Artscape: Wednesday's announcement by Arts Minister John O'Donoghue of the acquisition by the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) of a trilogy of works by Irish artist James Coleman is notable in several respects, writes Aidan Dunne.
First there's the fact that the reaction of most Irish people to the news is likely to be "James who?" For, while Coleman has been around for several decades, it might seem that he is a prophet little-honoured in his own country. Actually that isn't quite fair because, at least within the art world, his work is well known and highly regarded.
Then there's the cost. Ordinarily, IMMA simply couldn't afford the €1.3 million price tag attached to Coleman's trilogy of slide-projected works (the only complete set available): Background, Lapsus Exposure and Initials, all made between 1991 and 1994.
The acquisition was made possible by the Heritage Fund which was established in 2001 with a budget of just under €12.7 million, over a five-year period, for the acquisition of artefacts of national significance for the national collections, with a minimum value of just over €300,000. The five-body Council of National Cultural Institutions (Museum, Gallery, Library, Archive and IMMA) decides what merits purchasing. This year's monetary allocation is in excess of €2.5 million, which means that IMMA has done well to win €1.3 million for a set of late 20th century artworks.
Coleman was born in Co Roscommon in 1941. An Italian scholarship brought him to Milan in 1970 and he quickly built up a formidable reputation in Europe and further afield. His many performance, slide-tape, video and film installation projects have strong literary and dramatic elements, sometimes recalling Beckett. Highly formalised, relating to the nature of myth, identity and representation, they can be difficult viewing, beloved by art theorists but definitely challenging rather than entertaining for the spectator. The artist has the reputation of being a perfectionist, and the logistics involved in staging many of his installations can be daunting and expensive, which perhaps helps to account for the fact that we haven't seen many of them here - though you've probably already seen his work Strongbow in the IMMA collection. Meanwhile there is a retrospective in the pipeline at IMMA. The last retrospective here was at the Douglas Hyde Gallery in 1982.
'Playboy' in New York
My, but they didn't like the Abbey's Playboy in New York (it's now on a US tour). Charles Isherwood in the New York Times described Ben Barnes's production as "self-conscious, wayward and dispiritingly grim" and said that while he might be trying to update Synge's vision for a new century, in doing so he "stamped out a generous portion of its ebullient spirit", forgetting that the play must first be "competent as a comedy". He takes issue with "stylistic gimmicks", the "generally grotesque mood" and thinks the costumes are "ludicrously dirty, as are many of the actors' faces". He concludes: "Synge's gorgeously melodic language is left intact but somehow the play comes across as one long dirge."
In Variety, Marilyn Stasio described the production as "mannered", a "dreary interpretation" and "too weird for words", thrusting the "gorgeous lyric masterpiece" into an "alienating Expressionist framework that drains it of the folkloric imagination". Pegeen is a "sourpuss", Christy is like a "young Frankenstein's monster" but Olwen Fouère's Widow Quin is "a gorgeous broad with long yellow hair and a womanly lust for 'the gallant hairy fellows'".
In Boston, on the other hand, the Globe, in the voice of Ed Siegel, said the "thrill - or at least the danger - is gone". He found it "far too reverential" and wrote: "when you see a foreign company showcasing one of its native sons, you expect something different than you get Stateside" and that there was not much of "an Abbey stamp on the acting".
Can't please everybody.
What next for the Abbey?
And what about the Abbey on home turf? As the reviews and restructuring continue, and some temporary reprieves have been granted to some whose jobs were axed, what's coming up on the stages? The Shaughraun returns for the Christmas season, hopefully restocking the kitty (it opens on November 24th and runs until the end of January). In the meantime, the Peacock is dark save for Open House, a project where theatre artists are invited to submit a proposal "to excavate, interrogate, develop or define an artistic impulse or idea". This is a "pilot for an Abbey laboratory which may in future form part of the theatre's artistic facilities".
But in terms of public performances, the Peacock is barren, and the box office cannot take bookings beyond the Shaughraun run. While the new programme has still not been announced, there are rumours of a high-profile transfer of an independent musical production which was a hit at the Dublin Theatre Festival to the main Abbey stage in the spring.
But for other shows, an interview with Ben Barnes in a Guardian supplement on Dublin published more information than has been released to the Irish public. Alongside Barnes's chat about Dublin's love affair with the stage was a panel of his choice of five nights at the theatre, presumably for visiting audiences. One Gate production figured - Bernard Farrell's Many Happy Returns, and the others are all at the National Theatre. As well as The Shaughraun, he named Deirdre by Vincent Woods at the Abbey, Enlightenment by Shelagh Stephenson at the Peacock and Ibsen's A Doll's House at the Abbey.
Curtains for Cafe Theatre
One of the side effects of Bewley's impending closure is the loss of the Café Theatre on Grafton Street as a venue. Over the past five years the gem of a little theatre space in the city centre has a range of high-quality work by Irish writers, and it's a sad prospect that Bewley's Café Theatre's lights must dim along with the café itself. The penultimate show there will be the Irish première of the one-man show Playing Burton (this is the 20th anniversary of Richard Burton's death), written and directed by Mark Jenkins. Jenkins lives in Cardiff and his latest play Rosebud, a solo show about the life of Orson Welles, won a Fringe First in Edinburgh this year. (Playing Burton is at Bewley's Café Theatre from November 23rd to 27th). Oscar Wilde's The Remarkable Rocket, adapted by the artistic director of Bewley's Café Theatre, Michael James Ford, will be at the theatre during its final days, with two shows on November 28th and lunchtime on November 29th and 30th. The end of an era.
'Doldrum' woos Montreal
The French-language première of Hilary Fannin's play Doldrum Bay at Montreal's Theatre La Licorne is a big success, writes Karen Fricker. The critical response has been enthusiastic, and the next two weeks of performances are sold out.
"A good play, gifted actors, a director with all the tricks of the trade: what more could anyone want?" asked Dominique Lachance in La Journal de Montreal, admiring the "cynical, ironic, and malicious" tone of Fannin's writing as well as the "intelligence and acuity" of the questions the play asks about whither life after 40. The Radio Canada reviewer loved the play's "humour and deliciously snappy comebacks". Fannin is "a dramatist of impressive talent and maturity", agreed Anne-Marie Cloutier in La Presse.
"It's surprising that she hasn't been recognised here before." Hervé Guay in Le Devoir admired the connections Fannin makes between the spiritual drift of her characters and that of contemporary Ireland, though he queried the choice to set the play on a beach: "The concept burdens the satire and its poetic flights, which lose some of their meaning by being so firmly anchored in the sand." Other critics, however, accepted the convention and admired how far director Philippe Soldevila had extended it to the point, for example, that what flows out of a wine bottle is not "a frisky little Chilean" (or, in François Letourneau's well-reviewed translation, "un petit Chilean bien musclé"), but sand.
All critics agreed that the performances of the four central performers are superb, and that the casting and writing are allowing several well-known Quebec actors to stretch their range impressively. While another production moving into the space prevents Doldrum Bay being extended beyond its scheduled closing date of November 27th, La Licorne is considering adding matinée performances to accommodate audience demand.
