Artscape: 'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . ." Frank McGuinness might seem an unusual choice to write a stage adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's chiller, Rebecca, which has been dramatised and adapted many times, most significantly on film by Hitchcock.
"I'm not the most obvious person to do Rebecca. But I was turned on by the shock of being asked," McGuinness said in an interview this week.
The production, starring Nigel Havers at Newcastle's Theatre Royal, is directed by Patrick Mason. It sold well before even opening, and will tour Britain before going to the West End. Oddly, in the way of these things, last July McGuinness bought the book (which he he hadn't read in 30 years) after a conversation with friends about it. "It knocked me out. I was absolutely stunned by its skill and depth, and the terrible secrets that du Maurier contains within this strange, haunted romance," he told the Daily Telegraph.
A couple of weeks later he got a call asking if he'd be interested in dramatising du Maurier's book.
"The hairs went up on the back of my neck," McGuinness added, "because Rebecca was sitting right there on my desk. This was definitely a sign."
McGuinness makes his second Mrs de Winter pluckier, talking back to Mrs Danvers, and even gives her an Irish name and an Anglo-Irish back-story that connects with Cornwall's Celtic roots. "I'm all in favour of sacrilege," said McGuinness. "Sacrilege is liberation. And I thought that du Maurier would be lenient to my Catholic ways."
He didn't watch the film again before working on the script, though he read du Maurier's own dramatisation, which was in the West End in 1940.
"It didn't work," said McGuinness, but the novel itself is "all about power, possession and passion. That's why it hasn't dated - because that is what life is about. My job is to write as good a play as possible. If that means altering the novel to turn it into theatre, I'll do it. You've got to leave your imprint if you're a writer. Otherwise, why bother?"
Cartoon relief
Tom Mathews, resident Artoon-ist on this page (see right), responded to the tsunami disaster in the way he knew best - by drawing. More to the point, he persuaded colleagues to do the same, and the results are on view and on sale at the 101 Talbot Restaurant on Talbot Street, Dublin 1, from this Monday, February 7th, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Cartoon Aid for Tsunami is - as well as a good cause - a brilliant opportunity to buy original work by 17 of Ireland's top cartoonists for €150 per framed item. The collection includes work by Tim Booth, Aongus Collins, Phelim Connolly, Gerard Crowley, Billy Drake, Jim Cogan, Tom Halliday, Peter Hanan, Graeme Keyes, Niall O'Loughlin, Roger O'Reilly, David Rooney, Martyn Turner and Terry Willers, plus porcelain from Stephen Dee and the first sale of cartoons by sculptor Eamonn O'Doherty. There hasn't been such a cartoon exhibition in Dublin for 10 years, so get on down over the next couple of weeks.
On board at the Abbey
Coming hot on the heels of Tuesday's (well-received) announcement of Fiach Mac Conghail as the new Abbey director (following interviews for the post only last Saturday), the Abbey continues to waste no time in moving onwards. On Thursday the board announced its decision to co-opt two new members, Paul Mercier and Siobhán Bourke, replacing Bernard Farrell and John McColgan, who have both retired from the board.
"Their complementary expertise in writing, directing, production and management will be great assets in this period of major change at the Abbey," says chairwoman Eithne Healy.
Bourke is a founder of Rough Magic and Theatre Shop (where she is co-producer), a film producer (the award-winning Hit and Run, and RTÉ's Love is the Drug), and an Arts Council cultural cinema adviser. Playwright Mercier is founder and artistic director of Passion Machine theatre company - and his new play was one of those dropped by the Abbey last year when the great unpleasantness hit the fan. They'll both be familiar faces for Mac Conghail in his new post; indeed he's producing the film version of Paul Mercier's Studs, which starts filming on Monday, having previously produced his short films, Before I Sleep and Lipservice.
Well, it's either brilliant or awkward timing, with the man himself in the headlines, but The Pope's Visit (RTÉ2 tonight at 11.40 p.m.) might be worth a look either way. It's a new Irish animated cartoon about a previously unreported papal visit to a far-off city, made in a style similar to "classic Pink Panther episodes" according to Frameworks 8, who made it. Characters include His Holiness (suffering a spiritual crisis) and a musician with creative difficulties. "It's a movie of accumulating catastrophes. The characters [ are] obsessed by their desires, and the chaos that ensues ironically creates a miraculous vision," says director Gary Blatchford. Its writer is award-winning film-maker Aidan Hickey, and it is co-sponsored by the Irish Film Board, the Arts Council and RTÉ.