The Abbey wants you! Ireland’s National Theatre, which incorporates the Abbey Stage, the Peacock and its touring productions, wants to “attract more young people” to its shows. That message came across loud and clear from the speeches of Eithne Healy, Chairman of the Board of the Theatre; Ben Barnes, Artistic Director, and John McColgan, on the day of the launch of Abbeyonehundred – the forthcoming year-long centenary celebration of the founding of the theatre.

McColgan, creator of Riverdance, has been appointed Chairman of the Centenary Committee set up “to support the Artistic Director and Abbey Management in a fund raising programme designed to facilitate the year’s diverse-on-stage programme.”
But why is he so impassioned by the notion that the National theatre must “re-imagine” itself along so many lines – including spreading the demographic of its audience?
“First, let me say, I really feel it is such a privilege to be involved with the Abbey at this level because the Abbey really, really needs to re-imagine and re-think itself,” he says. “Any organisation – particularly any cultural-arts organisation – which has been conducting their business in more or less the same way for a hundred years needs to reinvent itself, needs to address its creative mandate, its fiscal mandate, its raison d’être, its contract with the people. And the Abbey needs to do that, while maintaining the brief that the theatre was set up by its founders to encourage: namely, to capture the voice of the Irish people, the voices of Irish writers. There is no retreating from that.”
In this context McColgan insists that the “Executive and board and Artistic Director are really serious about this idea of rebirthing” the theatre. And they are using the centenary as “a catalyst” to do just that. McColgan also believes that although, in general, “the Abbey holds a special place in the hearts and minds of the nation” harking back to its founders Yeats, Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and J.M. Synge”, the latter names may not exactly be high on the list of heroes among the MTV generation!
“That’s part of the reason I said, in my speech, that a hundred years later the original vision set in place for the Abbey needs to be reignited and made relevant and exciting to a new audience in general,” he observes. “An audience that has so many other demands on its time. Whether that is TV, cinema or live concerts. So in 2004 we do have a unique opportunity to present the Abbey to Ireland, and the world, in a fresh and vibrant way. And Ben Barnes has put together an extraordinarily diverse and exciting programme that will do just that.”
The answer is three major overarching programmes of events. From January to May, the concept will be The Abbey and Europe and include productions of The Cherry Orchard and Burial At Thebes. From January to December there also will be The Abbey and New Writings, showcasing “a range of plays from leading Irish writers both new and established.” From May to September we have Summer at the Abbey, including productions of The Shaughraun, Heavenly Bodies, The Playboy Of The Western World and Beauty In A Broken Place, Colm Toibin’s new play.
September to November sees The Abbey and Ireland which includes “eight classic plays and ten rehearsed readings of plays representative of each of the decades of the first hundred years.” This will run parallel with The Abbey on Tour, which runs from June to December and involves plays such as The Gigli Concert and The Plough And The Stars.
McColgan himself will direct The Shaughraun, which has led to many critics already sniping at the man, publicly questioning his credentials as a director. It’s a criticism he is “more than happy” to address.
“I’ve directed a number of dramas, with the likes of Gabriel Byrne and Tom Hickey, for television, and I have directed hundreds of documentaries and variety shows and directed, on stages around the world, Riverdance but, no, I’ve never directed a show in the Abbey and that’s the challenge for me,” he says. “I didn’t choose the play, Ben asked me to do it. Yet it is a fantastic, big melodrama. Initially, I was apprehensive because I remember seeing Cyril Cusack and Donal McCann in it in 1967 in the Abbey. But then I read it and I think the potential for fun, high romance and high melodrama is irresistible so I’m very much looking forward to directing it.
“I think, why not bring into the Abbey some of the experiences I’ve had, as a director on television and in theatre? Surely that’s good for the Abbey. For someone from outside to bring in other sensibilities, other ways of doing things. That, too, is what 2004 will be all about for the Abbey.”