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)

Through A Glass Darkly

The Corn Exchange takes on an Ingmar Bergman film in Jenny Worton’s stage adaptation of a woman’s struggle against madness.

Karin (Beth Cooke) has recently been released from a mental hospital after a breakdown. Her prognosis is grim, she can only look forward to lucid intervals during a downward spiral, but her doctor husband Martin (Peter Gaynor) has kept her in the dark. He believes there may still be hope. What she needs is rest, and a holiday with her novelist father David (Peter Gowen) and her teenage brother Minus (Colin Campbell) on their idyllic island summer home is the key to curing her psychosis. The self-involved David, however, is struggling to finish a novel, and almost instantly announces his intention to travel to Croatia to lecture on his works for a term. Meanwhile Minus is having a total hormonal meltdown: alternating between frenzied creativity, desperate masturbation, and raging about his father’s emotional distance. And then Karin discovers her prognosis…

Director Annie Ryan relies heavily on Denis Clohessy’s immersive sound design to conjure up Bergman’s deceptively attractive Swedish pastoral; a deluge in particular is emotionally as well as aurally devastating. Sarah Bacon’s set design of tables, chairs, and a bed, with screens shifting along furrows on the stage, creates the pared back world of this psychodrama. But, for all the actors moving screens and props about to create fluid scene changes, the 90 minutes without an interval of Through A Glass Darkly pass with you always keenly aware that you are watching a stage version of a film rather than a play proper. You worry about what visual metaphors might be missing which Bergman used to convey Karina’s delusions about a room of souls waiting for God, just behind the wall. You even worry if Bergman’s landscape shots were important.

Such concern with the filmic origins is because as a play there is something lacking about Bergman’s script, short scenes fail to acquire dramatic flesh. Gaynor’s hapless husband is sympathetically played as a kindly man out of his depth. Gowen follows his overbearing patriarch in By the Bog of Cats this summer with a nuanced portrayal of a father running away from all family problems; whether they be wife, daughter, or son; excusing himself by devotion to his art, even though he is horrified at finding the splinter of ice in his heart when observing his daughter’s disintegration. Newcomer Campbell acquits himself well in perhaps the most challenging role, as the petulant and easily manipulated teenager. Cooke’s accent strikes Nordic notes, accentuating Karin’s increasing distance from her family, and her initial playfulness makes her later hysteria all the more disturbing.

Through A Glass Darkly is affecting and well performed but where Corn Exchange’s Man of Valour brought computer game and comic-book fantasies to vivid theatrical life this remains in thrall to its cinematic source.

3/5

Through A Glass Darkly continues its run at the Project Arts Centre until the 5th of December.