Unhappy families

Sometimes you can feel emanate from a stage the total commitment of every person involved in a particular production. As if their very lives depended on its success. Such is the case with the production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid Of Virgina Woolf now being staged at the Crypt Arts Centre in Dublin Castle. Better still, Plush Theatre productions return this play to its original state of grace as a four-hander rather than the two-hander it became most famously in the movie starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. In this case, however, director Alice Barry gives us ensemble acting at its best.

The four actors involved are Fidelma Cullen, Brendan Conroy, Louis Lovett and Gabrielle Breathnach. Gabrile also is one of the two founder members of this magnificent theatre company and someone who did, literally, put nearly all she owned on the line for this show. I talked to her on the morning after it opened. Was the 18 month struggle to stage the play was worthwhile?

“Definitely” she responds. “Because it’s about being true to yourself and true to your heart, and art, and this is a play Jean, my partner in this theatre company and I really wanted to do. Yet there was a point at which Jean had to back out leaving myself on my own and though I had finally secured the rights from Edward Albee after a long struggle, I thought this is too much for one person, to get the whole thing together and act in it. Yet now I’m so glad I persevered.

“Besides, I absolutely love the writing in this play, it’s theme, the parts it offers for women because there aren’t that many great parts for women in theatre in general. So all of this kept me going when I could have given up.”

One reason Gabrielle could easily have given up is that her theatre company is unsubsidised – though they have put in for a grant from the Arts Council. Yet this time round Gabrielle herself subsidised the play by doing “a four part series TV advertisement for Galtee rashers a couple of months ago!” But she’s not getting “paid a penny” for acting in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

“And Fidelma and Brendan, both really well known and well established actors are doing this for far less than they should be paid,” Gabrielle explains.” But they do have a total commitment to the play. And I do think it shows on stage.”

Another problem for the Plush Theatre Company was finding the right space in which to stage this play.

“I could have brought that show out to Tallaght or Blanchardstown but I felt it needed to open in the centre of a city” Gabrielle explains.”And though we were going to go for the Project or Andrew’s Lane there were different reasons I could go for either. One was the cost of Andrews Lane, for example, The main stage would have cost E5,000 a week above what we have to spend on a stage space. And the upstairs venue wasn’t available and I’m not sure would have been right. And there is no artistic director in the Project at the moment so they were just interested in money. And only offered us two weeks in March, that would have included closing the theatre on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Monday so we said no. we couldn’t have afforded to do that. And all of these factors were part of the ordeal of trying to stage this play. So the Crypt really was our only option.”

And will it pay? Only if the Crypt does three-quarters full business nearly every night of the play’s run. Which is an extra challenge given that November is so soon after the Dublin Theatre festival and close enough to Christmas to keep potential patrons at home.

“Even so,” insists Gabrielle, “we hope to do that kind of business because the success of this production of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf really will determine where we go from here.”

Let’s hope its ever-onward to their next production. Theatre needs companies like Plush Theatre Productions.