OnTheTown: Brendan Gleeson, a lead actor in many early plays by Paul Mercier, looked around the foyer of the Abbey Theatre with a sense of nostalgia.
The scene reminded him of another night at the same venue when Mercier's play, Home, was nominated for a Harvey Theatre Award in the late 1980s. On Wednesday night, friends and family came to enjoy the opening night of Mercier's latest play, Homeland.
The actor has just finished acting in a feature-length film of the life of Beowulf with Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich. Later in the year, he hopes to work with John Boorman in a new film, which is set in Dublin, called A Tiger's Tale.
Fiach Mac Conghail, director of the Abbey Theatre, said Mercier's new play "is a reflection of Paul's view of what's happening today" in Ireland.
"It's a rollercoaster. It's more like an expressionistic poem with loads of laughs in it," he added.
Among those at the opening were poets Enda Wyley and Peter Sirr, actors Kate O'Toole, Marion O'Dwyer and Geraldine Plunkett, writer Colm Tóibín, director Garry Hynes, and John Fairleigh, director of the Stewart Parker Trust. The playwright's two daughters, Nell (15) and Sinéad (16), were also in the audience.
Photographer and broadcaster Tom Lawlor said he was delighted to report that his new eight-part series, Eye of the Mind, starts on RTÉ Radio 1 on Saturday, February 25th.
"Before we could speak we could see," he said. The series includes a range of interviews with "people who use imagery to communicate", such as artists, sculptors, psychologists and poets.
Actor Tom Hickey, who chatted to playwright Bernard Farrell afterwards, said he's preparing to tour with Tom MacIntyre's award-winning play, The Gallant John-Joe.
RTÉ Radio 1 producer Seamus Hosey recalled working as a teacher in Greendale Community School in Dublin in the early 1980s alongside Mercier and writers Roddy Doyle and Catherine Dunne.
Homeland,by Paul Mercier, is at the Abbey until Sat, Feb 25