More mixed salad than melting pot...(day 4)

The autumn sun shines starkly on the capital today, as it has done since I arrived. Except for yesterday when the wind wailed and you had to close your eyes and walk blind in fear of the rain damaging your retinas. As I mentioned yesterday I met up with Deirdre at the Solstice Arts centre which is about an hour away on the bus in a town called Navan, NW of Dublin. A lovely little town that maybe gives you a closer reading of a more traditional Ireland, or at least those nuances that are lost in any capital city...and going back to the idea of generalising and stereotyping, I was more comfortable with the Ireland I saw yesterday in Navan. Windswept, wet and white. No melting pot here, what you see is what you get, and in real life I think this brings most people comfort. And possibly in theatre? What makes a particular story told for the stage stand out? It certainly isn't the universality of the piece but more the specifics; we don't want to be asked into our own homes but rather a world we know exists but know very little about. What's important is that the characters belong in their world - not the audience.

Having said all this (all what?) I want to move on to the piece of theatre I saw yesterday at Trinity College in Dublin, Sanwoollim Theatre Company's Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. Sanwoollim Theatre Company is a Korean (Seoul) based theatre company, who's director Professor Young-Woong Lim has been studying and producing performances of Godot for over forty years (which does make me wonder if he's still Waiting?). The piece was superb with very little being lost in translation. He obviously has a lot of respect for the author as it was as true to the original as could be, with the performers as passionate and engaged with the text as any other production I had seen. There was post show discussion, which really told me more about cultural differences than the presentation of the piece itself. His son (also with a PhD on Beckett) introduced the Company and the journey that Godot had made with him and his father over the past ten years. They were very proud of critics quotes claiming that the piece was 'mellowing' and 'objective', not words we usually associate with theatre (or indeed Godot) in England. Also, when it came to opening the floor to questions (of which I had one burning about how the piece was specific to a modern Korean audience) only one question was actually taken from the floor! It left me feeling that the Company was being protected in some way by the drama students at Trinity, or maybe I was just a bit jilted because I wasn't allowed to ask my precious question. But it was a gentle reminder that there is no 'melting pot', we all close our doors to keep our worlds intact, culturally, collectively and individually. And thank god, otherwise there'd be nothing to expose.

I met with Gavin at Fishamble again today. I must say I love literary managers who also produce their own work. Ben Payne at the Birmingham Rep is another of those who certainly knows his stuff as far as his given field is concerned but also likes to test his own creativity, putting his own neck on the line. Gavin is the same, he is currently running a staged version of Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness. Pretty much the whole book, unabridged, running for five and half hours...that leaves me a little speechless, and in awe, and eager to see it. As Gavin says a lot people come just because it sounds unbelievable, they come 'to see the guy put the sword through his head'. For me it shows a level of endurance and commitment that I don't think most people can relate to, but a devotion I think anyone can admire. It's this level of commitment to theatre that is becoming more and more apparent as my time passes here, and it is something quite wonderful.

I am embarking on a weekend of writing workshops with Gavin as of tomorrow, so will be posting again after the weekend. I'm excited, it's the first chance I've had to write over the past few months, so we shall see...