To the Abbey and beyond

There's a leading international playwright premiering work at the Peacock, while €750,000 is being spent redesigning the Abbey. Colin Murphy reports on goings-on at the national theatre

Fiach MacConghail is a difficult man to pin down. He's in meetings, then America for the weekend, and then London for the week. “I love my job,” he says, eventually, on his mobile from somewhere in London.

“I love the fact that I can see minute progress happening. I can see the long picture. I'm not here to become an overnight success.”
Abbey directors get a longer run at the job than Republic of Ireland managers. MacConghail is two years into his term as CEO, yet still talks of learning the job, of learning how the Abbey needs to be run. He inherited an organisation that was peculiarly beleaguered – verging on bankruptcy and, he says, beset by “malaise and dysfunctionality”.

“Throughout the organisation, there was no understanding of how it should be run... There was no financial management in the organisation whatsoever.”

The Abbey was not only dysfunctional, it had a history of being underfunded, he says. Even taking into account public subsidy, the Abbey had broken even only once in the previous decade, in 1998. MacConghail found himself, early on, having “to make a very potent argument for the continuation of the Abbey theatre”, with the funds necessary to run it.

The extent of his success may be measured by the surprising fact that he is spending €750,000 refurbishing the Abbey, including a significant redesign of the main auditorium, two years into the process of relocation to George's Dock in the IFSC.

The decision to relocate to George's Dock was taken by government during the curious vacuum in leadership at the Abbey that resulted from the crisis in 2005. The previous board approved the general criteria for the move, before the selection of George's Dock was announced. By the time MacConghail had a new board, it was effectively a fait accompli, and MacConghail and the new board seem happy with it.

For Declan Kiberd, on the present board, “the building is less important that what happens in it”. The key criterion for the new theatre should be that it is “the kind of space that puts no limit on what might happen”. In the judgement of the future, the only question will be “did they bring forth good new plays and good new writers”.

For both Kiberd and MacConghail, the Abbey is profoundly political. “The Abbey has to position itself in the fulcrum of a debate about national identity that is ongoing”, says MacConghail. Kiberd cites Synge: the artist's duty is to insult and much as to flatter his compatriots. And he sees the theatre as having a role in challenging the influence of globalisation on Irish culture, being “something that would put a break on these processes, or at least help us to question them”. The irony of it, he says, is that an American playwright, Sam Shepard, may be helping us to formulate these questions.
Ulick O'Connor is sceptical. The role of the Abbey, as he sees it, is to stage the Irish canon and do new Irish plays, preferably with its own repertory company. “The Abbey has lost its soul,” he says. “It's been taken over by builders and civil servants. Bringing Sam Shepard in is hardly going to revitalise Irish theatre.”
But, in a more globalised world, is it not appropriate that we look to the likes of Shepard to challenge our understanding of our culture and identity, as much as to an Irish playwright, for example?
“The profound ignorance of people like you talking about theatre really annoys me.”
The debate, about identity, culture, the Abbey's place in it, and the Abbey's place on Abbey St or the quays, goes on. For the record: the redesign of the main auditorium will prove to be money well spent, and may be key to the continuation of the Abbey's legacy on that site in some form. And Stephen Rea's return to the Abbey stage is unmissable, even if Sam Shepard's vehicle for him is more obscure than your average work in the Irish canon.
Pictured above: Stephen Rea in the Abbey Theatre world premiere of Sam Shephard's Kicking a Dead Horse, at the Peacock until 14 April. www.abbeytheatre.ie
Picture by Ros Kavanagh