Waterford street theatre company Spraoi finally has a roof over its head. Arminta Wallace goes visiting.
The space is aircraft-hangar enormous, so big that the full-size replica steam engine under construction in one corner looks tiny by comparison. Until you get close to it, that is. Then it looms over you, sheet upon sheet of gleaming steel to which a masked welder is about to add another, sparks shooting towards the ceiling high above.
Through a door off one vast wall a costume designer is arranging a full-length dress, complete with frills and flounces, on a tailor's dummy. Another door opens to reveal a storeroom, shelves packed with grinning latex faces, some with horns, some with hair, one a nine-foot model of a wolf. On the floor beneath is a jumble of sheets of perspex, old wheels and tyres, empty gas cylinders.
"Woofers," explains Dermot Quinn. Woofers? "They're for shooting stuff into the air. Water, cabbages, whatever - they'll go up 20 feet with one of those. Makes a great noise, too."
This Aladdin's Cave of bizarre treasure is the new home of Spraoi, Waterford's street theatre company: a purpose-built studio complex of some 10,000 square feet where, for the first time, the large-scale sets the company creates for its outdoor extravaganzas can be built under cover, regardless of the weather.
"See today?" Quinn indicates the rain pouring down outside. "Before, we'd have had to build the train outside, so on a day like this, we'd be hanging around twiddling our thumbs."
In its 10-year history, this is, literally, the first time Spraoi has had a roof over its head. In one previous workspace, the costumes were kept in a derelict house which had sagged so badly the door had to be left open to keep the roof up. In another, there was no roof at all.
"It was a big warehouse," recalls T.V. Honan. "And we were on the ground floor. So it would rain, but the rain wouldn't reach us until two hours later, when it percolated down."
Quinn smiles. "We've learned over the years that it rains quite a bit in Ireland," he says dryly.
Apart from the sheer luxury of being warm and having access to running water, the new building marks the beginning of a new chapter in Spraoi's short but spectacular history. It cost about €1 million, of which half was provided by grants of various kinds. There's also a mortgage of €250,000, and the other €250,000 came from local fundraising.
"In one factory, 350 workers gave a euro a week from their wages for a year. That raised about €18,000," says Honan, "A bucket collection at last year's Spraoi festival, in August, netted another €27,000."
In 10 years, Spraoi has become a major and, it seems, much-loved part of the Waterford arts scene. Now it is actually changing the shape of the city. The new building, sitting in isolation at the edge of an industrial estate, is the first step in what Honan calls "the snappily titled north-west suburbs development plan", and the company, determined to have its say in how the new suburb develops, will co-host a planning conference next month.
Meanwhile, the complex itself will, over the coming months and years, offer a range of artistic possibilities both to Spraoi and to other companies: a theatre-sized studio complete with dancefloor for "real space" rehearsals; a mezzanine floor where children can take part in workshops, safe from whatever sparks may be flying in the main studio area; and, if Honan has his way, self-contained add-on buildings which can be leased to individual artists as studio space.
It's all a long way from Spraoi's impromptu invention, one night in the early 1990s in Honan's house. "It's hard to tell the truth from the legend at this stage," Honan admits. "But there was certainly a bottle of tequila involved - and a pots-and-pans drumming session."
A quartet of founder-members has now regrouped over an impromptu lunch in the new canteen: artistic directors Dermot Quinn and Mike Leahy, festival programme director Miriam Dunne, and director Honan, formerly of Red Kettle Theatre Company.
"For me the 'street stuff' had an immediate impact," Honan says. "You could hit an audience right between the two eyes, almost without any training, and with very little money. You could get out on the street and make something unusual or something strange. And then, on top of that, you could get people involved."
Leahy, whose background is in archaeology, nods ruefully. "One minute I was sitting in the pub; the next I was pushing a float, dressed as a piece of seaweed," he says.
The early shows - heavily influenced by street theatre stalwarts Macnas, Footsbarn and Els Comediants - were, they say, more about energy than anything else. But Spraoi rapidly developed a distinctive style. After a few years of daytime parades, the festival showcase was switched to the evening, which had a major impact on effects, colours and themes.
