Artscape: IT seems ironic in a year marked by two productions of Synge's Playboy - with more Synge to come from Galway's Druid Theatre - that for the want of €2,500, the future of Teach Synge on Inis Meáin could be in jeopardy, writes Lorna Siggins.
The sum is to cover the cost of thatching the cottage where Synge stayed when he was on Inis Meáin more than a century ago. "Give up Paris," W.B. Yeats had told him in the French capital. "You will never create anything by reading Racine . . . Go to the Aran Islands."
And so Synge did, following in the footsteps of one of his uncles, the Rev Alexander Synge, who had arrived on Inis Mór in proselytising mood in 1851 and stayed for four years.
When his nephew landed, in May 1898, he is said to have met an old man who was under the pier wall, mending nets. "If there is a man of the name of Synge left walking the world, it is that man yonder he will be," the old fisherman reportedly said, on seeing the writer alighting from the steamer.
In 1999, Teach Synge on Inis Meáin was opened to the public, and people have come from all over the world to visit it. The instigator of the project was Treasa Ní Fhatharta, the great-granddaughter of the cottage's original owners, Brid and Páidín MacDonnchadha, who welcomed Synge into their home and gave him "an seomra mór", the biggest and best room in the small abode.
The cottage had a significance even before his arrival. "This cottage was also known during the Gaelic Revival as 'Ollscoil na Gaeilge' - an affectionate term given by the many Gaelic scholars who stayed there to learn Irish from the 1880s onwards," says Ní Fhatharta. "People such as Fr Eugene O'Growney, and Fr Michael O'Hickey, Eoin Mac Neill, Pádraig Mac Piarais . . . Thomas MacDonagh of the 1916 Rising, Una Ní Fhaircheallaigh [Agnes Farrelly until she changed her name to Irish], many scholars from Europe who were interested in the Gaelic Revival, and Lady Gregory of Coole Park stayed there too." The cottage has charitable status, is on the State's register of buildings at risk, and doesn't make a profit.
However, it needs to be thatched annually, and this is Ní Fhatharta's biggest headache. To date, she has received no positive responses to applications for a thatching grant, although Galway County Council gave her a one-off grant last year.
The roof is traditionally thatched with a rye grass which is grown on the island for this purpose. Ní Fhatharta says State support for the thatching costs would also support cultivation of the rye for this purpose, and the skill of thatching itself. However, the Heritage Council says it doesn't qualify for its current €2 million scheme, which covers only buildings at risk.
"With limited funds, we have to prioritise on this basis, but we are seeking EU funding for a cross-Border preventative maintenance initiative which would cover buildings that haven't reached crisis point," the council's architect told The Irish Times.
Ní Fhatharta has raised some money privately for improvements, which would allow the cottage to house books, photographs and letters. If she doesn't get State support for the thatching, she may have to replace it with a different roof - a move which will fundamentally alter the nature of the house where Synge observed the harsh realities of Atlantic island life.
Buy a brick for opera
The Belfast Grand Opera House has had a long and colourful history. Designed by the celebrated theatre architect Frank Matcham, the original building, dating from 1895, was converted into a cinema in 1961 and, in 1972, was closed down.
In 1980, after extensive restoration and refurbishment, it reopened as a theatre, only to be badly damaged, twice, by bombings during the 1980s.
It has now reached a stage where long overdue structural improvements to the building are crying out to be made, director John Bottley explains.
"We are planning major development work to improve front-of-house facilities, as well as backstage, catering and bar facilities. Work is due to begin in summer 2005.
"Our intention is not only to improve the theatre-going experience but to make this beautiful theatre more accessible and set the scene for the next 100 years of its history".
George Priestley, honorary president of the Grand Opera House Trust, is responsible for raising the necessary funds. High on the list of priorities is the provision of improved access and facilities for disabled customers and users and the establishment of a new studio space for master classes, workshops and educational programmes aimed at schools, community groups and amateur companies.
