`I've been blessed in that I have always known exactly what I wanted to do," says John Sheehan, Artistic Director of Siamsa Tire, the National Folk Theatre, in Tralee. Born in New York to second-generation Irish parents, Sheehan spent most of his New Jersey childhood putting on plays in the garage. "I did it instinctively. I would say who should play the prince and who should play the father but it wasn't a power thing. In my neighbourhood there was no privilege attached to being the director." A sign which used to hang in Sheehan's garage theatre is now displayed in his Siamsa Tire office. The words are written in a child's scrawl: "No booing or spitting or anything to insult the actors or you will be shown the exit." Sheehan, who was about seven when he wrote it, found the sign when he was clearing out his father's old desk. "It was shortly after he died," he says. "It was prophetic."
Sheehan always adored the stage and performing. As a child he frequently acted in the theatre and appeared in commercials. At 18 he had his first play produced. An instant hit, the play was produced throughout the country and the young playwright made enough money from the royalties to put himself through college. His interest in the theatre has never waned. He has since written for, and directed, theatre, musicals and opera all over the US and in London.
Yet, despite describing himself as 100 per cent Irish, Sheehan had never been to Ireland until August 1997, when, as part of the Siamsa Tire selection process, he came to Tralee to work with the company's core group. Sheehan never applied for the job of artistic director.
He was recommended to the Siamsa search committee when they were interviewing American applicants in New York. He got a phone call on a Friday night asking him to come to an interview on the Saturday. "In some ways," he muses, "that may have been why it worked. The first thing I said was that I was completely ignorant of Irish traditions, folklore, dancing and music and couldn't imagine why they would be interested in hiring someone like me."
Undeterred by his lack of exposure to Irish culture, Sheehan then threw himself into the interview, enthusiastically stressing his capabilities. "I knew if I were to get the job I would need to study a great deal very quickly. I would need a good deal of support and artistic advice but I can read, watch, listen and learn. I know about music, singing and storytelling and I certainly know about theatre. I know how to run a theatre and put a show together."
Obviously the committee agreed. After another interview and a four-day workshop, they hired him to revamp a national organisation which, as Sheehan tactfully puts it "hasn't been terribly busy lately". Sheehan is fluently convincing, a quality which has helped him through the many daunting stages of his life. In 1970, having just graduated from college, he was drafted in the first Vietnam lottery. He was 21. His experience in Vietnam confirmed and reinforced the direction his career path would take. In Vietnam, he says, he had his "epiphany".
"One night we were attacked by the VC (Viet Cong). We grabbed our rifles and hid in the bunker. The sirens were going and we were doing nothing but waiting to be killed or go out and kill. I started telling the guys about a Broadway show I had seen, acting out the parts, the songs, the dance steps, telling them about the scenery. Before I knew it, the hours had passed and the red alert was over. They had dropped the bombs at the other end of the beach and we were walking back to our barracks. Two guys were talking and one was saying to the other `. . . I'm telling you, it was just like in the show we saw tonight.' Of course it was a great compliment to me, but I suddenly realised that this is what I do anyway. Even if I'm in Vietnam fighting a war, I'm still a storyteller. The realisation was a great encouragement."
After six months in the jungle, Sheehan went to Saigon and persuaded the special services division to let him run the military entertainment for the US Army. He laughs at his brazenness now, but the same audacity and propensity for risk-taking has followed him throughout an eclectic theatrical career. When he was asked to run an opera company which had its office in a coffee shop and its wardrobe department in the boot of a car, he didn't hesitate. He may not have known much about opera when the company began, but he helped it grow into the acclaimed Opera Ensemble of New York and was its artistic director for 11 years.
