Frontline: Theatre Is Entering A New Stage

Ireland may boast some of the world’s most innovative playwrights, but theatre makers are under pressure like never before to attract new and bigger audiences. Some might ponder ‘what needs to be changed?’ After all, the theatre has always been a medium at the forefront of social discussion. From Nora Helmer (Ibsen’s A Doll’s House) slamming the door on her suburban family life back in the 1870s, to Tony Kushner exploring the harsh reality of living with HIV in Angels In America in the early 1990s, at its best theatre has always aimed to challenge. Today, however, there is a fresh feeling that you can’t just go on repeating the old tropes. And the result is that we may just be entering a brave new world of theatre! The new landscape is one where some of TV and film’s greatest stars can be found on the stage; where gender roles are flipped; and where even the world’s most beloved drama is being turned on its head... Selina Cartmell, the artistic director of the Gate, wanted to do something special to mark the theatre’s 90th anniversary. What she came up with was that – and more – with Ruth Negga stepping into the role of of Hamlet, drastically altering the import of the sacred Shakespearean text.

MODERN ADAPTATIONS

“I began talking to the director of Hamlet, Yael Stone, about how we were going to tell this story today,” Selina explains. “How could we reinvigorate it? I knew Ruth to be an extraordinary talent who could bring a luminosity and emotional depth to the role. We just felt it was a perfect fit.” Cartmell’s imaginative leap coincided with the initiation of a new policy, agreed by ten theatre organisations across Ireland, ushering in gender-blind casting. The theatres have also called for a re-examination of the Irish canon to find more plays by women. Yes, a new fire had been lit under the canon, and it’s set to explode! Gone are the days of replicating plays by rote. Casting directors have been liberated to undertake modern adaptations of classic texts. A recent production of John B. Keane’s Sive saw actresses Marie Mullen and Radie Peat step into the parts of Carthalawn and Pats Bocock. Similarly, Rosaleen Linehan played the Hurdy Gurdy Man in Woyzeck In Winter. Julie Kelleher is artistic director of Cork’s Everyman Theatre. She is thrilled at the prospects triggered by this shift in direction. “When I studied for my BA in Drama and Theatre Studies, I was in a group that was exclusively women,” she says. “It was a real challenge for our teacher to find scripts that we could perform. I wanted to play roles like Horatio, rather than Ophelia, but that wasn’t the done thing back then.”

FABULOUSLY ENTERTAINING

Kelleher notes that the new dispensation hasn’t just opened up fresh opportunities for actors – it’s also expanded the scope for directors to get creative, not least when working with older texts. Ireland has changed, she argues, and in order to connect with audiences, the stage must better reflect the more diverse and open nation we have become. “It’s important to move with the times and make theatre accessible,” says Julie. “It might open the door for people who aren’t theatre-goers to come to a show, have a good night, and then decide they want to go see something else.” Of course, taking an iconoclastic approach to the classics is only a start. While theatre can serve as a great place for kickstarting serious conversations about what is happening in the world, it doesn’t mean that’s its only role. In fact, shows like Tinder and Coppers The Musical demonstrate how audiences can be drawn back to the theatre with the promise of a break from reality. Then there’s Girls And Dolls, which is playing in the Gaiety this month. Directed by Derry Girls writer Lisa McGee, and starring the show’s breakout star Jamie Lee O’Donnell, it approaches the Troubles in a humorous way. “Interweaving humour with tragedy has become very popular,” says McGee. “It helps theatre to be relevant and appeal to young people – that’s how they stay involved. Once there’s a heart in it and you get a sense of the characters involved, that’s when you buy into it.” Whether it’s reinventing old favourites or creating fabulously entertaining new shows, theatre is getting back to where it always should be – centre-stage in our culture. Long may it continue.