Treading water . . . and the boards

Many arts organisations are facing deep cuts, but what happens when your funding is axed completely? ARMINTA WALLACEspends a day at Dublin's Focus Theatre to find out how they keep afloat on a tiny budget, writes

10.30am Zero sum games

It should have been a great year for Dublin’s 45-seater Focus Theatre. After a four-year closure, it had scrambled back into action in June 2010, and was so successful – mounting 15 productions, carrying out three outreach projects and running an actor’s studio on an Arts Council grant of €63,000 – that it was awarded €1.3 million to build a bigger performance space.

“We worked our socks off,” says the theatre’s artistic director, Joe Devlin. “But we just couldn’t raise the third we needed to raise. So we gave the money back to the Government.” And then the theatre’s annual grant was axed. Time to roll the credits and put up a sign reading “The End?”

Not at all.

Focus is busier than ever. It’s opening a new play this month and working on two more. It offers training courses in the Stanislavski method for actors and, above all, it mentors young playwrights and directors, encouraging and incubating new writing.

“There’s amazing work going on here,” says Devlin. “And everybody’s a volunteer. Everybody. We’re meeting our costs, and whatever comes in after that is divided equally amongst everyone.”

Dublin City Council has given a little sponsorship to help with this year’s programme; and there’s some private donations. “Hand-to-mouth stuff,” Devlin admits. “But we’re managing. We have no debts, and we’re getting on with it, and having fun along the way. We’re just staying above water – but you can’t sustain that for ever.”

11.30am The show must go on

Playwright Brian McAvera is working with actors Cathal Quinn and Tara Breathnach, putting the final touches to the production of his new play Francis and Franceswhich opens at Focus on June 13th.

“We’re ready, Cathal,” he calls. “Yeah – just putting on my dress,” is the perfectly-timed reply from behind the wings – earning the actor a laugh before he even appears on stage. His opening monologue prompts several more: and that’s exactly how McAvera likes it.

“It seems to me that people should actually enjoy themselves at the theatre – even if it’s complex or difficult subject matter,” he says. “If I go to the theatre, I don’t want to be lectured at. Humour is a great leavener – even at the height of Shakespearean tragedy you get puns, you get bad jokes and you get interesting visuals.”

Like Devlin, McAvera hails from Belfast; the two also share a view of theatre that is usually described as “alternative”. McAvera snorts. That depends on what you define as the norm, he says.

“One of the things we’ve tried to do in this production is to incorporate the spirit of the music hall – which has a very long lineage. It can be traced way back before the Victorians and, of course, the inheritors of the tradition today are stand-up comedians. In both cases, they ignore the fourth wall and communicate directly with the audience. I think that sense of involvement is crucial.”

The play explores the troubled mind of the painter Francis Bacon; a story of sexuality and national identity written as a series of 10 “propositions”. As for Quinn and Breathnach, McAvera says their Stanislavski training at Focus means they have the kind of vocal, emotional and physical dexterity his play requires.

“It’s definitely not for children. Or your grandmother,” he concludes, “although she might like it,” he adds, after the tiniest dramatic pause.

12.30pm Clothes maketh the wo/man

The opening of the hall door – everyone who’s working here has their own key – indicates the arrival of Focus intern Sarah O’Neill, bearing several large bags. She puts these down on the all-purpose table in the green room/coffee shop/director’s office/boardroom, and the actors dive into them as if they were full of gourmet goodies.

Quinn pulls out a lacy corset. “Oops – that’s not mine,” he says. He reaches into the bag again, and pulls out another corset. “Aha. That’s mine. No boobs.” The velvet is soft to the touch. “Penneys’ best, cannibalised,” says Breathnach, indicating the dominatrix special effects O’Neill has added to take the underwear out of the high street and on to the stage.

O’Neill came to Focus in October to help with administration and front-of-house, “co-ordinating volunteers, sending texts and phone calls, working out rotas”, she says. She quickly graduated to box-office spreadsheets, then to design and stage management. She has also revamped the theatre’s website.

“But what I was most concerned about was trying to maximise the use of the venue. So I came up with the idea of inviting students in to showcase their work; students from performing-arts courses such as Trinity and UCD, but also students who aren’t studying drama but are involved in drama societies.”

How does she feel about having to do all this work for free?

“It’s great experience. If I wasn’t here, I’d probably still be sending CVs around trying to find work. As it is, because of my connection to Focus, people are calling me and asking me to do things.”

