World-class Questions: Irish Theater in 2013

Abstract

World-class Questions:Irish Theater in 2013 Finian O’Gorman On January 18, 2014, an article appeared in the Irish Times with the headline, “Abbey Confidential: Outside Experts Unimpressed by our National Theatre.” The article exposed the contents of a review conducted by an independent panel of assessors, which the Irish Times obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.1 The reviewers found that the Abbey “is struggling to meet its aim of becoming a world-class theatre.” A series of responses quickly emerged, in the national press and in theater circles around Ireland. The Abbey director and chief executive Fiach Mac Conghail issued a statement on the Abbey’s home page criticizing the decision to publish the contents of the report.2 The article’s author Fintan O’Toole, in turn, responded in defense of that decision, arguing that the Irish public has a right to know how its taxes are being spent.3 Various figures in Irish theater contributed to the debate with articles that provided an analysis of both the methodologies undertaken in the report, and the role of the Abbey in Irish theater.4 None of the articles could be considered an unqualified defense of the Abbey, yet there was a sense in each of a need to prevent unfettered criticism of the national theater. Critiques of the national theater are certainly not a recent development. In 1912, a mere three years after Synge’s death, G. Hamilton Gunning published an article in the Irish Review titled “The Decline of Abbey Theatre Drama,” in which he lamented the emergence of a new group of Abbey writers who had [End Page 110] “gorgeously vulgarized the sources of inspiration of the first dramatists.”5 The controversy that arose in early 2014 was in many ways a new airing of an old debate. However, the context of most recent controversy about the Abbey differed: it is indicative of a wider, societal distrust of institutions in Irish society. In recent years, key institutions in Irish society—the government, the Catholic church, the banks, the police force, medical care, the food industry—have been steadily undermined through a series of revelations and scandals. The Abbey seemed like one more in a long list of Irish institutions that had been proven inadequate. This theme, the role of major institutions in Irish society, proved a central aspect of the most noteworthy productions in Irish theater in 2013. Throughout the year, theaters large and small would dedicate attention to the relationship between the Irish public and the institutions that allow the society to function. These would include plays that specifically addressed individual sectors, such as the banking industry or the Irish political establishment. More broadly, revivals of classic plays by Ibsen, Brecht, and Tennessee Williams would question the relationships between power and ethics in both familial and societal settings. And theater artists would also reconsider a literary institution, the Irish dramatic canon, which would be re-assessed in intriguing new approaches to Joyce, Beckett, and many others. The Abbey Confidential report of January 2014 brought an investigative light to the affairs of the national theater. The irony was that this investigative ethos had been encouraged by the Irish theater sector, including by the Abbey itself. Surprisingly, however, it was the Gate Theatre—which is normally regarded as conservative in its programming—that adopted the most interrogative stance during the year. In January 2013, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland revealed the results of a targeted study that found undeclared horsemeat DNA in products labeled as beef.6 Four months later, the Gate produced Arthur Miller’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, a play that examines the moral implications of the lead character Dr. Stockmann’s actions following his discovery of a threat to public health in the local bathhouses. It is tempting to view the Gate’s production as a direct response to the horsemeat scandal. It was followed by productions of A Streetcar Named Desire in July, and The Threepenny Opera in September; each of these productions explored aspects of power, morality, and truth that took on special pertinence in a society where widespread antipathy toward institutions and...