Druid TheatreÕs success at home and abroad among the highlights of 2009

Date Published: {J}

When it comes to success stories in the arts in 2009 the main winner has to be Druid Theatre, which won a slew of awards at home and abroad for its various productions throughout the year.

And if we in Galway can carp about seeing relatively little new work from Druid in 2009, that’s because they’ve been touring these hit productions at home and abroad, with a total of 360 performances in five countries.

Enda Walsh’s The New Electric Ballroom, which received its English language debut at the 2008 Arts Festival, was revived for a tour that included venues in Ireland, as well as New York, Los Angeles London and Perth. It won Best New Play at the Irish Times Theatre awards in 2009, and Mikel Murfi won Best Supporting Actor.

The production recently finished tours in North America and England, Meanwhile, Walsh’s companion piece The Walworth Farce, another Druid hit embarked on an autumn tour of the UK, USA and Canada, finishing in California last month. An Australian and New Zealand tour is scheduled for 2010 The Playboy of the Western World toured the UK, paying a brief visit to Ireland in June, while Martin McDonagh’s black comedy The Cripple of Inishmaan which Druid first staged in 2008, was revived for a visit to New York.

Earlier in the year, the company revived its successful production of Geraldine Aron’s bittersweet comedy, My Brilliant Divorce for a short Irish tour. In a year that was filled with highlights, a major feel-good moment had to be the opening of the refurbished Druid Lane Theatre with a new production of Tom Murphy’s classic, The Gigli Concert.

This marked revival of the creative partnership between Murphy and Druid’s artistic director, Garry Hynes which had been fallow for several years following a rift between the two. The production was superb, all the moreso given that one of the actor’s mothers died just before opening night, something which most of us watching the play didn’t know at the time.

It was a pleasure to be back in the familiar surroundings of Druid theatre, albeit a Druid that will be more comfortable for performers and audiences from now on. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing a lot of action there in the next year.

Other theatrical highlights for this writer during 2009 included Tom Crean, Antarctic Explorer in January on one of its visits to Galway. Aidan Dooley’s one-man show about the Kerryman who accompanied Shackleton on his journey to the South Pole is one of the most, inventive entertaining and enjoyable nights of theatre you could wish for.

And in October, Christian O’Reilly’s Here We Are Again Still, a gentle play about life in the Mervue apartments, commissioned under the City Council’s public art programme, and staged as part of Galway Arts Centre’s fledgling theatre festival, showed that theatre doesn’t have to blow its own trumpet to be effective. It was a wonderful tribute to a community and the role that football plays in Mervue.

On a much bigger scale, the visiting companies at this year’s Arts Festival included Edward Hall’s all-male Propeller group, which staged The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with the latter being a particular hit among Galway audiences. But for this reviewer’s money, Palace of the End from Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre was the real gem from the visiting theatre groups.

The play’s premise sounded a bit daunting – essentially, it was three one-person shows exploring the Iraq war from different perspectives. One was Lynndie England, the US army woman convicted of abuse in Abu Ghraib prison, the other was UK scientist David Kelly who who died days after being exposed as the source of a controversial BBC story on the Iraq war.

The third was an Iraqi mother, who knew at first hand the consequences of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Her family were slaughtered by the secret police at a time when the US still supported Saddam’s regime. No barrel of laughs, this play, but one that was beautifully performed and left a lasting impression.

Similarly, among the many visual arts shows at the festival, a definite winner was the joint show by two former Galway residents, Ger Sweeney and Seán Cotter. That was located in the former McDonogh building, owned by Gerry Barrett who had lent it to the festival for a few years while it lay idle. Happily for Gerry Barrett, he has now found tenants for the space.

However, the loss of this art deco building to the broader community highlights the lack of a proper public gallery in Galway.

On a more positive note, the City Council agreed in March to make land available so that work could begin on the long-awaited arthouse cinema. That is now underway, largely due to the work of a group of campaigners including Film Fleadh founder, Lelia Doolan and former Arts Festival manager, Fergal McGrath. McGrath, in his role as temporary manager of the Town Hall Theatre undertook a refurbishment programme at the venue that was finished just in time for the 2009 Film Fleadh, an event which was marked by a well-deserved tribute programme to producer Redmond Morris, the current Lord Killanin.

For most of the year, ticket sales at the Town Hall were healthier than at any time in its 14-year history, defying the downturn in the economy. Musically, while it wasn’t exactly a highlight, one of the most talked-about events of the year was the spat on RTÉ’s Liveline over Frankie Gavin’s decision to name his new traditional group de Dannan.

This was despite the fact that he was the only member of the original group in the new line up. There were protests from fellow founders, Alec Finn and Johnny McDonagh, during which former broadcaster and accordion player Tony McMahon hurled a series of extraordinary insults at Alec Finn. Eventually, Frankie Gavin agreed to call his group ‘The New de Dannan and matters calmed down.

Far away from all that controversy, former members of the old De Dannan including Finn, McDonagh, Colm Murphy, Jackie Daly, Mick Conneely, Derek Hickey, Brian McGrath, John Carty Eleanor Shanley, Andrew Murray and Aidan Coffey joined forces for a gig earlier this month in aid of local charity Changing Minds.

That was held in the Radisson Hotel and there was no fuss or fanfare, but it served to remind, just what a musical force De Dannan had been throughout its various incarnations.

It was a night of nostalgia, one which attracted musicians of all generations, and one which also showed that individually and collectively, these are among the finest musicians in the country. A definite highlight.