ArtScape: Following excellent reviews in the British newspapers, and a rave in the New York Times for DruidSynge at the Edinburgh International Festival, the theatre company has just won a Herald Angel double: one Angel award for outstanding production, while another went to Marie Mullen for her performances in DruidSynge.
Scotland's Herald newspaper has awarded Angels at the International and Fringe festivals for nine years, its critics deciding on artists deserving of recognition.
The DruidSynge cycle opened last weekend to a full house and rapturous applause at King's Theatre and Charles Isherwood's New York Times review calls it "the theatrical centrepiece of the Edinburgh International Festival". Of Marie Mullen, he says she "embodies an astonishing range of Synge's powerfully drawn female characters, defining each with indelible artistry, humour and compassion . . . her achievement may well come to rank among the legendary acting accomplishments of the era". Aaron Monaghan, meanwhile, is described as "an unforgettable Christy Mahon" in a "boisterous production of Playboy that practically takes your breath away". The review says "Garry Hynes has designed the cycle to be seen as a whole and has orchestrated it like a symphony, with comedy and pathos emphasised in different measures as one play succeeds another".
Apparently, following the review, three people in New York rang Druid's office in Galway to book tickets for next weekend's performance of the entire cycle on Inis Meáin, which promises to be a memorable experience. The Sunday shows were clashing with Galway's All-Ireland hurling appearance, so the performances will now start an hour early, at 1pm, with a break at 3.30pm for the match, which will be broadcast live on site at Dún Chonchuir, followed by a grub break, before getting back to the real drama at 6pm!
Ireland in miniature
The 6x6 For Ireland showcase opens tonight at 411 Gallery in Hangzhou in China before going on to Shanghai and Beijing. The open-submission exhibition features work from 129 Irish artists, both established and younger, working at home and around the world. All works are 6 inches x 6 inches (15.2 cm x 15.2 cm) in size and were mailed to the gallery over the past two months.
After two weeks in Hangzhou, the showcase, supported by Culture Ireland and the Department of Foreign Affairs, will be opened in Shanghai's Eastlink Gallery by Consul General of Ireland Nicholas O'Brien. It will later go on to Beijing's Gallery of the Central Academy of Fine Art, next to Tiananmen Square, where it will be opened by Irish Ambassador Declan Kelleher.
The 411 Gallery was set up in 2001 by German art history student Arvo Brune and Irish artist James Ryan, an exchange student from the University of Ulster who is now curator of the gallery. There were no outlets in the city for contemporary work and it built a reputation, initially showing artists from Hangzhou and later bringing over international works. Ryan invited Irish artists to exhibit, but as the gallery was extremely small, he set a limit on the size of the works, resulting in the 6x6 show, described as the largest exhibition of Irish art outside Ireland.
A postcard from Tutu
Anybody with a hankering to own an original piece of art by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, or by poet Seamus Heaney (not a man known to many for his skill with the brush), or actor Martin Sheen, will get two opportunities over the next 10 days, writes Haydn Shaughnessy.
Postcard-sized artworks by these three and by a number of Irish artists are up for auction at the www.delwynsconcern.com website, in aid of the charity, Concern. Those that don't sell in the online auction go to a real one on Monday, September 12th, at the Imperial Hotel in Cork.
The organiser, Delwyn Klevenow, of the Private Collector Gallery in west Cork, has lined up some of Ireland's best-known artists for the auction, as well as others including comedian Steve Coogan. Substantial works from artists Patrick Scott, William Harrington, Tom Climent, Bill Griffin, Neil Greig, Brian Smyth, Matt Lamb, Tomás Ó Cíobháin and Tim Goulding will be up for grabs.
The postcards deserve some praise too. Heaney's My Father Worked With A Horse Plough is a masterpiece of economy, though the horse might be wearing, or eating, a bow tie. Tutu has contributed We Belong Together, a caricature with a characteristic message of love and hope. Martin Sheen's sketch reminds me of a painting I paid €1,000 for 10 years ago, sadly.
Moore says the auction is "driven by art first and foremost. There are only 20 lots and there are no passengers in there. They're all collectable, with a reserve price set low enough to attract the non-professional investor". Looking for a potential bargain or indeed a Tutu, then Cork on September 12th is for you.
Waiting game
On August 3rd, 1955, the curtain went up at the Arts Club in London on a play few people had heard of. "Waves of hostility came whirling across the footlights and the mass exodus started quite soon after the curtain had risen," wrote Peter Bull, who played Pozzo in this, the first English-language production of Waiting for Godot. The director was Peter Hall, young and daring enough at 24 to take a few risks, reports Mary Russell. In any case, no other director would touch it. Even Hall himself was unsure. "Haven't really the foggiest idea what some of it means," he is quoted as saying in Bull's book. "But if we stop and discuss every line we'll never open."
Now, 50 years on, the Theatre Royal, Bath, has honoured Hall's bravery by inviting him to direct the play again, and this time there have been no walkouts. The theatre has been packed and, right from the start, the actors got their laughs.
Controversy, however, again surrounds the play. With Dublin's Gate Theatre and London's Barbican Theatre holding the licence, Hall is not allowed take his production to London.
"It's too close to the Gate's major programme for the centenary next year," says Michael Colgan. "We were happy for it to be put on this year to celebrate Peter's production's 50th anniversary but now have to draw the line. In any case, the Beckett estate doesn't want two productions one after the other."
Leigh way essential
A play with no title, no script, and no hint of what it's about. No, it's not a Fringe show, but A New Play by Mike Leigh, which has sold out all 16,000 advance tickets before its preview next Thursday at the Royal National Theatre in London.
Leigh, whose rehearsal methods are legendary, working with actors through improvisation without a script, has not written a stage play for 12 years. Apparently, most of the actors
in his most recent film, Vera Drake, were unaware that Drake was an abortionist until the characters they played discovered it.
The black-and-white poster for the new play - a single palm tree with sand dunes in the background - hardly gives the game away about the subject matter, though there's some speculation that it's about the Iraq war, which Leigh opposes.
Leigh and the cast - including Adam Godley, seen in Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman in Cork - have been holed up away from the theatre for four months rehearsing, and it's said there'll be a proper title by the first preview.
Dub talk
The Dubliner magazine is taking its title to heart next week with lectures, debates, readings and concerts under the banner Old City, New Dreams, drawing on what it describes as "the cream of Dublin's entertainers and writers".
The week's lively line-up includes Eamon Dunphy ("to pour oil on the fire") hosting a discussion on the Abbey, with Ulick O'Connor, Bruce Arnold, Phyllis Ryan, Tomás Mac Anna and Tony Ó Dálaigh. Other events include Gerard Mannix Flynn's "disarming account of life as it is really lived in Ireland" (from politics to pop culture) and Gerry Godley chairing Towards a New Dublin: Race,
Racism and Michael McDowell, a debate featuring journalists Fintan O'Toole and John Waters as well as economist Constantin Gurdgiev.
The programme runs from Monday to Friday next week, from 6pm in 15 St Stephen's Green - and it's all free. Tickets online at www.thedubliner.ie or from intern@thedubliner.ie