IN A GLOOMY week, it is nice to know that at least one established Irish institution is not in crisis. Having been on the brink of extinction just three years ago, the Abbey Theatre is now, at least in institutional terms, healthier than it has ever been.
The announcement by the Arts Council of €30.2 million in funding for the national theatre over the next three years gives it, not just the resources to match its reputation as one of the world's most important theatre companies, but also a framework of stability in which innovation and risk-taking should be possible.
The Government, and indeed the taxpayer, can take pride in this implicit recognition that artistic endeavour is not an optional extra but an essential aspect of national life. This serious commitment of public money does, of course, bring with it a heightened sense of expectation and a new set of responsibilities.
Those responsibilities lie with both the theatre and with the State. The Government, for its part, must bring clarity to the tedious saga of the Abbey's proposed relocation. The Minister of State in charge of the OPW, Martin Mansergh, has restated the Government's position that the Abbey will move to a new landmark building on George's Dock. But there has been no real progress on this plan.
In the meantime, there is a growing sense that the plan may be a now-outdated expression of Celtic Tiger grandiosity. The clever, and relatively cheap, redesign of the Abbey's main auditorium has led many theatregoers to wonder why relocation is necessary at all.
The Abbey itself, meanwhile, has a responsibility to address a situation that is not of its making but that nonetheless has serious implications for Irish theatre as a whole. The Abbey's annual funding is now four times larger than that of the next three biggest theatre companies - The Gate, Druid and Rough Magic - put together. It also has, as the others do not, the luxury of knowing its funding three years in advance. This gives the Abbey a position of extraordinary dominance in the theatre marketplace, and makes it all the more crucial that this power is used sensitively and responsibly. The kind of situation that arose recently when the Abbey effectively prevented Druid from presenting a cycle of Sean O'Casey plays by buying up the rights should not be allowed to happen again.
In return for the faith the public has shown in its future, the Abbey must see itself as the guardian, not just of its own traditions, but of Irish theatre as a whole.