OnTheTown: Many faces from the world of Irish theatre attended the unveiling of this year's Dublin International Theatre Festival programme this week. In attendance were directors Lynne Parker, Annie Ryan and Selina Cartmell; producers Maura O'Keeffe and Loughlin Deegan; theatre directors Fiach MacConghail, Michael Colgan and Willie White; and artist and playwright Gerard Mannix Flynn.
Don Shipley, the festival's artistic director and chief executive, said the 21 scheduled productions will be "sometimes political, sometimes humorous, often moving, and always evocative". He encouraged those who attended the programme launch at Trinity College Dublin's Samuel Beckett Theatre "to indulge your passions, motivate yourself to sample not only the familiar but also new and controversial work".
"This festival is an opportunity to completely immerse yourself in the sheer beauty and imaginative power of the theatre," he added.
Fergal McCarthy, of Druid Theatre, was just back from "a very enjoyable sell-out run of DruidSynge" at New York's Lincoln Centre Festival and before that at the new Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. The company, he said, will be presenting the world premiere of Stuart Carolan's new play, Empress of India, which was initially commissioned by Rose Parker of the Galway Arts Festival.
Eina McHugh and Róise Goan, of the Ark, Dublin's Cultural Centre for Children, were both present, as two festival productions will be staged at their venue. Others at the lunchtime reception were Cian O'Brien, producer of the Rough Magic Seeds programme, a development project for young emerging artists; Aideen Howard, literary director of the Abbey Theatre; Brian Finnegan and Conor Wilson, of Gay Community News; and Maedhbh McMahon and Niall O'Driscoll, of Farcry Productions, which will be staging the world premiere of Gerard Mannix Flynn's work, Letting Go of That Which You Most Ardently Desire, at a top-secret venue.
The Dublin International Theatre Festival will run from Thur, Sept 28 to Sat, Oct 14. For details, go to www.dublintheatrefestival.com
Images that push words to the limit
Guests at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) this week availed of the chance to see work by James Coleman, the internationally renowned artist who was born in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, which has never been shown in Ireland before. INITIALS, 1993-1994, which is part of a trilogy by Coleman, went on show in Dublin on Thursday.
"He's probably the Beckett of Irish visual culture, dealing with word and image and time and narrative story," said Prof Luke Gibbons, of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. "His work is about enigma . . . It's pushing the image to the limits and pushing words to the limits. He's probably one of the most highly-rated avant garde artists in the world."
Among those at the opening were composers Kevin Volans and Gerald Barry; artists Dorothy Cross and Amanda Coogan with her husband, director Jimmy Fay; film producer Seamus Byrne; film designer Frank Conway and his wife Jo Conway. Also there were Raymond Keaveney, director of the National Gallery; Rowena Neville of Business2Arts; former Arts Council director Patricia Quinn and Chester Beatty Library director Dr Michael Ryan.
"It's inspirational and fantastic to see this work finally installed in Dublin," said artist Jaki Irvine. Art theorist and critic Joan Fowler agreed. The two listed "representation, time, narrative, staging, acting and silence" as some of the questions Coleman deals with in his work.
The trilogy of work, which was acquired through the Heritage Fund at a cost of €1.3 million, "is one of the most important works in the IMMA collection," said the museum's director, Enrique Juncosa.
INITIALS 1993-94 by James Coleman continues at IMMA until Sun, Sep 3
Some people have all the Gluck
Gluck provided the music while couples held hands, mothers fed babies and friends ate sandwiches together in the amphitheatre beside Dublin's Wood Quay at lunchtime this week.
The sun shone as the seventh Opera in the Open season got underway, with professional singers and musicians performing extracts this week from Christoph Willibald von Gluck's 1776 version of Alceste. Wood Quay will be the venue as songs from a different opera are performed each Thursday throughout August.
"Divinités du Styx," sang soprano Elizabeth Ryan, in the part of Alceste, pleading with the gods not to take her husband, King Admetus, sung by Tony Norton.
Spectators at the performance had to be "very God-fearing" to appreciate the opera, explained broadcaster and musicologist Ted Courtney, who narrated the story.
"If you don't fear the gods, this won't work for you," he added, light-heartedly. "King Admetus is going to die and all the people are totally distraught, but his life might be saved if someone as important as him takes his place in Hades."
Among those ranged around the amphitheatre listening to Gluck's rousing arias, which are set in ancient Greece, was Jack Gilligan, arts officer with Dublin City Council, which organises the event.
"It's becoming one of the biggest summer attractions in the city," he said.
Also in attendance were Joan Farrell and Maura Burke, from Healthy Cities, a Ballymun "active age" group; Dave Downes, who travelled from Portlaoise especially for the free outdoor performance; and Brian and Pat Kelly, from Terenure, Dublin,who enjoyed a picnic with their three children, Isabel (aged six), Valerie (five) and Jonathan (10 weeks).
"We love it," said Pat, as she cradled her young baby, swinging him in time to the music.
Others who'd been before were Liam and Mary Fitzpatrick, from Walkinstown, Dublin, and Alan Carter and Keith Russell, who both work in a computer company on Merchants Quay.
Free to the public, the remaining operas in the series of extracts, under the musical direction of David Wray, each Thursday at 1pm this month, are Verdi's Rigoletto, Handel's Acis and Galatea, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and Verdi's La Traviata.
Looking past the peasants
Photographs by Tadhg Devlin, which "subvert the traditional image" of Ireland, went on view in Dublin's Gallery of Photography this week. The Fifth Province is a study of modern Ireland.
"The exhibition is about testing . . . how Ireland is represented," said Ciarán Walsh, visual arts director of Siamsa Tíre, the National Folk Theatre of Ireland. The image of "two lads" on Croagh Patrick, he added, "subverts the traditional image of rain-soaked pilgrims battling the elements to get to the top of the hill. There's a lightness of touch".
In Tralee, at the National Folk Theatre, "we have over 40,000 people who come through the theatre every summer and they all have an idea in their head of Ireland before they come", he said. Devlin's show raises questions about "the role of photography in defining Ireland, which (in the past) was defined in terms of peasants and distress and rain".
"You can look at Devlin's work and see that there's a light-hearted touch, which is humorous, but there are moments when he goes right through that with a razor-blade."
Devlin's parents, former RTÉ news journalist George Devlin and his wife, Patricia, were at the show, along with many journalistic colleagues, including Seán Duignan and his wife, Marie; Peter McNiff and his wife, Gwen; and Liam Kelly, formerly of the Daily Mirror, and his wife, Ann.
Photographers at the opening who were interested in Devlin's work included Gerry O'Dea, Richard Whelan and Paddy McCabe.
"I like the pilgrimage shot on Croagh Patrick and the one of Gouganbarra because they represent part of the Irish psyche," said photographer Patrick Hartnett.
The Fifth Province, by Tadhg Devlin continues at the Gallery of Photography, Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, until Sun, Sep 3