Deirdre O'Connell died last year, but the current production in her tinyFocus theatre is a hit. Fergus Linehan finds out how O'Connell'sdisciples are keeping Stanislavsky - and themselves - alive

Many, if not most, small theatres are essentially one-person shows, run by a single inspirational director who, for little or no money, not only chooses and directs the plays, but also somehow gets the bills paid, fires up everybody else and is a general dogsbody. Of their nature, such theatres tend to have a precarious existence, particularly when their guiding light is no longer there. When Deirdre O'Connell, founder and artistic director of the little Focus, died last June the theatre's fate looked highly doubtful. But, with a much praised production of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance now running, and the theatre's attendant Stanislavsky studio still thriving, the future now seems more secure.

Deirdre O'Connell, whose parents had emigrated from Sligo, came back to Ireland from the US in the early 1960s. Trained in the Stanislavsky Method and with nothing except, as Elizabeth Moynihan, currently the Focus's acting co-artistic director says: "her knowledge and her talent", she set up a school to teach the Stanislavsky Method in Ely Place.

To earn a crust, she did some singing in a pub and it was there she met Luke Kelly, a member of a then-unknown folk group called The Dubliners. The story goes that they were not best pleased that she was actually getting paid, while they sat around singing for nothing. Not long afterwards she was to marry Kelly, who also found an empty garage in a mews off Pembroke street, which he himself converted into a theatre. Forty years later, the Focus is still there.

In its time, the Focus studio has turned out a whole range of people who went on to make their mark in the wider theatrical world, including Gabriel Byrne, Tom Hickey, Tim McDonald, Olwen Fouéré, Johnny Murphy and the director Mary Elizabeth Burke Kennedy. They paid, if they could afford it, a pound a session, two pounds if they were lucky enough to be working. For that, Deirdre O' Connell gave them four to five hours of her time every Saturday, while on Sunday actors could come in to do theatre exercises, including improvisations.

"Mention of money embarrassed Deirdre," says Moynihan, "she had no time for it. It's amazing to think that in the year 2001 she was still charging a pound. And of course it was a wonderful experience, because she didn't just teach you The Method. She educated you in all sorts of ways, in music, in art, in all kinds of things. I suppose it kept going because she was the sort of person who inspired a collective sense. She lived and breathed the place and inspired the same feeling in a lot of people. There are a few of us still there willing to do that, but it's funny, since she died, it now seems to take five people to do the work which that one woman did."

The little theatre is held on a rental, which goes up for time to time, a costly business for an organisation in which money is always in short supply. The Arts Council has been approached for financial help with the running of the theatre, so far without success, but it is hoped that that is about to change.

So what exactly is the niche which the Focus fills at a time when there are so many more theatres and theatre companies than there used to be?

"I think we do classic American and European drama, not commonly known in Ireland," says Elizabeth Moynihan, "and we also have a very clearly defined new writing brief. Every year, we run a new Irish writing competition and we put on a season of new plays at lunchtime from that, which transfers later to a night-time spot."

The deadline for this year's competition was Sunday. "The entries have come in thick and fast and I'm really excited about it, cause the standard is very high," says Moynihan.

Meanwhile, the educational side of the theatre continues. On Saturdays, the studio workshop is open for 50 weeks a year and is currently run by Paul Keeley, the other acting artistic director. The course is for two years, a big commitment for anyone to make. "Well, if you're going to be an actor you've got to have discipline and this is a testing, if you like, of people's discipline," says Moynihan.

'The members are the backbone of the Focus. First, they're what we draw on for our talent base and second they keep the theatre going. They help out, manning the phones, doing the box office; they painted the theatre before we went in for this current show.

"It's very much an egalitarian collective, with everyone mucking in. We don't like to charge fees, unlike the other drama schools, though times have changed and we obviously have to charge something and more than Deirdre did. We audition every two years for places and hardly a day goes by without phone calls enquiring about it. We've some great talent there, not just the 18-year-olds but people of more mature years. We want people of all ages to come into the studio and train in the Stanislavsky system."

The Sunday studio is more for established actors, who come to tune up their craft and do general work, whether general exercises as a group, improvisations or pieces of prepared work. "It's gives you belief as an actor, particularly when you're out of work," she says. "There's nothing more stimulating than to come to a Sunday studio and tune up and work with other actors."

A Delicate Balance, which runs for another three weeks, was originally produced at the Focus some 25 years ago with Deirdre O'Connell herself (a formidable actress) playing in it. The current production brings in from outside the company people such as Barry McGovern, Deirdre Donnelly and the director, Caroline Fitzgerald. "We're privileged to have people of that calibre to work with us for so very little money," says Moynihan.

The Focus is about to launch a search for a new artistic director and the Board is prepared to go outside their group and even, if necessary outside the country to find the right person. "We don't want to turn in on ourselves, we want to open ourselves up," Moynihan says. "It will be a part-time job, because we already have a company manager, Breege Brennan. Basically the new artistic director will choose the programme, direct plays and make sure our artistic remit is defined as it always has been, as well as having a vision of the future of Focus. A passion for the Method and a knowledge of it would also be needed, so that he or she can guide members of the company. But, of course, nothing is written in stone."

And how does the future look?

"Very bright."

A Delicate Balance runs until April 20th. To book: 01-6763071