'THE CECIL B De Mille of Irish theatre" was how Abbey Theatre director Fiach MacConghail described his predecessor, Tomás Mac Anna, when he presented him with the special tribute award at The Irish TimesTheatre Awards just over a year ago. The comparison with the man who made things happen in Tinseltown is appropriate — Mac Anna's contribution to Irish theatre, over many decades, is a prodigious one. As well as directing, the multi-talented Mac Anna was an actor, writer and set designer. However, it is his period in the Abbey that will stand as his legacy.
He brought a missionary zeal to his tenure as artistic director following the opening of the new Abbey in 1966. There was an expansion of activity and an influx of new talent that undoubtedly helped to restore the fortunes of the theatre, not least of which was Mac Anna's own production of Borstal Boy.That great production not only won him a Tony Award on Broadway but reminded American audiences of the distinguished literary tradition from which the Abbey had emerged.
He had two further periods when his creative instincts as the theatre’s artistic director, throughout the 1970s and in the mid-1980s, consolidated his reputation. Those instincts were particularly sharp when it came to noticing the promise of younger talents. As a mentor he was a generous and nurturing influence on many – actors and directors – who have gone on to leave their own mark on Irish and international theatre.
He was always clear about his sense of what the national theatre stood for, particularly its continuing role as a literary theatre. His advocacy of Irish language drama as a strand of its repertoire was always to the fore but he also brought an outward-looking sense of innovation to some of the work. The amateur drama movement, where his own theatrical roots were nourished, also owes him a debt of gratitude for his many years of travelling the country as a stalwart supporter.
A measure of Mac Anna's openness to a more refreshing view of what merited a place on the Abbey stage was contained in the letter he sent to Thomas Kilroy informing the playwright that his ground-breaking play, The Death and Resurrection of Mr Roche, had been rejected. The shameful decision had been that of the theatre's didactic overlord, Ernest Blythe, but as newly appointed artistic director Mac Anna was the messenger. While it seems he didn't challenge Blythe's decision, his words hinted at the prospect of change: "the Abbey could not accept the play . . . not yet".