"Theatre is about taking risks, about putting your future on the line with every role, every performance and every show. We must ensure that risk-taking is recognised and rewarded. I think you will see tonight that we are putting words into action", said Mr Ken O'Hara, chief executive of the ESB, speaking at the presentation of the Irish Times/ESB Irish Theatre Awards 1999 at the Burlington Hotel last night.
Over the past three years, the judging panels had seen just under 400 productions. "This speaks volumes for the extraordinary vitality of Irish theatre today", Mr O'Hara said.
Ten years ago, the number of venues suitable for touring or for local professional companies had been modest, he said. "Thanks to successive ministers for the arts, the scene has changed completely. There is now a circuit of well-equipped, comfortable venues. In 1999 alone, new theatres opened in Letterkenny, Mullingar, Portlaoise and Tallaght, while the next 12 months will add Dun Laoghaire, Blanchardstown and the totally rebuilt Project Arts Centre, with two auditoria, to the list."
Mr O'Hara reflected on the great losses suffered by Irish theatre recently. "It would be remiss of us, in the midst of our celebrations, if we did not remember, and celebrate, the immense contributions of our greatest stage actor, Donal McCann, and our finest television actor, Tony Doyle. I would also like to mention Patrick Bedford, who was, for more than 30 years, a pillar of the Edwards/Mac Liammoir Company at the Gate Theatre."
There was prolonged applause for each of the deceased named after Mr O'Hara made reference to them.
Referring to changes in Irish theatre, Mr O'Hara said: "As you know, Patrick Mason, after an immensely successful and stimulating tenure at the National Theatre, is resuming his freelance career. We wish him well and offer our best wishes to his successor, Ben Barnes. Also to John Sheehan at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, Kathy McArdle at the Project Arts Centre, and Fergus Linehan, who succeeds Tony O Dalaigh at the Eircom Dublin Theatre Festival."
One "obvious cause for celebration" was the Government's commitment of £100 million for the arts over the three-year period 1999-2001. Mr O'Hara congratulated the Arts Council on its "significant achievement" in securing this money.
He added: "Government support is a stimulus, not a deterrent, to commercial sponsorship, and I know that the ESB and other sponsors will also help, in the words of the Arts Plan, to `radically reinvigorate the place of the arts at the heart of Irish society'."
Mr Gerry Smyth, managing editor of The Irish Times, said that he wished to thank the three judges - Sheila Pratschke, Harold Fish and their chairman, Tony O Dalaigh - for their "hard work and extraordinary participation" in 1999, during which they had attended 123 productions.
He paid tribute to Mr O Dalaigh, who is retiring from the judging panel, but whose role had been central to the awards over the past three years.
"Tony, at the request of The Irish Times and the ESB, agreed to stay with these awards for what we regarded as a decisive setting-up period", Mr Smyth said. He recalled that Mr O Dalaigh had played an "inspirational role in many cultural initiatives in this city and country, equally so in these awards, through his stewardship of the judging procedures, his prodigious knowledge of Irish theatre and, above all, his contagious sense of excitement about what is happening in it".
"It has been a privilege to have worked with Mr O Dalaigh and we are grateful to him for sharing with us his passion for one of our great cultural traditions", he added.
Mr Smyth praised Mr Barney Whelan and Ms Brid Tunney, representing the ESB, and his two colleagues in The Irish Times, Ms Aine Maguire and Ms Maeve O'Meara, for their work in administering the awards.
Reminding the audience that only a few of those present would be leaving the presentation in possession of an actual award, he quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson: "The reward of a thing well done is to have done it well." In Irish theatre over the past year, all of the participants had "done it and done it well".
Turning to the winners, he quoted Jack Benny: "In the unlikely event of any of you being overcome with a sense of unworthiness, remember what Jack Benny said when accepting an award: `I don't deserve this, but then I have arthritis, and I don't deserve that either'. "
On behalf of the judges, Mr Harold Fish said he would "never cease to wonder how a cultural community of some six million souls has offered consistently such a high level of cultural achievement". He attributed this to the "bi-cultural competence" of Irish people and the ease with which they could switch between their own culture and that of their larger neighbour.
Alluding to Seamus Heaney's introduction to Beowulf, he quoted the poet as explaining that Irish culture had moved from an "either/or" attitude to one of "both/ and" where the larger culture was concerned. It was a great pity that an Irish person had not written Hamlet, Mr Fish said. Then probably the soliloquy would have begun with the richer "To be and not to be, that is the answer."
Mr Fish paid a personal tribute to Donal McCann, recalling that The Steward of Christendom, in which the actor had his last great role, was his own first major involvement with an Irish production. "I'll never forget him", he said of Mr McCann.
Among the attendance at last night's presentation ceremonies were the chairman of The Irish Times Ltd and governor of The Irish Times Trust Ltd, Mr Don Reid, and the managing director of The Irish Times Ltd, Mr Nick Chapman.