Borkman at BAM: Ireland's Abbey Theatre on centenary tour to US

Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman by the Abbey

When the Abbey Theatre first came to New York in November 1911, there were riots.

The tour included, among other works, J M Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, which had stirred controversy when it debuted in Dublin just a few years earlier. It was about to do the same here.

Protests were organized by Irish-American Catholic organizations, which resulted in eggs being pelted at the stage and even arrests. But Lady Gregory, one of the Abbey’s founders, had a plan. She was in the audience on the first night, and she got in touch with her good friend Theodore Roosevelt, the former President of the US, and implored him to come see the show.

Teddy Roosevelt

“And Teddy Roosevelt did come the second night,” explains Fiach MacConghaile, current director of the Abbey, “He was applauded on the way in.” The audience was much better behaved on the second night, and at the end of the performance the former president took to the stage. “He exalted and commended the Abbey for bringing Playboy of the Western World to America,” says MacConghaile.  

The controversy translated into full houses for the Abbey on their tour, which lasted six months and included 20 different plays. It counted among them works by WB Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, J.M Synge and others. As well as New York, the Abbey performed in Boston and Philadelphia and other centers like Scranton, Champagne, Illinois and Albany.

The tour was a success and helped foster an international reputation for Ireland’s fledging national theater. “It was an extraordinary moment in the history of the Abbey,” says MacConghaile, who explains that the Abbey was motivated to come to the US because it was running out of money. Annie Horniman, one of its founding patrons, withdrew her money after six years of support.

 “The Abbey had to look to America to survive because it had no funding from the State (state funding did not arrive until the 1920s),” says MacConghaile, “So it built a relationship with the diaspora and also with cities around America. To this day I can go to almost any city in the US, and when I mention the Abbey Theatre, they know it. It’s now part of the historical fabric of the relationship between Ireland and the US.”

One hundred years on, the Abbey is touring the US once more.

Lindsay Duncan

Its production of Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman, a new version by Frank McGuinness is currently playing at BAM Harvey Theatre in Brooklyn. The family drama, which revolves around a morally corrupt banker, stars three of the theatre world’s shining lights Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw and Lindsay Duncan. “It was well received in Dublin,” says Lindsay Duncan, who says it’s thrilling to be working with the Abbey for the first time. “It’s always exciting to take a production that has had a short run somewhere new. Hopefully, it’s grown. It’s not a particularly well-known Ibsen and perhaps even less well known here in the States.”

She acknowledges that having a jailed banker at the center of the plot is an interesting hook for an audience. “I don’t think it’s the main thing about it, but certainly because it’s about a banker who has behaved unwisely, it should have resonances here, as it did in Ireland. But of course its themes are much more universal than that, it’s about the human condition, and people and relationships.”

Bernie Madoff echoes

Executive producer at BAM, Joe Melillo says he was shocked when he saw the play in Dublin last year. “That doesn’t sound reasonable. But it was shocking to me that this play was calling on many of the implications of the Bernie Madoff scandal here,” he said. “It will absolutely compel New York audiences. They too will have a similar confrontation saying ‘oh my god, this play was written over 100 years ago?!”

BAM Harvey Theater

The play runs at BAM until February 6^th and it cements the close ties between the world famous Brooklyn Theater and the Abbey. In 1976, the Abbey brought The Plough and the Stars by Sean O’Casey to BAM, in what, at the time, was its first US tour in nearly four decades. Interestingly, John Kavanagh, who has a supporting role in John Gabriel Borkman, also starred in that production at BAM 35 years ago. The Abbey has been back to the USA at least six times since, including at BAM once more in 2002 with a production of Medea starring Fiona Shaw.

Joe Melillo says anyone in the theatre community understands the Abbey’s historic importance. “All of us who are theater students study global history and the Abbey’s place within Ireland and the global community,” he said. “What we understand is the great richness of Irish playwriting and the great reservoir of acting talent that is Irish actors.”

Centenary Tour

The Abbey’s centenary tour continues in February, with Mark O’Rowe’s Terminus embarking on a seven-week multi-venue tour that includes Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Ohio, Duke University, and Vermont. O’Rowe is one of an exciting new generation of playwrights emerging from Ireland right now. And if the Abbey’s mission 100 years ago was to build its reputation, make connections and raise money, then it’s aim in 2011 is not too different.

“It’s the same mission,” says Fiach MacConghaile, “To reconnect, build the networks, look for additional fundraising. There are two things the Abbey can do in the US. It can tell the good news story about Ireland. It can show off the best skills we have in terms of craftspeople, stage people, actors, writers – we can show off what Ireland’s good at. And what we need to do is build relationships in the US so that we can raise money for us to do our work back in Ireland.”

John Gabriel Borkman continues at BAM Theatre Brooklyn, until February 6

[This article originally appeared in the Irish Examiner USA on Jan 25 2011]

Bono and Glen Beck buddies, as Spiderman delayed for the FIFTH time

U2’s Spiderman musical on Broadway will not now open until March 15^th, after producers postponed the opening night for a fifth time.

The show, Spiderman: Turn off the Dark, had been due to finally open on February 7^th, but its creators, which includes Bono and the Edge, say they are still fine-tuning aspects of the show, including a new ending.

