My Own Personal Theatre Awards 2015

All aesthetic judgements are political, but some are more political than others; and if you cannot conceive of great art made by people whose political opinions you do not share, then just maybe you cannot conceive of art at all.

It was ironic that the Irish Times released their Theatre Awards shortlist just after the death of Alan Rickman; whose performance in John Gabriel Borkman the Guardian valorised as one of his great stage achievements; as it drew the mind back to the Irish Times’ magisterial pronouncements on the state of Irish theatre in 2010. John Gabriel Borkman, a co-production between the Abbey and Southbank’s National Theatre, premiered in Dublin before transferring to London, and eventually Broadway. It was seen by around 20,000 people, got rave notices, and received … two nominations from the Irish Times: for costumes and set.

Meanwhile World’s End Lane, which could be seen by 3 people per performance, and so was seen by almost a hundred punters, as opposed to John Gabriel Borkman’s 20,000, received a nod for best production. And of course you ‘couldn’t’ sputter with outrage over this because, inevitably, you hadn’t seen World’s End Lane. Thus has it been lately with the Irish Times Theatre Awards. Such hipster valuations of theatrical worth downgraded the Gate and Abbey, and combined with a persistent boosting of Belfast’s Lyric Theatre, and companies and plays that shared the politico-cultural preoccupations and prejudices of the Irish Times.

But, as with my objections to the Abbey’s 2016 programme, there is little point in speculative grousing. So here are my personal theatre awards for 2015, with the winners in bold. And let me anticipate objections. I did not see DruidShakespeare on tour or The Match Box in Galway. I did not travel up to Belfast to see a single play at the Lyric. But, when you strip out all DruidShakespeare’s nominations, the vast majority of nominations handed out by the Irish Times were for work performed in Dublin. So with more nominees and fewer categories let’s have at it…

Best Production

The Cherry Orchard (The O’Reilly Theatre)

Dancing at Lughnasa (The Lyric/The Gaiety)

Hedda Gabler (The Abbey)

The Night Alive (The Lyric/The Gaiety)

Grounded (Project Arts Centre)

 

Best Director

Annabelle Comyn – Dancing at Lughnasa (The Lyric/The Gaiety) & Hedda Gabler (The Abbey)

David Grindley – The Gigli Concert (The Gate)

Selina Cartmell – Grounded (Project Arts Centre)

Conor McPherson – The Night Alive (The Lyric/The Gaiety)

Patrick Mason – The Importance of Being Earnest (The Gate)

 

Best Actor

Declan Conlon – The Gigli Concert (The Gate)

Marty Rea – The Importance of Being Earnest (The Gate)

James Murphy – The Importance of Being Earnest (Smock Alley)

Brendan Gleeson – The Walworth Farce (The Olympia)

Dylan Coburn Gray – Enjoy (Project Arts Centre)

Best Actress

Catherine McCormack – Dancing at Lughnasa (The Lyric/The Gaiety)

Aislin McGuckin – A Month in the Country (The Gate)

Catherine Walker – Hedda Gabler (The Abbey)

Clare Dunne – Grounded (Project Arts Centre)

Lisa Dwyer Hogg – The Importance of Being Earnest (The Gate)

 

Best Supporting Actor

Declan Conlon – Dancing at Lughnasa (The Lyric/The Gaiety) & Hedda Gabler (The Abbey)

Marty Rea – The Caretaker (The Gate)

Peter Gaynor – Hedda Gabler (The Abbey)

Kevin Shackleton – The Importance of Being Earnest (Smock Alley)

Stijn Van Opstal – The Cherry Orchard (The O’Reilly Theatre)

Domhnall Gleeson – The Walworth Farce (The Olympia)

John Doran – Enjoy (Project Arts Centre)

 

Best Supporting Actress

Marion O’Dwyer – By the Bog of Cats (The Abbey)

Minke Kruyver – The Cherry Orchard (The O’Reilly Theatre)

Kate Stanley Brennan – Hedda Gabler (The Abbey)

Deirdre Donnelly – The Importance of Being Earnest (The Gate)

Elodie Devins – By the Bog of Cats (The Abbey)

