Will its series of 18 public readings in 14 days offer a much-needed boost to the Abbey Theatre's centenary programme? Susan Conley reports

In the midst of the controversy, recrimination and whingeing that hangs over the last quarter of the Abbey's centenary celebration, let's spare a thought for those working behind the scenes. The "18 plays in 14 days" have been researched and rehearsed, and will be performed by teams whose only thoughts have been about the execution of the work.

The real threat at the heart of the Abbey catastrophe is that a significant number of freelance designers, actors, writers, and directors make their living from it, and need it in order to build their careers.

In Reading the Decades, the series of open play readings that is part of the Abbey's offering in this year's Dublin Theatre Festival, a group of talented directors, designated as "new and emerging", are ostensibly being given the opportunity to get a toe in the door of the national theatre. Depending on one's point of view, this aspect of the centenary programme is a questionable use of time, space and energy, or is possibly the hidden gem at the heart of the programme.

Jo Mangan, David Horan, Jason Byrne, Roisín McBrinn, Thomas Conway, Audrey Devereux, Jimmy Fay, Judy Hegarty-Lovett, Annabelle Comyn and Rachel West may be youthful, but they all have a range of experience that any seasoned practitioner would be proud to look back on. Seven of the 10 are artistic directors of their own theatre companies; Horan has gained invaluable experience, both in and out of the Abbey, as an assistant director to the likes of Stephen Rea, Gerry Stembridge, and Laszlo Marton; Fay and his company, Bedrock, was the founder of the Dublin Fringe Festival; West, Comyn, and Hegarty-Lovett have extensive experience working abroad.

Given rehearsals for Fringe shows, last-minute tweaks to Arts Council applications, and the problem of sheer distance, it was difficult to track down this crowd. The interviews with five directors who made themselves available, Mangan, Devereux, Comyn, Horan and West, showed that the experience they were bringing to the project was relevant and wide-ranging, so the notion that they were "new" was one that begged questions.

But first off, what's the point of a play reading? A director and her or his cast sit round a table and read directly from the pages of a playscript. There are no props, movement is not blocked, the players are not "off book". In private, as part of a company's production process, says Jo Mangan, "I think they're most useful for new plays, in giving something an outing in advance of it being hammered down before it goes into production, because it's such a big investment time-wise, resources-wise, and money-wise".

In the public arena, what is most interesting about play readings is that they allow the theatregoer an unfettered perspective on the text itself, and they go some way towards allowing a glimpse into the early stages of a process that can be vital and compelling.

"And we're in the rehearsal room," adds Audrey Devereux, who is directing for Tiger Theatre Company in the ESB Dublin Fringe Festival. "I'm sure lots of people haven't seen it. I think it's nice for an audience to come and see that this is what a rehearsal room looks like, and hear how a play would sound in the rehearsal room."

Rachel West is no stranger to readings, having organised Playing Politics, a series of readings for last year's Dublin Theatre Festival. "I think that doing something like a series like this, where we're doing these readings, and there are also full productions downstairs supporting it, makes it feel like the Abbey's a little more open to the public, and the audience are kind of peeking behind the scenes," she says.

The directors will have one day to work with their cast, a time constraint that Annabelle Comyn puts into optimistic perspective. "It's about communicating the story as \ as possible, and to get the feel of the piece across, rather than confuse it with other elements that you don't have time to fulfil properly," she says. "I'll need to keep it to the text, and help the actors to bring across and perform the story. I'm just going to keep it simple, and tell the story, and if we can do that, I'll be happy."

"There's hardly any time to get these ready, but I think they'll be better for it," says David Horan. He goes on to suggest that, to get the best out of the series, it "probably will only make sense to someone if they come to at least three. It's no experience to come to just one".

Horan is director-in-residence of Inis Theatre, whose Fringe offering for 2004 is Tick My Box. Before either of the festivals even end, he will be heading to France and a year of training at École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris. "It's easier for me to get funding to train than it is to get funding to put on a show, so I thought 'well, let's do this then', " he says.

Horan was also an Abbey staff director, as part of a scheme initiated by the previous artistic director, Patrick Mason, to "bring up" young directors by giving them assistant directing experience, with a view to directing a show of their own in the Peacock.

One of the places in which up-and-coming talent has had a place has been the Peacock Theatre. The shock and dismay that greeted the initial rumour that the venue was going to go completely dark in 2005 was an explosion not only of immediate disbelief, but also of a sense of future loss. Could these directors, who see the Peacock as their next stepping-stone, count on ever being hired by the national theatre, or must they go it alone? The dilemma of whether to create one's own company or try to remain a "hired gun" affects many of these promising directors, and is one about which each has made different choices.

Comyn, back from a 10-year stint in London working for the Royal Court and the Donmar Warehouse, hung on as long as she could before forming her own company, ArcLight, which recently staged Martin Crimp's The Country in Project. "I'm learning that in Ireland you have to just do it yourself," she says. "There's not enough buildings out there, and it seemed to me the only way to go."

"I did everything to not do it that way, because I had seen others do it and I was very aware that you could end up in a situation where you were not learning any more," says Horan. "But in order to show producers what you can do, you have to put on a play. You have to hang in there, and work really hard to be able to convince anybody that you're able to do anything."

"It's just the way it's set up here - the artistic director of a company directs the plays," Mangan says. Mangan herself is artistic director of Performance Corporation, which made a splash in 2002 with its production of Candide. "If you work your arse off for 10 years on no money, finally get your foot in the door, and you get funding, you're not going to be handing it over to someone else. Everyone feels that they need to put in their 10 years of hard slog, and no money, and all the rest of it."

The reading series might be seen as a token gesture to these accomplished directors, but it can also be perceived as an imprimatur by the powers that be. With the absence of the stage that seemed to exist solely for the nurturing of this "new and emerging talent", will such an imprimatur be given the chance to be fulfilled?