"We've always had a quirky way of looking at human nature," says Quinn. "And many of our shows explore quite dark themes." Thus The Sleep Stealers, a kind of evil circus which captured children and fed them to monsters.
"It wasn't planned that way - it just came out of the way we work, the way we think," says Leahy.
"Yeah," says Quinn. "It was a lot cheaper than psychiatrists."
Both men, however, have strong views about what does - and, more to the point, what doesn't - constitute street theatre. "We get calls all the time from festivals asking us to provide face-painters and balloon-twisters," says Quinn. "Because we have little or no tradition of street theatre in Ireland, for many people it means clowns and jugglers and drummers and people dancing around in costumes. But, for us, the actual story - the idea behind the parade - is far more important than the colour of the costumes. We'll use stilt-walkers and firebreathers, but only if they work in the context of the story. And we've never used jugglers."
As the company has developed over the years, adds Leahy, it has found that there's a more subtle way of telling a story on the street. "We constantly try new things - it's not just a question of getting out the papier mâché every time."
Nevertheless, in a parade, you have just two minutes to get your theatrical message across. "You always know when you're getting a reaction," says Leahy. "It may not be 'ooh', 'aah'. It may be" - he shrinks back in mock-distaste - "but you always know."
Quinn chuckles. "One sure giveaway is if the crowd are looking down the street to see what's coming next, what's coming after you. Of course, there's always an element of that. But you should be able to hold people's attention for two minutes."
The climax of the Spraoi year is the August Bank Holiday weekend - now known in Waterford as "the Spraoi weekend" - a three-day festival of street theatre featuring acts from all over Europe and culminating in a Spraoi parade and fireworks display.
"We don't get out of bed for less than 10,000 people," says Honan.
"Actually, for the last five years, 50,000 people have turned up to watch the Spraoi parade. Now that's the same number as turn up for the Munster hurling final, which, in Irish cultural terms, is seen as an iconic event - and many of those are the same people. Which says something about something, though I'm not sure what. Maybe the power of popular art to reach people? We don't claim to change lives or anything, but . . ."
Quinn is shaking his head. "Well, we would like to nudge them a bit," he says.
Moving into the new building has, they all agree, given the company a new creative impetus. The trick, however, is to move on without moving too far for audiences to follow. Thus the float for the St Patrick's Day parade in Dublin - of which the gigantic steam train in Studio One is the centrepiece - represents a modest step in a new direction.
Steam Train, Dream Train tells the story of the workers who built the railroads in the US, urged on by the forces of capitalism.
"While not exactly a serious show, it still has a serious theme," says Quinn. "Lots of people lost their lives doing this."
The look of the float will reflect this more realistic approach - cartoonish exaggeration will still be a major feature of the costumes and props, but the characters are real, not fantasy creatures or puppets.
Quinn and Leahy are also working on a new show, as yet untitled, which will stretch the Spraoi artistic credo still further. Based on a story of Nantucket whalers forced to resort to cannibalism after spending months lost at sea, this will be the company's first fixed-space show, and will involve the use of pre-recorded projections, making it a first venture into the multi-media arena.
"We're approaching it almost like a ghost story," says Quinn. "Our plan is to recreate the sea indoors; there'll be rain effects and the whale will blow in such a way that the audience will not only hear it but actually feel the water on their faces."
But if it's indoors, in a fixed space, is it still street theatre? Quinn grins. "With this show we're pushing ourselves, and the concept of street theatre, to new limits. But the basic elements remain. In a parade setting the audience is never quite safe - they're always waiting to be dragged into the action, or maybe shoved aside as it moves on. This show will aim to recreate that sense of uncertainty." Well, Spraoi is the Irish word for "play", after all.
Steam Train, Dream Train will be part of the St Patrick's Day Parade in Dublin on March 17th. The Spraoi Festival takes place in Waterford in August. Details at www.spraoi.com