 

Best New Play

George Brant – Grounded (Project Arts Centre)

Conor McPherson – The Night Alive (The Lyric/The Gaiety)

Gerard Adlum – The Man in Two Pieces (Theatre Upstairs)

Enda Walsh – The Last Hotel (The O’Reilly Theatre)

Gerard Adlum, Nessa Matthews, Sarah Finlay – Bob and Judy (Theatre Upstairs)

 

Best Set Design

tgSTAN & Damiaan De Schrijver – The Cherry Orchard (The O’Reilly Theatre)

Paul O’Mahony – Dancing at Lughnasa (The Lyric/The Gaiety) & Hedda Gabler (The Abbey)

Francis O’Connor – The Importance of Being Earnest (The Gate) & The Caretaker (The Gate)

Liam Doona – You Never Can Tell (The Abbey)

Alice Power – The Walworth Farce (The Olympia)

Alyson Cummins – The Night Alive (The Lyric/The Gaiety)

 

Best Lighting Design

Chahine Yavroyan – Dancing at Lughnasa (The Lyric/The Gaiety) & Hedda Gabbler (The Abbey)

Sinead McKenna – The Gigli Concert (The Gate)

Davy Cunningham – Grounded (Project Arts Centre)

 

Best Sound Design

Dennis Clohessy – Through a Glass Darkly (Project Arts Centre) & A View From the Bridge (The Gate)

Mel Mercier – The Shadow of a Gunman (The Abbey)

Conor Linehan – You Never Can Tell (The Abbey)

Bob and Judy

Gerard Adlum and Nessa Matthews were strangers meeting on an apocalyptic night in Bob and Judy, the second instalment of Fast Intent’s Theatre Upstairs residency.

A chair, a tangled tree, and a temperamental radio form Katie Foley’s set for this tale of a simple package delivery that turns into an unlikely existential crisis, on personal and global levels. Bob (Gerard Adlum) is a delivery man for Science World who ambles into a back garden in his innocuous but dogged way to get Judy (Nessa Matthews) to sign for a package. But Judy is absolutely insistent that she does not want any package, and when she discovers to her horror that said package contains a telescope; a birthday present from her late mother, ordered months before; she tries to return it. But Bob isn’t about to let his professional reputation be impugned, and, as they bicker and bond, the tragic circumstances of both their lives emerge while the radio bears news of an unusual interstellar wonder.

Bob and Judy is scripted by Adlum from a story devised by the company (Adlum, Matthews, Sarah Finlay), and directed by Finlay. There’s a touch of John Wyndham’s off-kilter approach to sci-fi in how the heavenly aberrations impact tangentially on a more important earthly conflict between two people. Bob is played by Adlum as a study in defeat, hiding his disappointment with his life (and his guilt) behind a facade of mundane efficiency. Judy is more problematic. Her past, in one line of dialogue, seems akin to Jennifer Lawrence’s in Silver Linings Playbook, and her interactions with the harmless Bob seem at times excessively aggressive, almost shrill. Admittedly this is due to an effect of the cosmic phenomenon; heightening emotions; as the radio informs us. But does Bob & Judy’s story really need that entire strand of sci-fi at all?

There’s odd cultural confusion at work from deliveries by Science World to Judy’s hostility to her mother’s mores to Morgan Jones’ American newscaster voice announcing doom; a sense in which this seems a mash-up of the details of small-town America and rural Ireland, as if the company doing a reading of Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries last year had unconsciously informed their devising. And while Eoghan Carrick’s lighting and Dylan Tonge Jones’ sound design are impressive in creating impending destruction from the stars it’s arguable whether that strand is necessary when the real crux of the play is Bob and Judy’s emotional journey. The sci-fi maguffin almost feels like JJ Abrams’ Super 8 gambit, a writing short-cut to catharsis. And the writing doesn’t need shortcuts, as, whether rendering childhood word-games or a spectacular argument about dinosaurs, it’s touching and hilarious.

Bob and Judy is an interesting play, filled with great dialogue, but invoking our insignificant place in the universe arguably uses a philosophical sledgehammer to crack a dramatic nut.

3/5