Unlike his previous appointments however, as artistic director of Siamsa Tire, Sheehan has joined much more than just a theatre. Since it was conceived by Father Pat Ahern in the late 1960s, Siamsa Tire has been an integral part of Tralee and north Kerry culture, with structures which are grounded in a very specific folk ethos. Using music, mime, dance and drama, Siamsa Tire attempts to express what was, and is, special about our past, traditions and mythologies. Two outreach centres in Carraig and Finuge train young local performers who then have an opportunity to perform with the core group of six in Siamsa's Christmas and summer shows. Members of the community company, made up of those who once went through the training programme, also participate in the productions. Consequently, Siamsa performers can range from the under 10s to the over 60s.
The authenticity of the dancing styles Siamsa Tire aims to preserve inspired Maria Pages to travel to the theatre in the early 1990s to choreograph the Seville Suite for the 1992 World Expo. Performed to music composed by Bill Whelan, the piece included flamenco dancing by Pages and sean nos dancing by Siamsa. Despite being the most obvious forerunner of Riverdance, the coup was relatively unpublicised. Largely because Siamsa has increasingly been catering for tourist audiences, its nationwide profile for the past two decades has not been high. ire company itself has failed to tour recently, a drawback which Sheehan is determined to change. "Touring is work, time and trouble and it requires attention. We haven't had that breadth of resources but touring is going to have to become a full, equal, major component of our operation.
"At this stage tourists comprise a larger proportion of our audience than we would like. We're grateful for their interest and enthusiasm but we are, after all, a resource for the Irish people. Primarily we're here to celebrate ourselves. It's a shame that Siamsa isn't better appreciated, better known and better used."
Sheehan has come up with a five-year strategy which, as well as including plans for extensive touring, highlights the importance of new repertory and aggressive marketing. He has also created two new posts of music director and stage manager. Aware of Siamsa's somewhat staid reputation, Sheehan intends to reinvigorate and develop the company.
"If we're going to call ourselves the National Folk Theatre we have to expand our horizon. Tralee and Kerry have supported Siamsa for a long time. This building happened because of local, not national enthusiasm and now we have to find the path to open up the scope of the company to include a wider array of styles, of talents and of people. We need to enlarge the numbers of people who are working here. We need to set an artistic standard which we will not violate. We have to be vigilant," says Sheehan.
"I want to throw open the doors and get everybody involved," he adds. "I would love nothing more than to be besieged by manuscripts, tapes and proposals. I would love everybody in Ireland to come to me with an idea for a show. I wouldn't expect to do them all myself. I don't want to do them all myself. I want this to be a theatre of, for and by the people of this country."
Since he moved to Tralee last October, leaving a large part of his life behind in New York, Sheehan has been immersing himself in Irish literature, history, music and dance. While admitting that some aspects of the job so far have been "tricky", he doesn't feel his nationality has been an inhibiting factor. "I'm not coming from the specificity of the Irish culture: I'm coming in almost the way a consultant would, to look at an arts company. I can be objective because I'm not coloured by emotional connections to people."
Siamsa's new show, directed by John Sheehan, is a musical dramatisation based on the Irish legend of the Goban Saor or Master Builder. The director describes the show as "a fairy tale for adults", about acquiring and using wisdom.
Concerned about the way in which theatre in general is becoming reliant on non-theatrical elements, Sheehan believes that amplification and the "lazy" use of film and video sever the sensitive connection between audience and performance. Sometimes, however, a perceived foe can be a friend in disguise. Siamsa Tire's attitude towards Riverdance may be ambivalent, but when Sheehan travelled to the US to set up a tour for 1999, he says it was like "picking apples".
Sheehan constantly refers to theatre as a "product", yet he passionately believes in the enduring relevance of what Siamsa Tire aims to do. "The whole world is shrinking and people are getting more concerned about their individual traits and heritage. They want to remember where they came from and what is indigenous to their part of the globe. The whole notion of folk theatre is to reach into the past for what was valuable and remains valuable, to show people today that traditions were there for a reason, that they were nurturing, that they were about sustenance and that they still have that strength, that richness and that value for us."
An Goban Saor opens at Siamsa Tire, Tralee on September 23rd
