THE richness of Irish theatre at the moment much to the fact that it is no longer really possible to talk about Irish theatre" any more. There is no single movement, no simple institutional framework within which the diversity of forms and voices can be easily contained. The only certainties for 1997 are that audiences will have to look hard to find their bearings and that new and unpredictable forces will emerge.
The one real force for continuity in the Irish theatre is the apparently unshakeable dominance of the playwright. Ireland is unusual in that writers whose first plays were written in the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s, are all still restlessly active, still grappling with the possibilities of the form. The epic work of recent decades is unlikely to return - Irish society is too complex and contradictory to be encompassed in a single story - and the more evocative, angular and poetic work of the last few years is likely to continue.
But in spite of all the change, there is every chance that the dominant figures of 1997 will be writers who had their first - plays performed almost 40 years ago - Brian Friel, Tom Murphy and Harold Pinter at the same time, though younger writers like Martin McDonagh, Conall Morrison, Jimmy Murphy and Gary Mitchell (each of the latter three will have a play at the Abbey or Peacock in the first half of the year) will continue to make their presence felt.
Artist to watch:
Conall Morrison: this writer and director, one of the most original and angular voices to have come from the North in recent years, will team up with the Abbey in 1997, with his version of Tarry Flynn on the big stage in June. The clash of cultures should make some interesting noises.
This year's Mustsees:
1. Brian Friel's Give Me Your Answer, Do at the Abbey in March. Friel's continuing productivity, with a new play every two years or so, is truly remarkable. This new one deals with a novelist who is visited by an agent interested in buying his papers for an American library, triggering revelations about his relationship with his absent, mentally ill daughter.
2. Tom Murphy's The Wake, to be directed by Garry Hynes at the Royal Court in London. Murphy's has long been the most brilliant imagination in Irish theatre, and this, his first completely new play since Too Late fir Logic in 1990, deals with the return from New York to a small Irish town of a woman whose experiences and ideals are at odds with those of her family.
3. The second Pinter Festival at the Gate. Michael Colgan's first festival of Pinter plays in 1995 was a superb piece of production, mixing elements of Irish and English theatre with great skill. The individual plays, especially the shorter works, benefited greatly from being seen together. If the achievement can be repeated with a second season of Pinter's dense but utterly theatrical creations, the one way theatrical traffic between Dublin and London may find a new direction.
4. Martin McDonagh's Leenane trilogy. After the brilliant success of Druid's production of McDonagh's first play The Beauty Queen Of Leenane last year, 1997 could be an even more remarkable year for the young Anglo Irish writer. At the start of the year, the National in London will produce one new play, The Cripple of Inishmann. Then, within a few months, Druid will produce the next two plays in the trilogy, making McDonagh probably the first Irish playwright in history to premiere three new plays in the same year.
5. A new theatre for Dublin? There is now a general acceptance that the future of the smaller independent companies is critically bound up with the provision of a stable and flexible theatre space in the capital. Detailed plans have been drawn up by Vanessa Fielding of Vesuvius Arts with tentative support from Dublin Corporation and the Inner City Partnership. The search currently centres on the site of Collins Barracks, which has been handed over to the National Museum. If it works, it could finally end the shifting, nomadic existence of the small companies that have done so much to enliven Irish theatre in the last decade.
6. Barabbas. The small but perfectly formed clown company has been beating the odds against physical theatre in a tradition still very much dominated by literary values. With new work due early in the year, 1997 could be the year in which the skill, discipline and hard work put in by the company over the last three years begins to pay off.