“We simply need more time to execute the creative team’s vision,” said producer Michael Cohl, adding that the show was “ten times more complicated” to technically rehearse than anything else.

He said the schedule of previews allowed just 12 hours a week for rehearsals.

“I picked a date in March that allows me to ensure this will be the final postponement,” said Mr Cohl.

The $65m production will have been in previews for longer than any other show in history by the time it 

opens.

Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark has become the biggest hit on Broadway since previews began in November.

Last week, it overtook the long-running Wicked as the highest grossing musical in New York, raking in more than $1.5m in ticket sales.

But there is controversy that this success has come without an opportunity for critics to give their verdicts.

There is a convention among New York theatre critics that shows are not reviewed during previews, but only 

after they officially open.

However, given the massive delays, some publications have already broken this rule, arguing that audiences are paying full price for tickets and deserve to get an independent critical assessment of the show’s quality.

It’s very likely that others will now be tempted to review the show too, given that there are two full months before it “officially” opens.

One positive review has come from an unusual source – conservative radio host and Fox News pundit Glenn Beck said it was “by far the best show I’ve ever seen”.

On his radio programme this week, he spent 30 minutes heaping praise on the show, predicting it would be the “Phantom of the 21^st Century”, and accusing early reviewers who panned the show of snobbery.

He describes hanging out backstage with Bono, and giving advice to the U2 man on how to improve the show.

The production has been bedeviled by problems – four actors have been injured in separate accidents, audiences have reported technical difficulties during its spectacular aerial stunts, and one of its lead actor’s Natalie Mendoza quit the show last month.

Nonetheless audiences are still flocking to previews, with some paying up to $292.50 for a ticket.

Bono and the Edge are not thought to be writing any more new music for the show, but they have drafted in album producer Steve Lillywhite, who worked with U2 on October, War and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, to help with Spiderman.

Imagine Ireland launches in the US

Gabriel Byrne and Colum McCann

The biggest ever promotion of Irish arts in the US has been launched in New York.

Over the next 12 months 400 individual events will take place across 40 States - in an attempt to rebuild Ireland's reputation by reminding Americans of its rich cultural and artistic traditions.

Here's a radio feature I did for RTE's Morning Ireland on the launch, featuring Gabriel Byrne, Colum McCann and others.


[It was broadcast Monday January 10th, and is similar to my written blog entry on the launch, but also contains new material]


http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0110/morningireland.html

Tourism Minister defends Paddy's Day junkets

Minister Mary Hanafin pictured with Eugene Downes, Culture Ireland, actor Gabriel Byrne, author Colum McCann and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn at the launch of Imagine Ireland on Friday

The Minister for Tourism Mary Hanafin has confirmed that preparations are proceeding for members of the government to travel overseas for St Patrick’s Day, despite the likelihood that it could be in the final days of a general election campaign.

Speaking in NewYork on Friday, the Minister accused Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny of being “far too cynical about the importance of St Patrick’s Day”. The Opposition leader had argued that trips by ministers would be viewed as a “cynical swansong” by the public, and claimed some foreign leaders might not wish to meet lame-duck ministers, who could be out of office just weeks later.

“We should be all out there taking this opportunity to promote Ireland,” Minister Hanafin said, “St Patrick’s Day is our opportunity – any other country in the world would kill for it.”

“If the leader of the Opposition wants to go as well, I don’t see any difficulty,” she added.

She denied that photographs of Taoiseach Brian Cowen with US President Barack Obama in the White House, would sprinkle a little stardust on the closing stages of a Fianna Fail campaign. She said that photos of Mr Cowen with Barack Obama had been seen before and would be nothing new for the public. 

“The St Patrick’s Day message this year will be about investment, it will about the strong reputation of Ireland.”

Asked if it would not be better to hold the election before St Patrick’s Day, and allow the foreign trips to be the first big event for a new administration, she said “the message is the same”.

“The message is about Ireland. The message is not about Mary Hanafin. It’s not about Brian Cowen. It’s about Ireland as a place to invest. It’s about Ireland as a place to visit. It doesn’t matter really who the messenger is, it’s the message that is important for St Patrick’s Day.”

She said planning was already underway for the visits, because regardless of who goes, the programs in the host cities are pretty much set. “So for example I’ve attended in New York for a couple of years,” she said, “And there is the program of the Mayor’s breakfast, the Governor’s breakfast, meeting all the political leaders and a huge round of media opportunities.”

She said London was particularly important this year from the point of tourism and she hoped as Minister for Tourism to promote Ireland in the market there. “The planning goes ahead, the programming goes ahead,” she said, “The only thing that has to be slotted in is the individual.”

She said the election date was a matter for the Taoiseach to decide. “But the one thing that should not happen, it should not be on Patrick’s weekend,” she said, “Because we don’t want it to interfere with that.”

100 years of the Abbey Theatre in the US

Ireland's national theatre, the Abbey, is celebrating the centenary of its first tour to the US with another tour in 2011. 

Previews of their first show "John Gabriel Borkman" with Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw and Lindsay Duncan begin at BAM in Brooklyn tonight (Fri Jan 7th). 

Here's a feature I did for RTE's Morning Ireland radio programme this morning for those interested...

http://www.rte.ie/news/morningireland/