Electricity was in the air at Sunday's theatre awards, but the power was with Dublin theatre, writes Frank McNally
Inevitably at an event jointly sponsored by the ESB, the subject of energy featured prominently at the theatre awards.
The board's chief executive, Ken O'Hara, spoke with authority on the "heat and light generated by live theatre". As he reviewed the many positive developments in the arts, he even argued that the "cultural equivalent of rural electrification" was well under way.
Not all the poles are up yet, obviously, or maybe with the recent storms, some power lines are down. Whatever the reason, the judges' spokesman Fergus Linehan complained that, based on 12 months of traversing the country in search of theatrical brilliance, the lights seemed to be mostly out beyond the M50.
A few sparks flew in the audience when he suggested that a 15-watt performance from the provincial theatres had made 2001 dimmer than it might have been. But the thespian community knows by now what to expect from Fergus, which is tough love.
Last year he threatened a barring order on any award recipient who produced tears. This year he extended the injunction to excessive thank-yous in acceptances speeches, even promising to come up and drag serious offenders off the stage.
The warning proved unnecessary. No doubt prizewinners were already emotionally paralysed by the fear of a withering riposte from comedian and MC Deirdre O'Kane, whose fluorescent performance matched a day-glo dress that could have made an important contribution to the national grid.
The ESB didn't have a monopoly on Sunday night's energy supply - the gas board got a mention too. In her tribute to doyenne of the theatre Phyllis Ryan, Dearbhla Molloy described how Phyllis once "risked the wrath of church and State" by introducing the Tennessee Williams's steamy deep-south drama to Ireland.
"They played in the tiny Gas Company Theatre in Dún Laoghaire," she said, "and on the first night the wife of the Gas Company chairman fainted in shock.
"The chairman demanded the play be taken off and Gemini transferred to the Eblana theatre, beneath Busáras, where they remained for many years."
Shock being something the ESB is trained to handle, it was perhaps inevitable that the company should end up sponsoring theatre awards. It was less inevitable that newspapers would get involved. Indeed, a number of speakers on Sunday acknowledged the difficult relationship between critics and the theatre - memorably compared with that between a dog and a lamppost.
Collecting one of the Gate Theatre's several awards, Michael Colgan couldn't resist the suggestion that if, as the judges believed, it had not been a great year for Irish theatre, it hadn't been a vintage year for the newspaper industry either.
While recent difficulties at one paper in particular were the Banquo's ghost of this year's awards banquet, the Irish Times managing editor Gerry Smyth managed a wry smile in adversity. The past year had given him a new understanding of life in the theatre, he told the audience. He stood before them, "a member of one insecure profession addressing several hundred members of another".