'Playboy' stirs it up in Bulgaria

Artscape:As the centenary of The Playboy of the Western World riots at the Abbey looms, you might think of the audience's reaction to Synge's now iconic play as a quaint historical footnote.

But The Playboy has seemingly not lost its ability to provoke strong reaction. A production in Bulgaria, The Playboy of Djendema (a wild desolate place) has been denounced by the local council there as a play that "advocates violence and debases Bulgarian Orthodox faith".

When the takings from a performance of the play at the Lovchanski (Lovech) Theatre, directed by young Sofia director Nikolay Poliakov, were offered for the local cathedral building fund, the council of the eparchy in Lovech (population circa 50,000) refused to accept, saying it was against the Orthodox faith, and that the council could not consider "something that is provoking hate to be art. We don't accept money earned this way. This gesture' of donation is pure theatrics and aiming to humiliate and mock the church, as well as to gain publicity for the play."

This was reported in Bulgarian newspaper 24 Chasa under the headline We Don't Want Money From Antichrists".

While the cathedral needed funding, We will not accept a donation at any price, if behind it are standing advertising tricks and theatrical performances lowering the prestige of the church and undermining people's faith in God. The Lovchanski (Lovech) Theatre should understand that at last. So should the director Nikolay Poliakov who is scandalising the Christians in Lovech for the third time with the plays he produces on the stage of the town."

The production has provoked strong local reaction from some people, even though religion has a relatively marginal role in Bulgaria, after 50 years of church oppression under communism.

A "group of [named] Christians from Lovech" wrote a substantial piece ("The Playboy of Djendema -Moral Decadence") in the local paper, Naroden Glas, arguing that "there is no doubt that The Playboy of Djendema is purposefully tarnishing the Christian faith, defaming the Church, and preaching moral decadence" and calling it an "active defamation of Christianity and disgracing of the church".

The Christian writers continue, "the riot against God and Hismoral law (one of the fundaments of which is that one shall not kill) is presented and promoted as heroism, as a quality of the advanced and grown personality, and as an irrevocable attribute of human dignity . . . The anti-Christian spirit instigated from the stage is also reinforced by a perverse morality - to kill your father is heroic; to cause the death of your husband is also a feat." Plus ça change.

The end for Belfast Festival?

Who would have thought it? After 45 years as the North's flagship international arts event, the Belfast Festival at Queen's may have only two more weeks to live, writes Jane Coyle.

Artists such as Seamus Heaney, Michael Palin and Patrick Kielty have joined thousands of Queen's University staff, students and alumni, politicians, performers, arts organisations and people from all walks of life in supporting the Save Belfast Festival campaign. The university is threatening to bring down the curtain on an event that not only contributes £6.5 million (€9.9 million) to the North's economy but is the centrepiece of its "destination tourism" slate.

"There is only one course of action remaining, to lobby Maria Eagle, the Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure," says festival artistic director Graeme Farrow.

"All eyes are now on her, as the person who has it within her gift to solve the problem."

Over the past three years, Queen's has invested more than £2.5 million (€3.8 million) in its culture and arts activities - which include the festival, the Queen's Film Theatre and the Naughton Gallery at Queen's.

But over the same period, there has been a 32 per cent cut in government funding of the festival and, in spite of almost doubling the previous year's box office takings and upping its sponsorship by 60 per cent, the 2006 event sustained a loss of about £150,000 (€228,000).

"We can't run a major arts festival worthy of the name on the money we are receiving," says Farrow. "We are the only organisation in the North charged with providing prestigious international work, but quality costs and we are severely constrained by what we can programme. Belfast must choose whether it wants a prestige event of this kind or not."

The university, which is the major stakeholder, has told its funding partners it cannot continue to prop up the festival.

"Belfast Festival is a cultural resource for the region," said vice chancellor of Queen's University, Prof Peter Gregson. "The university can't continue to carry the burden without the active support of our funding partners, who benefit directly and indirectly."

He warned that if an accommodation cannot be reached by the end of this month with partners such as the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, Belfast City Council, the Northern Ireland Events Company and the private sector, this year's festival will be the last. You can support the festival by signing the online petition at www.qub.ac.uk.

Shows line up for the tour bus

With arts centres and theatres around Ireland looking to programme the year's cultural activity, and the widely-felt dearth of touring Irish theatre last year, this week's announcement of touring support for specific shows will be looked on with interest by both theatres and audiences. These are the first fruits of the Arts Council's Touring Experiment, a two-year project during which the Council assessed 19 proposals seeking €1.46 million in funding.

Eight have been invited to participate, with an investment of €615,000 by the Arts Council.

Those shows are: Derry-based Echo Echo Dance's Consequences (€41,500); Landmark Productions' Underneath the Lintel (€31,600); the venue consortium Nomad/Living Dred with Conversations on a Homecoming (€163,000); a Druid show, which isn't confirmed yet (€62,000); City Theatre Dublin (€75,000 for eight different shows and identifying technical and marketing expertise needed in touring multiple shows); Ten42 Productions' Wallflowering (€34,000); Civic Theatre/Gúna's Trousers (€35,550); and venue consortium NASC's The Taming of the Shrew (€173,100).

This first round of projects focuses on theatre and dance, and the next round (next month - round three will be in the autumn) will seek proposals from theatre and dance (including re-workings of earlier proposals), but also for touring music, literature, traditional arts and visual arts. The Touring Experiment draws on the experience of artists and organisations who have been touring for some years, and Catherine Marshall has joined the Arts Council, on secondment from the Irish Museum of Modern Art, to develop the visual arts element.

Artoon

Fabulous Beast this week became the first Irish company to be named an associate artist at London's Barbican. The two other new Barbican Associate Artists are Cheek By Jowl and the Michael Clark Company.

The arrangement is a three-year artistic partnership with Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre and its founder and artistic director Michael Keegan-Dolan, and it acknowledges Fabulous Beast's close working relationship with the Barbican and will lead to future co-commissions.

The company's The Bull is to play in the Barbican from February 21st (its Giselle at the Barbican in 2005 was nominated for an Olivier Award). The Bull - a version of Táin Bó Cuailnge that mines the seedy underbelly of Irish society on a set consisting of tons of moss peat - strikingly divided critics and audiences when it premiered at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2005, and has apparently been slightly reworked since then by director Keegan-Dolan and Thomas Conway.

It was originally co-commissioned by Barbicanbite07 and DTF.

And The Flowerbed - the Fabulous Beast show in 2000, revived for last year's Dublin Fringe and Barbicanbite06 - has been nominated for Best Choreography in the Critics' Circle National Dance Awards in the UK.Winners will be announced on January 27th.

Meantime, Michael Keegan-Dolan is to choreograph Robert Lepage's new production of Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress for La Monnaie (Brussels) and the Opéra de Lyon (France) this year.

The celebrated Canadian theatre director called Giselle one of the most inventive shows he has seen in the past 10 years.