ARTSCAPE: MORRISSEY ACOLYTES will be wafting with their gladioli to the University of Limerick later this month for a public seminar on The Songs that Saved Your Life, writes Kate Holmquist.
Public seminars usually get 25 participants at most, but local and international interest in the Morrissey-themed event has led organisers to book a 250-seat hall.
Morrissey's complex, ambiguous sexuality and his confessional style have "given permission" to a generation of men, both gay and straight, gentle and macho, to acknowledge their own confusion around their identities, believes Dr Eoin Devereux, department of sociology, UL, who will speak at the seminar, joined by Dr Nabeel Zuberi, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Born in Crumlin, Morrissey grew up in Manchester in a typically puritanical, working class Catholic household. Devereux believes that the religious dimension of The Smiths and of Morrissey's artistic journey - from young
erotophobe to middle-aged gay and Latino icon - has been overlooked in academic discourse.
Devereux is also fascinated by the intense relationship between Morrissey and his fans, having interviewed fans who speak of M orrissey with religious fervour - interviews replete with references to how they have achieved personal redemption and salvation through their devotion to Morrissey.
Acolytes are an international, web-linked group, of all sexual persuasions - including what Morrissey has called "the fourth sex". Typical of his poly-cultured followers is Dr Nabeel Zuberi, who was born in Pakistan, grew up in Leeds, Manchester and Italy and has written extensively on the masculinities that Morrissey offers his devotees.
The Songs that Saved Your Life seminar is a joint project by the department of sociology and the Irish World Academy, to be held in UL, Room FB028, Foundation Building, Wed, April 23rd, 2.30-5.30pm, admission free.
Splashing out
Performances of Beckett by Liam Neeson, Barry McGovern and Ralph Fiennes at New York's Lincoln Center are among 110 projects awarded amounts ranging from €300 to €80,000 by Culture Ireland in its spring round of funding.
This will be Neeson's debut role for the Gate, which is bringing the three plays to Lincoln Center on tour. He'll star in Eh Joe, directed by Atom Egoyan, who originally directed Charles Dance in the role when the Gate brought its Beckett Season to Sydney in January.
Barry McGovern will perform his celebrated and definitive I'll Go On, based on the Beckett character Molloy in Malone Dies, while Ralph Fiennes will repeat his acclaimed performance of First Love, Beckett's darkly humorous post-war novella, with direction by Michael Colgan.
An €80,000 grant to Rough Magic will allow it to stage a US premiere of its acclaimed Improbable Frequency at the 59E59 Theatre, while Michael Collins will also be travelling to New York (€4,000) to perform his play, It's a Cultural Thing or Is It, based on his life experiences as a member of the travelling community.
Calypso Theatre is heading to Kosovo, having received €20,000 to travel there with Fairytaleheart, a new play featuring young Irish and Kosovan performers.
Dance Theatre of Ireland will spend six weeks in Korea, collaborating with the Korean dance community and touring a new programme of work, with funding of €40,000. And in literature, Anne Enright will be participating in the Sydney Writers' Festival in May thanks to a €2,000 grant to the festival. Other writers enabled to travel to literary events include Niall De Burca (€1,000), who will perform at the University of Hawaii in June, and Gabriel Rosenstock (€800), who will read at a poetry festival in Costa Rica in
May. In June, Sebastian Barry (€7,000) will feature at the New Plays from Europe Theatre Biennale, in Wiesbaden, Germany, while Declan Hughes (€750) will speak about his work at the Athens Centre, Greece.
Theatre drought
At last something is stirring in the theatrical well that could be called professional drama in Cork, writes Mary Leland. Audiences here are grateful for the few touring productions which make it to the Opera House (I Keano, My Brilliant Divorce, Blood Brothers, two days of The Importance of Being Earnest from City Theatre Dublin - despite a sparkling run of this comedy at the Cork Arts Theatre late last year - and a single performance from Opera Theatre Ireland of The Barber of Seville) or to the Everyman Palace, where almost a month of amateur events has drowned the memory of visits from Red Kettle (Boy Soldier), Second Age with five presentations of Macbeth or Bob Kingdom's Dylan Thomas - Return Journey. The best Everyman could do in terms of home-grown productions was a revival of Abigail's Party, although the Opera House offered new work with The Good Sisters at the Half Moon and Michael Collins, a Musical Drama in the main house.
It's the absence of local professional repertory activity which made the Corcadorca offering of Ger Bourke's new play Last Beauty Spot at the Cork Arts Theatre last month so notable, and equally, the news that Meridian is rehearsing Boss to open at the Granary Theatre on April 17th lifts the theatre-going spirits. Directed by Johnny Hanrahan, Michael Loughnan plays a property developer whose murky deals have pursued him to Spain. The effects or evils of modern corporate influences on the built environment have been tackled before by Hanrahan, most recently in White Lady, but this one-man script from Dublin-based American Tom Hall is a new take on the subject. Admiring Hall's ear for the music of language, Hanrahan also enjoys the challenge of this examination of the political and public status of a small number of people who are allowed to define the physical reality of social policy. "This is a theme which is not ideologically abstract," says Hanrahan, "it has a resonance because developers can decide the physical qualities of people's lives." Meridian has been on tour with The Lost Field over the past few months, and Racoon, an episode written by Tom Hall for that production, opens at Bewley's this summer.
Although requested, neither the Opera House nor the Everyman had any comment to make on the thin spring-summer drama programmes for Cork's leading theatres, but they can point to this month's line-up, including First Love from Gare St Lazare Players Ireland at the Half Moon from April 14th, The Pride of Parnell Street at the Opera House from April 29th, with the Everyman hosting Over the Rainbow - the Eva Cassidy Story from April 14th and Menopause the Musical from April 21st.
Popular Pole
Krystyna Janda, one of Poland's most popular theatre and film actresses, will be in Dublin this month to perform her unique one-woman show, Ear, Throat, Knife, based on her own adaptation of a novel by Verdrana Rudan. Also a director of theatre and films, she has star status in Poland. According to the Polish embassy's press release, she "owes her status to both powerful performances and a strong character that shines through in every role she undertakes".
Ear, Throat, Knife concerns a middle-aged woman sitting up all night in front of her TV, commenting on what she sees, from comedy, to soap, to news footage that causes her to think back to her own war experiences.
The play will be staged on April 20th at the Tivoli Theatre, Francis Street, Dublin 8, at 5pm and 8pm. Tickets are €27.