Sir, - At the recent Arts Council's Consultative Forum in Limerick, Martin Drury of the Ark was reported as pleading for "old-fashioned notions like aesthetics and excellence" against the clearly stated priorities for arts policy given by the Minister of the Arts: the elitist view versus the politically pragmatic, both of them sadly limiting to the development of the arts.
For the arts to thrive unrestricted in this country, they will have to take a different route and bring, for example, drama far beyond the small percentage of our population who ever see the inside of a theatre. Indeed it should reach deep into the fabric of our society, stimulating, supporting and inviting healthy debate to increase understanding and enrich personal experience by symbolically portraying life situations of which many people have no firsthand knowledge.
This can easily be done by choosing a repertoire of direct relevance to life in modern Ireland and by targeting audiences whom it will benefit. With no loss of excellence, such a course would result in a theatre that is truly political. - Yours, etc., Ann Henning Jocelyn,
Artistic director, The Connemara Theatre, Cashel, Co Galway.