ANTONIN Artaud, the French creator of the "theatre of cruelty", who would be 100 years old if he hadn't died long ago, was not a popular man in the Aran Islands in the early part of this century. He debunked with his accommodation bill unpaid, and it wasn't until he got to Dublin that he was apprehended and slung into jail, until De Valera deposed him.
Actress Olwyn Fouere and plawright Michael West discovered this story and are working on a piece based on it, which will debut as a work in progress in Marseilles during L'Imaginaire Irlandais, and then go up during the Dublin Theatre Festival next year. This is among the innovations unveiled along with the Project Arts Centre's Spring schedule, which was announced yesterday at La Med restaurant in Temple Bar.
In the near future, Gerry Stembridge's new play, The Gay Detective, about a garda infiltration of Dublin's gay underworld, goes up on February 7th. Barabbas physical theatre company return to Project on March 13th with Half Eight Mass of a Tuesday, a show based on the ritual of morning Mass in a rural community, which they premiered during their inaugural season two years ago. It has a different cast Raymond Keane, Sarah Fitzgibbon and Donal Beecher are the players. Veronica Coburn is directing, and Mikel Murfi is in Paris studying at the Lecoq School, studying pedagogy as well as much else, because the company has the goal of establishing a school of physical theatre here.
Desperate Optimists, a British based Irish company, bring Dedicated, "a unique live event that is up front in its examination of personal freedom" to the venue on April 11th. Glasshouse Productions have secured director David Byrne to direct Emma Donoghue's new play, Ladies and Gentlemen, (about a male impersonator who won fame, fortune and an Irish wife in the US at the turn of the century), also in April
In October, the Project celebrates its thirtieth birthday with Alternate '96, a series of innovative theatre and performance, with participating companies such as Pan Pan, Barabbas, Theatre Omnibus and Crisus (from New Orleans).
Visual artists who are scheduled to exhibit at Project include Kathlyn O'Brien (whose exhibition Innocence Lost in Transit opens on February 2nd), Mel Jackson, Brian Connolly, Mick Wilson, Almha Roche, Valerie O'Connor and Jaki Irvine, who last year won a Glen Dimplex nomination. The year will finish with exhibitions by two prominent Irish artists, Frances Hegarty and Alastair Mac Lennan. April will see the welcome return of the Project's performance art season, Live Art.
