Ten years on...(day 3)

Last night was a time for me to revisit an old flame as I went to see Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen (a new version by Brian Friel) at the beautiful Gate theatre. Hedda was a piece of Ibsen's work that I studied and wrote about while doing my MA in Playwriting Skills (as it was then known) at Birmingham University, so I am quite well acquainted with our anti-heroine. Seeing it for the first time, and performed to this standard, was quite astounding. Besides Judge Brack's obsession with Americanisms, not much about the script had changed from Ibsen's original. And still it remains as poignant and topical as ever. However, besides the occasional lilt in the accents, there was nothing in the piece that was particularly revealing about the Irish culture.

I don't feel I have an agenda while I'm here (except what's in the brief of course) but I am becoming more aware that I am actively looking for aspects of theatre that define the culture over here. And culture is nothing without people, and yet the trap most writers fall into when trying to characterise a populous is stereotyping. I met with Deirdre Kinahan from Tall Tales theatre company this morning (having seen her visceral piece Hue and Cry at Bewleys Theatre cafe yesterday) and we soon got into a conversation about how much both theatre and the population has changed in just the last ten years. When I walk around Dublin I hear as many different languages as say a place like London but, unlike London, this wasn't the case ten years ago. It appears it is the same with developing and supporting new writing. Deirdre told me that before the millennium there wasn't really as much new writing being developed, simply because the support wasn't there. That, thankfully, has changed and is evident as I walk around as I walk around the city and meet these practitioners as well as seeing their new work.

Now you may ask whether I am trying to make some tenuous link between the increase in the immigrant population and the surge in support, development and production of new writing in the past ten years...that would be silly, there is no direct link. However the Abbey Theatre is seeing the return of Playboy of the Western World, a new version by Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle, with a black actor in the lead and back by popular demand - something I fear we'd never have seen ten years ago. It goes to show how quickly a culture can adapt and change and I think we (on the other side of the Sea and no matter how open minded we think we are) can take a leaf out of their book in this respect.

Vivre la Difference!