ARTSCAPE: MOST NEW YORKERS would rather move to New Jersey than enter the public conveniences in Central Park, writes Belinda McKeon, but Semper Fi's production of Paul Walker's noirish thriller Ladies and Gents has been packing them into the stalls and the shadows of the Bethesda Terrace restrooms for the past two weeks, and earning itself some very excited local press in the process.
And this has been in a fortnight when the local press has had more than the usual to grow excited about, with the spectacular downfall of the former New York governor, Eliot Spitzer - but even that has worked in Semper Fi's favour. There can hardly have been a more apposite time for this hotbed of seedy betrayal and grubby money to come here and set up stall, as New Yorkers alternately relish and reel at the Spitzer scandal.
"Politician. Prostitute. Stunning tawdriness. Make your own connections," said the New York Times, giving a brisk nod of approval to Walker's site-specific scratching of the underbelly of polite society, set in 1950s Dublin and clearly resonant far beyond.
But, as the reviews have also attested, it's about more than just lucky timing. The Bethesda site, with its odd marriage of sophistication - the elegant sweep of the terrace, its picturesque arcade, the 16,000 Minton tiles of its ornate ceiling just restored to the tune of $7m (€4.4m) - and squalor (come on, it's the public lav), has turned out to be a more than hospitable showcase for Walker's tense direction of his own script, for Sinead McKenna's evocative lighting, and for the bristling performances of the largely Irish (though New York-based) cast. Even the deliberate dourness of the stagehands was appreciated, as "a nice, mood-setting touch".
It was originally performed in 2002 for the Dublin Fringe Festival, in the toilets of St Stephen's Green. Despite the enthusiasm of the show's New York producers, Aidan Connolly of the Irish Arts Center and Georganne Aldrich Heller, and the additional support of Culture Ireland, it took a nerve-jangling 18 months of red tape to find suitable New York toilets. The breakthrough came when the project reached a parks special events official, Rory McAvoy, who took an interest - the Irish background may not have hurt - and the ball began to roll down the steps of the Bethesda Terrace at last. The show closes today.
Two conversations
The film censor, John Kelleher, will join writer and editor Dermot Bolger for the first of two unusual public conversations about censorship and Beckett on Monday, April 7th at 8pm at the County Library, Tallaght. Two weeks later on Monday, April 21st - same time, same place - Bolger will be joined by the legendary photographer John Minihan, who was the reclusive Beckett's friend and took the iconic picture of the playwright having coffee in a Paris cafe. Minihan will talk the audience through a slide show of his life's work. The events are part of a series of literary lectures and interviews entitled Private Faces, Public Places, organised by South Dublin County Council Libraries. For details, see www.southdublinlibraries.ie. Bookings: 01-4149029.
Operatic overture
There appears to be a two-track speed system at work in Wexford Festival Opera, writes Michael Dervan. On the fast track is the building of the new theatre, which is due to be handed over to the festival in July. Acoustic tests will follow, and there's an opening gala concert scheduled for the end of September. The first festival in the new venue will open with Rimsky-Korsakov's Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden) on Thursday, October 16th and run until Sunday, November 2nd.
On a much slower track has been the appointment of a permanent chief executive, following the departure of Michael Hunt, whose fractured relationship with the company went all the way to the High Court last July. Although Hunt and the festival's board had been locked in dispute for months prior to that, it was not until September that the festival appointed David McLoughlin as interim chief executive.
A festival press release issued last September indicated that "the interim period is expected to last a maximum of six months in order to facilitate the board's national and international recruitment of a permanent chief executive officer, which is currently under way".
The first public sign of that recruitment process came last month, when recruitment agents 2into3 advertised the post in Ireland and the UK. No ads were placed in any specialist music or opera publications in the UK or further afield. All going well, the new appointment will be made in April. Meanwhile, McLoughlin has had his initial contract extended for a further month.
The Gate is on a roll
Padraig Heneghan has been appointed deputy director of the Gate Theatre, having joined in 2001. Gate Theatre director Michael Colgan commented: "The Gate's reputation, at home and abroad, has never been higher. Nobody has played a bigger part in achieving this than Padraig Heneghan as financial controller and head of touring. Now with Padraig as deputy director we are on a roll, and I feel there is no end to what we can achieve." Heneghan, a chartered accountant and DCU graduate, has overseen successful Gate tours to New York, London, Sydney, China and Charleston; a nationwide tour of the United States in 2006 with Waiting for Godot, and transfers of Gate productions to Broadway and the West End.
Navigating home
A theatre company created by new immigrants wants to celebrate the Year of Intercultural Dialogue through a unique theatre production, but lacks funds and performance space, writes Órla Sheils. Spirasi is a non-governmental organisation that works with asylum seekers, refugees and other minority migrant groups. Under its Art and Integration Project, funded by Pobail, it has recently staged a production called Navigating Home. After a year in existence, the project has ended its last week of funding.
The play, which was staged in the Irish Aid Centre on Dublin's O'Connell Street during March, explored the experience of migration, and the notion of journeying and finding home. The group is currently planning to re-stage its production on April 9th, to coincide with the 2008 meeting of the European Network of Rehabilitation Centres for Survivors of Torture, which Spirasi is hosting in April. It is, however, having trouble finding a suitable location for the event. Anne Walsh, art project co-ordinator, says that "Irish Aid have been very good to us, but unfortunately that night there is another group working in the building; we may have to perform in a conference centre in one of the hotels."
The Irish Aid Centre was "the perfect location" for the production, in which the audience journeyed through different parts of the building to see various scenes. Performed by people of different nationalities, the play explored the notions of home and settling in Ireland. "This is also relevant to Irish people, the question of how do we settle in the New Ireland," says Walsh.
The drama element is just one stream of the project, which also includes programmes on storytelling and public awareness.
Walsh says that the aim of the project is to "use art as an integration tool, and without a shadow of a doubt it was a success".
However, unless the group receives funding, it will not be able to continue its work: "We want the project to reinvent itself and basically to take the next step."
If it gets new financial support, the group knows where it's going: "We hope to combine all elements of the current programme and go into Irish schools with it, to create a positive learning experience about different cultures," says Walsh. See www.spirasi.ie or tel. tel: 01-8389664.