Belfast's Lyric Theatre has been going through difficult times over the past year, with staff resignations, board changes, severe financial difficulties and the 50th anniversary season looming on the horizon. At the eleventh hour, Paula McFetridge, who directed Tinderbox's excellent Convictions project, was appointed as artistic advisor, charged with the unenviable task of putting in place a programme, which would reflect the Lyric's huge contribution to theatre-making in the North over the past 50 difficult years.
Balloons bobbed, streamers billowed and a large 50th-birthday cake lent an air of celebration to the packed launch on the Lyric's riverside lawns. Meanwhile, the programme, produced after long hours of hard graft, was received with great dollops of goodwill but a quiet acknowledgment that the upturn in fortunes is still to come. On BBC Radio Ulster's ArtsExtra that evening, McFetridge declared the challenge facing her to be "like swimming uphill". In response, two Belfast critics applauded her focus on local talent, while ruefully declaring that the overall package falls short of the high expectations for such an illustrious occasion.
Proceedings kick off in some style on September 21st, with a production of The Importance of Being Earnest, which unites director Dan Gordon with the play in which he first appeared on the Lyric stage. It is followed by a two-night visit by Bruiser Theatre Company with its revival of Jim Cartwright's Two. There were furrowed brows at the heralding of a "new" play by Marie Jones, which will run during the Belfast Festival. Weddings, Weeins and Wakes was written in one act many moons ago for Charabanc. This reworked, full-length musical version, directed by Ian McElhinney, features a score by Trevor Moore. The Lyric's other festival offering is a three-night run of Kneehigh Theatre Company's much praised melodrama The Red Shoes. Christmas will be celebrated with a combination of Paul Boyd's Red Riding Hood, first commissioned by An Grianan in Letterkenny last year, and Conor Grimes's and Alan McKee's Plucked and Stuffed, billed as the weirdest nativity play in town. Full details from the box office at Belfast 90381081.
Meanwhile, a batch of cutting-edge, provocative, contemporary theatre is on offer across the city at the Old Museum Arts Centre. First up is a Festival of Ridiculusmus, with the madcap company presenting four ridiculous shows in four days. Prime Cut will stage the Northern Irish premiere of Mark Ravenhill's hard-hitting, award-winning Shopping and F***ing. And OMAC's partnership with the Belfast Festival steps up onto a new footing with The Summit venue receiving a handful of hit transfers from this year's Edinburgh Fringe, including The Big Picture Company, Garth Marenghi, a double bill by Unlimited Theatre Company and performance artist Sarah Faulkner's short, subversive glide through the ancient ritual of The Tea Ceremony. Complete programme on Belfast 90233332.
There haven't been many performers who won such overflowing affection from a wide public as the great Polish pianist, Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982). Rubinstein, whose performing career lasted a remarkable 81 years, five months and 17 days, was born when Brahms was still alive, and remained before his adoring public until 1976, when failing eyesight forced him off the concert platform. He published two books of memoirs, totalling over a thousand pages, and his complete commercial recorded legacy was issued two years ago on the 94 CDs of the RCA Rubinstein Collection.
The Irish Times music critic, Michael Dervan, has sifted this mountain of material into a six-part series, King Arthur, which will be broadcast weekly on Lyric FM's 7pm Green Room slot from Monday, September 3rd. The programmes will feature Jonathan Ryan, in readings from the memoirs, as well as a selection of music that strays far beyond Rubinstein's beloved Chopin.
Ravel, Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Falla, Villa-Lobos, Milhaud and Poulenc were among the pianist's friends, and he left recordings of music by most of them as well as accounts of their encounters. "Rubinstein was 67 when he made his first stereo recording," points out Michael Dervan, "and the late recordings by which he is best known actually provide a very limited view of his full musical personality. The King Arthur programmes re-balance the picture of a man whose Chopin playing, believe it or not, was once regarded as excessively dry by his fellow countrymen." Producer Colin Morrison says, "What Michael has simply and beautifully done in King Arthur is to really reveal and uncover for us, not only Rubinstein's absolute commitment to his art; but also his enthusiasm, his passion and compassion for himself and the world in which he, without doubt, uneasily but beautifully stood. King Arthur is the celebration of a genius."
Favourite movie of all time, anyone? Well, it wasn't much of a surprise when, voting for the film they most wanted to see, audiences at the Diversions multicultural festival - which has been running in Temple Bar's Meeting House Square throughout the summer, with 15 films, 24 theatrical performances and 13 family events, all outdoors and free - chose Cinema Paradiso. Its gentle nostalgia will provide a fittingly elegiac note for the festival's closing night this Saturday - though there will doubtless be a ripple of excitement as well, when the winner of the ESB Short Circuits award is announced. Some 12 short films are competing for the prize of 5,000, and the winning film will be screened at 10 p.m., with Cinema Paradiso to follow at 10.30 p.m. Tickets are free and can be collected from Temple Bar Properties during the week.
Over at the Samuel Beckett Theatre on Saturday evening, meanwhile, theatre's role in the development of young minds will be the topic when Dr Bernd Ruping presents a paper on the twin functions of youth theatre: artistic endeavour and social development. A German academic and drama-in-education specialist, Dr Ruping will draw on his own considerable experience in the field. His lecture, which marks the National Association for Youth Drama's contribution to the Arts Council's Critical Voices programme, begins at 6 p.m. and will be followed by the final performance of Denis Johnston's The Old Lady Says No!
arts@irish-times.ie
