Delay reaction: Abbey on the move

Fiach MacConghail is disarmingly frank about the long delays in bringing to fruition the plans for a new Abbey Theatre building…

Fiach MacConghail is disarmingly frank about the long delays in bringing to fruition the plans for a new Abbey Theatre building: "Were I to inherit a building that would open tomorrow, we would not be ready for it. I'm glad it's not happening now."

Moving an organisation that is gradually emerging from crisis into an expensive new landmark theatre would, he says, overwhelm the process of exploration in which the Abbey is currently engaged.

"Certainly in terms of my journey and the board's journey, it would kill off the oxygen of the fear we have at the moment, the holding of the nerve, the excitement. We're falling in love with the Abbey and it would be too early to get married and move into a house. We're still courting."

The state of play is that the Government has settled on a site at George's Dock and established an inter-agency group consisting of the Office of Public Works, the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism, the National Development Finance Agency, Docklands Development and the Abbey. This group is finalising a design brief but is still discussing what kind of architectural competition it will run and how the Government's notion of a public-private partnership will be put in place.

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It is probably just as well that MacConghail is relaxed about the time-frame.

"The commitment is there from the Government to build a new Abbey and what's great is that it allows us in the intervening years to get a sense of what might work in that building, what we might want to bring to that building. I would imagine that the new building will be four to five years down the line."

To some degree, the pressure to move has been reduced by the decision to invest €2 million to bring the current building up to basic standards. There have been significant improvements in the box-office area and a new rigging system has been installed on the main stage. Most radically, the main auditorium is to be fundamentally re-shaped into a single raked space, designed by Peter Brook's long-time collaborator Jean-Guy Lecat and the Irish designer Paul Keogan.

"I'm actually beginning to like it now," MacConghail says of the current Abbey.

Isn't it bad policy, though, to invest in a building that the Abbey is planning to leave?

"There is a point in investing in the current building. It's here to stay, maybe even as a downtown centre for the Abbey. One of the mistakes my predecessors made is that there was an assumption that we'd be moving.

"I'm not caught in the headlights at the lure of the new building. It will happen, but my responsibility is to redefine and renegotiate what the Abbey Theatre is about and we owe a responsibility to artists and audiences now."