A new "Buy a Brick" initiative gives businesses and individuals the opportunity to purchase, at a minimum of £1,000 (€1,487), a glass plaque engraved with their name, logo or personalised message. Mounted on a permanent glass wall, they will span three floors of the new foyer.
Priestley acknowledges "the excellent support from DCAL (the Northern Ireland Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure), the Arts Council of Northern Ireland's National Lottery Fund and Ulster Garden Villages, which have earmarked £4 million, £2 million and £300,000 respectively.
A further £475,000 has come from the theatre's own funds, while the staff and trustees are committed to raising a further £130,000. For details of how to buy another brick in the wall, tel: Belfast 048-90-277706 or e-mail: buyabrick@goh.co.uk
Midsummer in Cork
The growing maturity of the Cork Midsummer Festival under artistic director Ali Robertson and chief executive Ciara Ní Shuilleabháin is evident in the crowded programme launched by the main sponsors, Woodford Bourne, last Monday, writes Mary Leland.
With music, dance, art and drama (especially the hefty programme at the Everyman Palace), a radio soap, literary walking tours and concerts from such varied sources as Tycho Brahe and the Tallis Scholars (at St Fin Barre's Cathedral on June 23rd), the eight-year-old festival promises two weeks of fairly hectic activity in the city.
The theatrical highlight, however, will be the Corcadorca production of a new play commissioned from Ray Scannell. Examining Cork's relatively recent industrial history, Losing Steam is based on the impact, experienced through two families, of the closure of the city's leading employers, the Ford assembly plant and the adjacent Irish Dunlop Company in 1984.
Director Pat Kiernan sees these events, cataclysmic at the time, as having had a massive psychological effect on the city. There are all kinds of ironies involved - not least the fact that to entice Ford to Cork in 1917 the city park and racetrack at the marina were given over to the company as a site for the manufacture of tractors (later changed to cars).
Now the site is occupied by the Marina Commercial Park and the performances, beginning on June 17th, will be promenade productions there.
The Midsummer Festival, supported by Cork 2005, is hosting four seminars by Corcadorca (which has recently recruited Oonagh Montague as administrator), Grid Iron (Scotland), Jo Bithume (France) and Teatr Biuro Podrozy (Poland). Each group will conduct workshop sessions (on June 26th and 27th) as an introduction to next year's joint programme which will include Corcadorca's The Merchant of Venice. Using its favoured promenade style, the company hopes to use the refurbished courthouse, but is currently looking for a site to correspond with Belmont. Montenotte and
Sunday's Well need not apply - too far to walk.
Theatre Forum conference
Theatre Forum will have its first AGM and conference next Monday at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, writes Rosita Boland. Theatre Forum represents practitioners in the performing arts in Ireland.
The companies they represent include the Abbey, Ballet Ireland, Ballymun Arts and Community Resource, Cork Opera House, Dublin Youth Theatre, the Helix and Macnas. Apart from housekeeping business, in the morning, Michael Morris of Artangel will be speaking on the topic of "Commission Impossible; Reconfiguring Opportunities for Artists and Audiences in the New Century".
In the afternoon, delegates will be invited to divide into different working groups, to further discuss set topics. These are: The Arts Council and the Performing Arts; Clarity of Esteem - How on
Earth do we Create a Proper System of Qualitative Assessment?; and The Farmer and the Cowman Should be
Friends - How to Maximise Co-operation Between Companies and Venues.
Also in the afternoon, outgoing artistic director of the Dublin Theatre Festival, Fergus Linehan, will hop on to his soapbox and talk about "Are There Many in Tonight? Independent Theatre and the Audience." Linehan will take up his new post as artistic director and chief executive of the 2006-2008 Sydney Festivals this autumn, and the advance literature suggests, somewhat mischievously, that "presumably he feels somewhat liberated by the vast distance he will soon be putting between himself and the rest of us and has intimated that he may tell us what he really thinks."
Members of the public interested in the performing arts are welcome to attend the day, which costs €35 on the door, and includes lunch and a reception.