I really only envy the residents of Dublin just one thing – the amount of theatre compared to Galway (ok, a zoo would be cool too). There really is a great selection of plays to choose from, in the capital. [There was a time when I would occasionally drive to Dublin to see a play but not since I moved to Galway city].
Still, I waited with interest for the winners of the The Irish Times Theatre Awards (for 2008) which were handed out last week in Dublin. The full list is on the Irish Times website. I didn’t get to see the Abbey Theatre’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui or Tom Vaughan-Lawlor performance in the title role that won him Best Actor – he did beat Aaron Monaghan who was really great in Druid’s The Cripple of Inishmaan. I didn’t see any of the plays from which the Best Actress nominates came. I was a bit surprised that Michael Murfi won Best Supporting Actor, from The New Electric Ballroom by Enda Walsh. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with his acting – it’s just that the role wasn’t that distinctive [it didn’t help that I saw the play in an absolutely sweltering Taibhairc in Galway during the Arts Festival – see below for more]. Admittedly, I only saw one of the other nominees last year, but it was the performance of the year for me – Don Wycherly in The Seafarer.
Dearbhla Molloy won Best Supporting Actress for a great comic turn as one of the two aunts in The Cripple of Inishmaan, though it was a bit tough on Marie Mullen [who played the other aunt] not to get a nomination. Rosaleen Linehan was also nominated for her part in The New Electric Ballroom (in Galway, she looked great and I originally thought it was a different, younger actress that resembled Rosaleen).
I was lucky to see two plays on Broadway last year¹ – November (in which a great cast raised an amiable slice of nonsense well beyond its paygrade) and Equus. Ever since John Lahr came to Galway and tried to convince us that Barry Humphries is a comic genius, I’ve found it hard to take him seriously. But I have to agree with his verdict on Equus – utter twaddle. Richard Griffiths is great, mind.
Below is a summary of the 2008 Galway Arts Festival that I wrote last summer but never got to publish (that happens quite a bit to me) :-
I went to see Enda Walsh’s The New Electric Ballroom on Saturday night at the Druid Theatre. The play tells the story of three elderly ladies in a northern fishing village who refuse to accept the grim reality of their lives that are defined by working in the fish processing factory. Instead they construct a faboulous one within their imaginations based on their memories of, decades earlier, going to the ‘New Electric Ballroom’.
I was disappointed by the play. Perhaps the fish related imagery – pelagic realism, if you will – from the monotony of life in a fishing town, where life ebbs and flowed with the tides, the drudgery of working in the fish factory and the daily visits of the oddball fishmonger just didn’t seem like a trap that could not be escaped. It didn’t help that all of the characters were suffused with only slightly varied levels of regret and longing – think Great Expectations where everyone is Miss Havisham, including Pip. I was a little surprised that Walsh chose as a theme, one that has been well worked by writers over the years – indeed, the original Ballroom of Romance [a performance based on William Trevor’s short story] will be performed this week in the dancehall that inspired the story.Walsh’s play doesn’t really bring anything new to the theme, and as such, winds its way to a conslusion that is wholly predictable. Perhaps I had expected too much – his previous play The Walworth Farce, using the same sort of play within a play construct, was gripping and disturbing from the off, and was everything one could hope for, in a play. Still, I’ll be first in line for his next one.
It’s been an excellent Arts Festival this year, and well done to all who helped organise it – I didn’t get to see everything I wanted to, but that’s only because there was so much on offer. I focused mainly on the theatre – the Farber Foundry’s Molora was interesting – a post-apartheid take on a Greek tragedy. I find that most performances of Greek tragedies tend to be overwrought, though I suppose it’s hard to swoon about the stage like Dirk Bogarde when the storyline usually includes infanticide, incest and all manner of imaginitive slaughter. Anyway, the shouting and bloodshed was more than balanced by the South African singing and music, and when one’s evening involves theatre and sipping the odd G&T, one can’t complain too much.
Much more easy-going was Better Late, by the Northgate theatre Company in Chicago. There was a sheen of professionalism about the whole production that was admirable in itself. The play was very entertaining – plenty of one-liners [it was co-authoredby one of the M*A*S*H writers] though it ran a little out of steam towards the end. John Mahony, late of Frasier, got most of the media attention here, but the actor who replaced Mike Nussbaum as the ailing ex-husband, stole the show for me. In truth, all the performers were top-notch.
The Macnas Parade, last Sunday night, was amazing, and it seemed like most of Galway turned out to see it. You can see a gallery of images from the parade here.
As I write this, the sounds of the Sawdoctors is wafting across from Salthill. They are playing there because they couldn’t get the use of the Arts Festival marquee. Now, I wouldn’t go to see the Sawdoctors except maybe at gunpoint, but they have a huge following and they are a Galway band. Maybe they just weren’t cool enough for the Arts Festival.
¹ Trivia: November and Equus both featured an actor that starred in the TV series Start Trek:Voyager. Given that he played a potato-head alien in the TV series, it was interesting to see Ethan Phillips in the flesh [his own, this time]. On the other hand, Kate Mulgrew was exactly the same in Equus as she was in Star Trek – same monotone delivery and even, it seemed, the same hairstyle.