Change is the friend of progress: that was the message given last November by Ben Barnes, artistic director of the Abbey Theatre, as he launched the lavishly ambitious programme which would mark the theatre's centenary. In the year ahead, Barnes indicated, every facet of the organisation would have to "come under rigorous scrutiny and reappraisal" if the Abbey was to survive in its second century, writes Belinda McKeon.
As the Abbey announced details of a major restructuring programme yesterday, which will see its core staff reduced by roughly one-third, the nature of those changes was brought starkly home. By December 2005, some 30 of 91 contract and permanent staff members will be out of a job. December 2005 is also the date when Barnes's own tenure expires, and he has confirmed that he will not be renewing his contract, instead pursuing projects in Canada, among other places.
For other staff members on contracts whose jobs comprise 40 per cent of the cost-cutting exercise, however, the roll-out period put in place will prove significantly shorter than the 15 months vaunted by the Abbey. Some of these contracts will expire in the very near future - including that of the commissioning manager, Jocelyn Clarke, which expires on October 31st.
So, even as the Abbey continues with the expensive celebration of its centenary year - during the forthcoming Abbey in Ireland series, for example, which will see 17 productions staged during the fortnight of the Dublin Theatre Festival - the organisation will have begun to bleed from within. According to inside sources, the literary department of which Clarke was a part is likely to be badly hit by the cuts, with the outreach and education departments also suffering.
There are well-founded fears, too, that the position of director of the Peacock stage, to which Ali Curran was appointed in 2001, will be dissolved, and that the Peacock will go "dark" for the months following the festival and possibly longer.
Long regarded as the home of younger, more experimental artists, the Peacock has been a space in which artistic risk and the notion of a national theatre can, albeit stiltingly, exist side by side.
That it, along with the department dedicated to spotting and nurturing new talent, should bear the brunt of the proposed cuts is a serious prospect. But it was already signalled in June, when it emerged that two productions scheduled to run in the Peacock in October and December had simply been dropped.
At that stage a shortfall in the funds available to support the centenary programme was spoken of by insiders, denied by the management of the Abbey, and confirmed by a member of the board.
No statement was issued by the Abbey. Nor was any issued some weeks later, when it emerged that, due to an apparent mix-up in dates, the entire Abbey in Ireland series would have to be brought forward by a week.
Having come into its centenary year without a dedicated communications office, the Abbey's reaction at pivotal moments proved either contradictory or evasive. On both occasions Ben Barnes proved unavailable for comment. This week he is is again out of reach, touring an Abbey production of The Gigli Concert in Australia.
The restructuring programme, then, comes against a backdrop of increasingly apparent crisis in the Abbey. And yet long before this bungling of its centenary year, the need for change had been obvious. What yesterday's announcement represents is a rationalisation long overdue; since 2003, when the Abbey took a 15 per cent cut in its Arts Council funding - from €4,850,000 to €4,127,000 - it has been operating on a deficit of between €750,000 and €800,000.
The elaborate infrastructure which is the result of appointments both by Barnes at the beginning of his tenure, and by his predecessor, Patrick Mason, has been in need of a reality check, even though the Arts Council subsidy has subsequently risen to €4.5 million.
This is a subsidy problem from which the financial management of the Abbey can arguably step clear. But it is not, and cannot be claimed to be, the sole reason for the escalating trouble faced by the theatre as it attempts to balance its obligation to the canon and to new writing.
What has everything to do with the board, and with financial management, is the farce surrounding the funding of the extraordinarily aspirational centenary programme.
Packed with impressive international productions, the promise of new writing and a wealth of revivals - as well as substantial outreach and educational initiatives - and featuring tours to Canada and Australia, it looked last November like an embarrassment of riches. It stands now merely as an embarrassment.
Ben Barnes has freely admitted that the centenary programme was launched before the fundraising initiative, chaired by John McColgan and so crucial to the programme's realisation, had been completed.
To date the work of McColgan's board has fallen below expectations to the tune of as much as €500,000. The result is a massacre, first of the programme, then of the infrastructure necessary for the creation of any remotely ambitious programmes in the near future.
The staff are now paying, with a harsh reactive restructuring package which could have been implemented in a much more reasonable manner had the financial situation been addressed in a timely way.
That Barnes can remain aloof in Australia while this situation unfolds is difficult to believe. Yet such has been the leadership style for too long. A lack of clarity, of responsibility and of realistic direction has marred the centenary year and cast the national theatre in the worst possible light.
With the Government's support so vital in the theatre's plans for its future, and with the Book of Estimates now in preparation, it may yet pay dearly.