On the Town/Catherine Foley: Theatrical celebration filled the air all week. The applause was long and hearty at Dublin's Abbey Theatre opening of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, in a new version by Tom Murphy.
Also Brian Friel's Philadelphia, Here I Come! opened at the Gaiety Theatre, directed by Adrian Dunbar, while Jimmy Murphy's new play, The Castlecomer Jukebox, directed by Jim Nolan, opened in Waterford's Garter Lane.
The Chekhov play, which is part of the AbbeyOneHundred celebrations, opened to a full house. Among those in the foyer before the performance were executive producer of Riverdance, Julian Erskine and his wife, actor Anita Reeves, waiting nervously to see their daughter, Gemma Reeves, in her first major role on stage and her first performance at the Abbey.
Writer Jennifer Johnston and her daughter, Sarah Smyth, a lecturer in Russian at TCD, posed for a photograph with writer and editor Marie Heaney before the show.
Upstairs, playwright Tom Murphy greeted friends and admirers. Would he stand for a picture with Seamus Heaney, who is involved in similar work producing his own version of Sophocles's Antigone, entitled The Burial of Thebes, which is scheduled to open later this year?
"I don't mind slumming it just this once," joked Murphy, as the writer and the poet shook hands and struck a friendly pose.
Actor Phelim Drew was also treading the Abbey boards in The Cherry Orchard. In the audience his wife, Sue Collins, and his mother, Deirdre Drew, were enthralled. Collins will be opening later this month at the Helix in Funny Girls, with fellow comedians Pom Boyd, Anne Gildea, Tara Flynn and Michelle Read.
Conor Linehan, who composed the music that he describes as "like a Jewish string band" for the Abbey play, was there with his girlfriend, director Fiona Buffini.
Also enjoying the evening was Sheamus Smith, former film censor of Ireland, and his partner, Sheila Hampson, playwright Bernard Farrell, Eithne Healy, chairwoman of the Abbey Theatre and Olive Braiden, chairwoman of the Arts Council.
Stars of the stage and backstage
It was a glitzy night to remember at Dublin's Burlington Hotel for the presentation of The Irish Times/ESB Irish Theatre Awards in Dublin this week.
The Galwegians were out in force to cheer on one of their own. They included Fergal McGrath, of the Druid Theatre, and Rose Parkinson, of the Galway Arts Festival, who came to support Monica Frawley, winner of the Best Designer: Costume Award for her work on The Drunkard, the Tom Murphy adapted play that headlined in Galway last year when it was co-produced by the B*Spoke Theatre Company and the Galway Arts Festival.
Sara Kestelman, who was nominated in the Best Actress category for her role in The Shape of Metal by Thomas Kilroy, flew over from London to attend the gala ceremony. Kilroy was also present to receive the night's Special Tribute Award.
Kilroy's play "was about betrayal and loyalty and . . . having to make selfish choices", said Kestelman, who will soon play the role of a judge in the eighth television series of Lynda La Plante's Trial and Retribution.
Belfast's Lyric Theatre contingent was delighted to be heading home with three of the top awards. Esther Haller-Clarke, the theatre's press officer, proudly listed the recipients: Sabine Dargent, who took the Best Designer: Set Award for the theatre's production of Ghosts, by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Conall Morrison; Frankie McCafferty won the Best Supporting Actor Award for his portrayal of Moore in Frank McGuinness's Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme and Richard Dormer won the Best Actor award for his role as Pyper in the same production.
Michael Colgan was equally proud of the long list of Gate Theatre nominations, which included Lia Williams, who won the Best Actress Award for her role as Alma Winemiller in the Tennessee Williams play, Eccentricities of a Nightingale and Rupert Murray, who won the Best Designer: Lighting Award for his work in the Gate production of Crestfall by Mark O'Rowe. Colgan himself is preparing to co-produce a film with Alan Moloney of the Julie Parsons thriller, Mary, Mary
Across the rooftops
The British ambassador took time out from busy preparations for the visit of Princess Anne to view work by artist Joe Dunne.
Once the routine sniffer dog and Garda search had declared the building safe, Ambassador Stewart Eldon dropped in to the opening of the exhibition at the Jorgensen Fine Art gallery on Dublin's Molesworth Street.
Dunne's abstract work was viewed by a large group of people, including artist Carey Clarke, former president of the Royal Hibernian Academy, who introduced Dunne to using tempera in his paintings. The emulsion paint is mixed by the artist himself using egg yolk, oil and varnish.
"It's a traditional method that goes back to before oil painting," says Dunne, whose wife Tina, and their two daughters, Ailbhe (12) and Cara (10), were also there.
"It dries very quickly and that allows you to build up layer upon layer of paint. You can also scrape it back and make nice textures with it." Among those who came to view the paintings were Prof Dervilla Donnelly and her sister, Kiara Donnelly, as well as the Belgian ambassador, Wilfred Geens.
The images are largely concerned with "the architecture of the suburban landscape", said Dunne, who lives in Ballinteer, Dublin. "When I look out the window I mainly see other houses. Those motifs of the windows and the walls and the roofs, are all basically geometric shapes . . . They are semi-abstract paintings but based on the suburban landscape where I live." He is also interested, he said, in how sunlight casts shadows on shapes.
The Joe Dunne exhibition continues at the Jorgensen Fine Art Gallery, Molesworth Street, Dublin, until Thursday, March 6th
Bono story of the week
Anne-Marie O'Connor celebrated her 29th birthday at a reception in Dublin to mark the publication of her first book. Everyone's Got a Bono Story "has a real sense of affection for Irish people", said Alison Walsh, O'Connor's publishing editor at Tivoli. It stood out because "there was a lightness to it", she said. "It wasn't jaded. I really responded to it. She really captured that relaxed sense of fun that we have here, there was no angst about it, and it's really affectionate to the great man," she added, referring briefly to the rock star himself, Bono.
The writer, who once met Bono in Dublin Castle when she was waitressing, says the story is about a young girl who must meet Bono if she is to honour a bet for €5,000.
O'Connor was expecting some of her 20 cousins to attend the launch in Eason Hanna's Bookshop on Dawson Street this week, as well as her aunts - Rita Fanning from Thurles and Josie O'Keeffe from Mullinahone, Co Tipperary, as well as Moira Behan from the Curragh, Co Kildare. Her father, John O'Connor, who lives in Bradford, England, is originally from Mullinahone. The writer studied economics at Manchester University before coming to Dublin in 2000.