The place of the pig in Irish theatre is one of those subjects that can creep up on you in the small hours: from At the Black Pig's Dyke to Frank Pig Says Hello and Disco Pigs, the porcine preoccupation persists. Pigtown, written by Mike Finn and directed by Terry Devlin for Limerick's Island Theatre Company last year is the most recent variation on the theme. A journey through Limerick's past, back to the days when Limerick Bacon was the rasher of choice, it reflects "urban, working class experience, which has only recently begun to be chronicled in this country," its author says. It received multiple nominations for Irish Times/ESB Theatre Awards this year and won Best Set award for Dolores Lynne's design.
Now Mike Finn - actor, playwright and founder member of Island - is the co-recipient of a New Playwright bursary from the Stewart Parker Trust. The Trust, which was established in honour of the Belfast playwright who died in 1988, offers awards to new Irish playwrights. Island will revive Pigtown at the Belltable next month, and has plans to tour in the autumn, with a visit to the Dublin Fringe Festival looking likely.
The joint winner of the £7,500 bursary, Dubliner Ken Harmon, is currently writer-in-residence with Dublin's Bedrock Theatre Company. He won the award for Wideboy Gospel, directed by Jimmy Fay, which premiered last year at the Dublin Fringe Festival, where his earlier plays, Speedmetal Farmers and Voodoo Dolls, Double Doves, were also staged.
He's currently working on a play with the optimistic title, The Decline of Breakdancing. For those who missed Wideboy Gospel last year, there's a second chance: following a visit to the Greenwich Festival in July, and a trip westward to the Galway Arts Festival, Bedrock will be the first company to perform in the performance space (The Cube) in Project Arts Centre's new Temple Bar building, in July.
The performance programme for the new Project building, which opens on June 12th, includes companies with a long, productive association with the arts centre, such as Loose Canon, who will present a "laboratory production based on text by Shakespeare" in August, directed by Jason Byrne.
Choreographer Paul Johnson's work-in-progress with Mandance, Without Hope of Fear, has been seen at various stages over the past two years. The finished work will be performed in The Space Upstairs, Project's flexible, first-floor performance space, in July. Later in the year, Rough Magic will stage Richard Greenberg's Pulitzer-nominated play, Three Days of Rain, which explores parent-child relationships and what binds and what divides generations. Meanwhile Lynne Parker, Rough Magic's artistic director (and Stewart Parker's niece) has been making a splash elsewhere: her exuberant production of The Comedy of Errors for the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon, designed by Blaithin Sheerin, has been critically acclaimed and is attracting full houses.
There has been no shortage of speculation about Vladimir Ashkenazy's early termination of his recital at the National Concert Hall last Thursday. A recurrence of his arthritis problems has been the most talked-about explanation. But the Ashkenazy exit is not regarded with much surprise by the members of the National Symphony Orchestra. They have been concerned about conditions on the stage of the NCH for a long time, citing unpredictability of temperature and air-quality as reasons for players having to leave the stage during performances.
Early this week, with the prospect of TV lights being used for the finals of the Axa Dublin International Piano Competition, they voted to demand from RTE an alternative venue for rehearsals unless their concerns were met. The NSO's general manager, Martyn Westerman, confirmed the existence of problems in this area, which, he said, are a cause of concern for the long-term well-being of the musicians. Although he is "very concerned about the situation", RTE, as tenant rather than landlord of the NCH, is limited in the scope of action available to it. "We're looking at bringing RTE health and safety people in," Westerman says.
The NCH's PR/marketing manager, Jacqui Mahon, says the hall is aware of the concerns that have been raised, and confirmed that discussions have been going on. "We're doing our best to sort things out," she says, and air-conditioning consultants have been in. However, the issue of the musicians seeking an alternative venue had not been raised by RTE with the NCH, she said. The players' demand, which was made to RTE through their union, was confirmed to this column by the musicians' SIPTU representative, John Swift.
The new edition of the Irish Music Handbook, just published by the Music Network, is fatter and fuller than the first, making it even more indispensable as a guide to classical, traditional and jazz in Ireland, north and south. With 2,450 entries, the handbook, which is supported by the Arts Councils, north and south, and the ESB and IMRO, has eight new sections. They range from the therapeutic to the practical, including Music Educationalists/Community Musicians, Music Therapists, Health and Musicians, Arts Consultants, Event Management Companies, Winter Schools & Short Courses, Composers and, invaluably, Piano Tuners. The section on festivals alone runs to some 231 entries.
The handbook costs £16.95 and is expected to be accessible on the Internet when Music Network launches its website later this year. Details from Music Network at 01-6719429.
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