In order to earn some sort of living, O’Neill admits that she takes on far too much – among other things, she teaches dance in Foxrock on Saturdays. “It’s disheartening. I mean, everyone has cutbacks. But a lovely little arthouse theatre like this . . .”

She bites her lip. The roof, she knows, needs fixing; the place needs insulating. During the snow, they had to bring in extra heaters – which sent the electricity bills out the window. “We’re keeping above water at the moment. I’m not too sure what it will be like at the end of the year.”

1.30pm Food for thought

We all gather round the all-purpose table, where the artistic director has laid out lunch: smoked mackerel, hummus, rocket salad, toasted gluten-free bread and green tea. McAvera, passes a bag of crisps around. As we eat, he regales us with lively tales of his theatrical travels which involve everything from Welsh repertory companies to Moldavian pirates. He’s a big name on the avant-garde theatre scene internationally, says Devlin. It’s time he had an audience in Ireland as well.

McAvera is philosophical. “I’ve carved out a career elsewhere,” he says. “When you have the opportunity to see productions of your own works in lots of different languages, you actually become very, very aware of what actors bring to a production,” he says. “What a director brings. What a set designer brings. Also, you become very aware of what bits are universal and what bits aren’t.”

With spot-on dramatic timing, the smoke alarm suddenly begins to bleat out its objection to the toast. “Hah!” exclaims Devlin, flapping at the alarm with a script. “Full marks for health and safety at Focus . . .”

2.30pm Meeting of minds

"Jimmy Murphy," Devlin introduces, "Michal Lemanski." It's the first time the Dublin playwright has met the Polish sociology graduate who will be co-producing his forthcoming show, Hen Night Epiphany, with Devlin. Lemanski is currently working as production manager to Blanche McIntyre on Elizabeth Moynihan's play Pinching for my Soul, which will open at Focus on June 29th.

“I was always interested in theatre,” says Lemanski. “I was an amateur actor as a teenager. I came to Ireland in 2004, did some ordinary jobs, and came to Focus in 2009.” He has now completed a business degree into the bargain.

The two are a study in contrasts; Lemanski pale, fair and mostly silent; Murphy dark, out of breath – “I got stuck in the middle of 10,000 farmers demonstrating down at the Dáil” – and full of chat.

“It’s the first all-woman play I’d written, and I was afraid I’d sound patronising, more than anything else,” says Murphy. “ I approached the Abbey, and they said they wanted my more ‘archetypal’ play.

“Which,” he adds with a grin, “is men telling each other to f**k off. That’s precisely the reason why I wrote this. To get away from archetypal plays. I don’t think a playwright should have anything archetypal.”

The lengthy process of incubation, readings and rewriting was a wonderful working environment, he says. “There’s a sense of going back to the roots of what theatre’s all about – people of a similar mindset. Everybody’s here because they want to be. Nobody’s getting paid.”

Speaking of which, there's good news and bad news about Hen Night Epiphany.The good news is that venues love the tale of five women on a hen night, one of whom knows a secret that might put a stop to the marriage of her friend.

It has already been booked by The Helix, the Civic in Tallaght, the Mermaid in Bray and a school hall for Ranelagh Arts.

The bad news is that there’s no money. Murphy nods grimly. “We’ll find the money,” Lemanski tells him.

3.30pm Spirit levels

I expected to emerge from a day at Focus Theatre shrouded in doom, gloom and complaints. Instead, I’m as energised as if I’d been plugged into the mains for the day.

"We've never really blown our trumpet," says Devlin, "and we need to, now. We need to let people know what we do. Despite ourselves, we've been pretty influential as a seed-bed for Irish theatre. We mentored Louise Loue, who has just got an Irish TimesTheatre Award nomination. Polish Theatre Ireland started here, and is now launched on the scene. Making Strangedid their first three or four productions here and they're now touring internationally.

“And I’m going to come out of the closet about something here. Brian Friel said recently – at the opening of the Lyric Theatre in Belfast – that in Ireland we have neglected an area of theatre, which is the spiritual dimension. That’s the first time I can think of that somebody from mainstream theatre has really addressed that – so Focus can come out and admit that this is what we’ve always been about.

“Stanislavski is about opening up the actor’s facility so that they can explore a deeper emotional and spiritual area within their playing. We’re going to be 50 years old in 2013, that’s why we’ve been here all this time – and that’s why we’ll be here for another 50 or 100 years.”

Frances and Francis, by Brian McAvera, previews June 9th-11th, and runs June 13th-25th, at Focus Theatre, Pembroke Place, Dublin