Artscape:It is hard to believe that 20 years have gone by since the premature death of Stewart Parker, writes Jane Coyle, writes Deirdre Falvey.
The Lyric Theatre is planning to celebrate the life and work of this hugely influential Belfast playwright with the Parker Project, a co-production with Rough Magic, whose co-founder and artistic director is his niece Lynne Parker.
In what has been conceived as an insightful examination of Parker's craft and his enduring fascination with the place of his birth, Lynne Parker will direct his first and last plays, Spokesong and Pentecost, in repertoire at the Old Northern Bank in Belfast's Waring Street between April 22nd and May 17th as part of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival.
They will then transfer to Dublin.
"It's great for us not to be doing 'just another play', but to try to capture the Parker repertoire, from where he started to the last play he wrote before his untimely death," says Lyric executive producer Michael Diskin. "And to be doing it with a director who understands the work so well is a huge plus."
Diskin believes the time is absolutely right for a Parker revival. "Politically, with a small 'p', it is very timely. Parker spoke for a type of Protestant culture that was squeezed by the Troubles. The time has now come to rediscover that hidden cultural tendance of Northern Protestantism and to open up the plays to the younger generation, who know relatively little of his work and have scant realisation that here in Belfast, only 20 years ago, was one of the major writers of his time."
The Parker Project represents a significant landmark for the Lyric - it constitutes the theatre's first off-site production while building gets underway on the new theatre on its Ridgeway Street site. Diskin views the next couple of years as the opportunity to turn a negative into a positive, in terms of trying out things that may find their way into the artistic policy of the new Lyric.
Rea and Clohessy join Abbey
The Abbey Theatre this month took on two new associate artists for creative support: award-winning sound designer and composer Denis Clohessy, and Oscar-nominated actor Stephen Rea.
They join the existing Abbey associate artists - director and producer David Gothard, designers Paul Keogan and Brien Vahey and directors/writers Conall Morrison and Bairbre Ní Chaoimh. Rea was recently in the Abbey premiere of Sam Shepard's Kicking a Dead Horse, and Clohessy is working on Romeo and Juliet, which opens at the Abbey on Tuesday - which is, strangely, the same night that the Gate Theatre opens The Glass Menagerie, starring Francesca Annis. What a night. Big theatre opening night clashes like this are rare, thanks to Theatre Forum's opening diary.
The Abbey's contemporary version of Romeo and Juliet isn't part of the theatre's new 20:Love series, but it fits in well with its theme. Six young emerging Irish writers - Stacey Gregg, Nancy Harris, Paul Murray, Gary Duggan, Belinda McKeon and Phillip McMahon - have been commissioned by the theatre's literary department to write a 20-minute play about love to be read on March 5th and 7th at the Peacock Theatre.
Meantime, also on a love buzz, the theatre continues its relationship with Shepard, when a new production of Fool for Love, directed by Annie Ryan, opens the 2008 4x4 season at the Peacock on February 19th.
Pan Pan hits the road
Pan Pan Theatre's Oedipus Loves You, the company's wickedly funny, theatrical take on the Oedipus plays and Freudian psychology, opens at the Riverside Studios in London on Tuesday night. The London run, the Dublin-based company's UK debut, is part of its world tour (which has been getting great reviews), following its premiere in 2006. Next up are Shanghai in April; Wexner Centre for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, in May; and PS122 in New York later in May. www.panpantheatre.com
•The Arts Council has offered additional funding totalling €845,000 to 27 arts organisations. This follows the extra €3 million announced by Minister for Arts Seamus Brennan (in addition to the council's annual budget, which didn't match inflation) at Budget time. There had been considerable disquiet last year when the larger, key Irish arts bodies (Regularly Funded Organisations) got very small increases, which would have seriously curtailed the creation of new artistic work, and the latest funding represents a top-up to some of those.
Arts Council director Mary Cloake said the extra money was being used for existing policy commitments, including in traditional arts, opera and ballet, and to organisations "where the timing of increased resources was of critical importance" or were crucial for developing audiences.
Some of those top-ups include: Ballet Ireland (an extra €22,000), Children's Books Ireland (€30,000), Druid Theatre Company (€20,000), Filmbase (€65,000), Fishamble Theatre Company (€30,000), Galway Arts Festival (€25,000), Graffiti Theatre Company (€33,000), Irish Chamber Orchestra (€20,000), Kilkenny Arts Festival (€25,000), Projects Arts Centre (€25,000), Temple Bar Gallery & Studios (€30,000), Wexford Festival Opera (€200,000).
The Arts Council is also accepting applications for this September's year-long Jerome Hynes Fellowship, as part of the Clore Leadership Programme, aimed at developing outstanding Irish cultural leaders. The 2008-2009 winner of the fellowship (total value €70,000, with €50,000 from the Arts Council and £15,000 from Clore) will follow in the footsteps of current Jerome Hynes Fellow, Dún Laoghaire arts officer Sharon Murphy, and previous recipients, Lewis Glucksman Gallery director Fiona Kearney and dancer and choreographer Fearghus Ó Conchúir. Closing date is March 3rd. Information from Clore Leadership Programme, South Building, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA, or www.cloreleadership.org.
•It's barely February, but plans for Irish participation in the Edinburgh Fringe in August are already being hatched. For any companies hoping for support from Culture Ireland, the deadline for applications is February 15th (also the deadline for proposals for Irish arts events abroad from May onwards).
In the past couple of years some Irish performances have made an impact at the Fringe, including Rough Magic's Improbable Frequency, Coiscéim's Knots and Druid's The Walworth Farce by Enda Walsh (the latter two won Scotsman Fringe First awards), and Culture Ireland is already committed to supporting two shows at the Traverse Theatre this year: Druid's The New Electric Ballroom by Enda Walsh, and the Abbey's Terminus by Mark O'Rowe, last seen in New York in January. There is limited funding to help other performances in Edinburgh. More details on www.cultureireland.gov.ie.
•Leitrim had a particularly good month in January. While Lúnasa's residency in the county continues the momentum of developing the traditional Irish music of Leitrim, independently of this the Irish Echo in New York last month listed three Leitrim albums in their top 10 for 2007: Reed Only by Brian McNamara and Limerick's Tim Collins, The Factory Turn by Damian O'Brien and Oliver Loughlin, and Turning the Tune by the legendary Charlie Lennon, featured at No 1, No 2 and No 7 respectively in Earle Hitchner's review of the year's traditional albums.
Meanwhile the Weather Cube, Gareth Kennedy's temporary floating sauna project, picked up the 2008 LAMA Award for Best Art Project commissioned by a local authority (the Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon, which was a co-commissioner in the awards, won the Best Arts Building at the same awards in 2007).
The Dock also pulled off a coup when the exhibition Brincoby Judi Werthein transferred from London's Tate Modern to open in parallel with a first gallery show by Jackie McKenna, better known for her public sculptures (both exhibitions are at The Dock until February 16th).
•Dublin University Players, Trinity College Dublin's drama society, which has spawned such diverse talents as Lynne Parker, Pauline McLynn, Camille O'Sullivan, Paul McGuinness and Michael Colgan, celebrates its 75th anniversary with a festival running from Monday until February 22nd, including performances of Dr Faustusand The Infernal Machine, the launch of a commemorative book on the society's history, past and present players performing a promenade piece, a reassembly of the cast of Wayne Jordan's Hattigan, including Kathy Rose O'Brien, plus performance art and site-specific plays. For more details, go to www.duplayers.com, call 087-9189221, or visit the Players Theatre.
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