsey playing on September 25th.
Traditional basketmakers Máirtín Taimín agus Tomás Taimín displayed some of their work last night, and the art exhibition runs at the Town Hall Theatre for a month, moving in September to Ballinasloe library. By then, Ní Ghallchóir hopes, the paintings will all bear red stickers and won’t be making the journey back west . . .
For the centre’s programme, check araseanna.ie or tel 099-75150.
