SOMETIMES YOU find something that's pretty ordinary, something you thought you knew the run of, that turns out to be pretty extraordinary.
I was at a first confession recently (the sacrament of reconciliation they call it now) and what struck me was the way the community and church pulled together to create something that was simple yet meaningful and beautiful for the children.
The church was entirely lit by candles and the kids sang, narrated and acted their way through this previously dour and austere little ceremony. Many professed themselves happy with their experience, a far cry from the old days when children shuffled along a seat, shaking with fear, stepping into a dark box to confess a learned-off sin to an authoritarian figure dressed in an ankle-length black soutane.
Like many of the institutions in this State, the church would grind to a juddering halt only for the daily involvement of the laity. And, but for the heavy involvement of the voluntary sector, many elderly or ill people would be further isolated.
But it's not just the sick, the old and the religious that benefit from the munificence of the more socially conscious among us. There has been an explosion in arts groups and much of it is run on sheer determination, good will and that much bandied phrase "social capital".
One such group running on oxygen and community spirit is St Anne's Youth Theatre in Shankill, Co Dublin. Formed by choreographer Valerie O'Donovan and director Brian Nutley as a response to the huge well of talent and desire to perform in the young people of the area, this group has managed to stage a full musical with no funding but the scrapings of sponsorship.
Valerie says: "I was working on the annual pantomime in St Anne's National School and afterwards with all the momentum from the show we saw there was a gap in the area for teens. We felt they were the ones we needed to target. We wanted to give them a taste of what could be done, give all these talented kids something to really get their teeth into and to give back something to the community who is so involved in the panto every year."
They held open auditions and eventually 11 were chosen. Godspell was picked as the vehicle to showcase the new group.
"Getting the kids off the streets happened automatically, the teens didn't have to be dragged, they were delighted to be a part of this. And they were warned not to arrive with a hangover," Valerie laughs.
She talked of huge amounts of work and organisation, of the gobsmackingly talented, creative bunch of kids she had the privilege of working with but how the lack of funds added pressure.
"I spent so much time trying to raise money, the music is so important yet it's very costly to pay musicians for rehearsals and performances." The group made their own costumes, they had an open set and Richie Cotter, one of the local school principals, gave his school hall for free and provided space for rehearsals.
The benefits for the teens were new friendships, experience in working together and a forum that not only gave them something to do besides hang around, but also helped gel the larger community, outside the narrow confines of a youth group.
Art is supposed to reflect society and society is our communities, so community theatre really is art in its broadest sense, art for and by the people. In return we get the indefinable extras, the sense of achievement and pride in our communities, the rare cathartic thrill of a night at the theatre, made extraordinary by our involvement, no matter how seemingly insignificant.
The spanner in the works is, as usual, the funding. Groups like the one above need theatres to showcase their work and a basic level of funding to enable them to exist and flourish. But community/youth theatre is often seen as the poor relation in terms of grants and one-off awards. They are not in the same league as professional theatre groups, nor do they seek to be. The many local and municipal theatres that have mushroomed in the last 10 years have budgetary and programme restrictions which limit their availability to smaller community groups. Martin Murphy, artistic director of the Pavilion Theatre, the municipal theatre of the Dún Laoghaire/ Rathdown County Council, explains that as such his theatre has to accommodate all types of art; from touring groups like Rough Magic to the experimental such as Gare St Lazare, to local arts like Dún Laoghaire Musical and Dramatic Society, to opera, traditional music and dance.
"Many of these new theatres were built as capital programmes with the assumption they would pay for themselves. They don't get the funding they need. Some survive on music, stand-up comedy and with local groups. As a society do we value the arts as much as our hospitals or our educational facilities? It shouldn't be a case of either/or."
Martin feels there is still a lack of appreciation for the social value of an arts facility.
In a country which claims to place a high premium on art and literature it seems we are great at talking the talk. We laud the high achievers. That's the easy bit. Then we moan about our youth misspending their youth and yet stall at funding programmes which may enhance their lives. Let's get them off the streets, we urge, give them something to do. The arts is something they could do, which they display an appetite for. It's just always so much easier to leave it to someone else.
