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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
62 April-May
April-May 63
Less Drama,
more Theatre
The stte of thetre in Dublin:
nobody’s tlking bout quality; nd
mny wnt funding diverted wy
from the cpitl
By Jes Paluchowska
Lynne Parker argued that for some time
the Abbey has been hard pressed to make
work that can claim automatic superiority
over companies that manage on a fraction
of its budget
T
his article reviews the state of
theatre in Dublin: the decline in the
number of theatres in the city
centre, which has been
accompanied by a rise in the
number of suburban theatres, and in
particular the quality of the art. A future piece
will look at the state of theatre outside of
Dublin.
Decline
In a recent article in the Irish Times, Lynne
Parker, Artistic Director of pioneering
independent theatre company, Rough Magic,
wondered why conditions for the theatre
“industry” are now so much less favourable
than they were in the 1980s. Certainly the
attention of both media and public worldwide
is shifting over time away from theatre as
cheaper cinematic alternatives have
benefi ted from technological improvements.
The pandemic, the cost of living crisis and
property speculation have not helped.
Last year New York’s Broadway earned fully
a sixth less than pre-Covid. In Australia
theatregoing and theatre ticket prices have
been slower than other performances to
rebound after Covid. But then, the Financial
Times recently reported the “astonishing
recovery” of London theatre last year.
Forebodingly, it contrasted declining New
York with ”London — and the UK theatre
sector more generally — [which]is increasingly
seen as a crucible for fresh, risk-taking work”,
The problem is that the same cannot be said
for Dublin.
Perhaps a big part of the decline is because
theatre has indeed become an industry, with
its own self-serving administrators and a
motivation beyond art. Of course the Arts
Council states that it generally intends to
“ensure there is a breadth of high-quality arts
activity and programmes throughout the
country”. In the case of theatre It has not
been enough. It has to be stressed that
funding is only merited if the quality is mostly
excellent. Dublin, which has historically
aspired to world-class excellence in art, is
losing its momentum. Maybe, somewhere
along the line, art stopped being the primary
motivation.
Parker, however, seems to blame the
Abbey, Ireland’s national theatre, and the
Gate, its usually fashionable rival. She
considers the answer is not to reduce funding
CULTURE
62 April-May
April-May 63
Nearly half of the Arts Council’s theatre
spending goes to the Abbey; another
quarter goes to the Gate, Druid and Dublin
Theatre Festival leaving little for smaller
theatres in Dublin and elsewhere, or for
dynamic theatre companies
Dublin’s Abbey Thetre — blncing
public enggement nd rtistic mbition:
Citríon McLughlin, Director; Mrk
O’Brien, Executive Director
for the national theatre but to deploy it more
eciently and to raise the State’s support for
theatremakers across the country, to create
a more level playing field”. She wants to
adjust the hierarchy topped by the Abbey and
Gate.
Decline in number of Dublin
Ciy heres
There are currently fewer than 20 full-time
theatres in Dublin City, most of them having
a total seating capacity of under 500 people.
The exceptions, like the Bord Gáis, 3Olympia,
Vicar Street, Ambassador and Gaiety, each
with an over-1000 capacity, are run and
owned by for-profit corporate agents.
The Focus Theatre in Pembroke Place, an
institution operating on-and-o since the
1960s, had closed by 2012 following a series
of funding issues. Andrews Lane Theatre o
Dame Street tried to convert into a nightclub
before closing in 2014, after which it was
replaced by a hotel. The same fate befell the
Tivoli Theatre, standing since 1934, which
was demolished to make space for a StayCity
Aparthotel, on Francis Street. The demolition
was agreed to by the City Council on condition
that it retain some cultural usage, where the
Tivoli would be “reborn” but, according to a
Dublin Inquirer review, the dedicated
”performance and exhibition space” is now
mostly a glorified breeze-blocked warehouse
divided by drama-unfriendly obstructive
pillars. Dublin City Council inspected the
space after complaints, but it says that “the
positioning of columns and ceiling height did
not form part of the planning enforcement
ocer’s investigation, as such a complaint
was not brought to our attention”. The
Eblana, the SFX and the Focus are other
casualties in the last 20 years though the
Ambassador Theatre has recently re-opened
as an event and performance venue having
been closed since Covid. More than a quarter
of the theatres that were open in 2008 are
now closed, Besides, according to Lynne
Parker: “Successive funding cuts have
resulted in the demise of more than 30
independent companies”.
The remaining venues are stretched thin to
deliver the first-rate theatre historically
associated with Dublin city and are under
financial pressure to deliver box-office
success at low cost. Theatregoers too are
stretched, Some of the more in-demand
productions, like ‘Emma’ at the Abbey, will
only be caught by those who have the
foresight to book weeks in advance. Parker
calls for a greater role for local authorities but
rather than helping to stop closures, in 2023
Dublin City Council commissioned a
feasibility study for a mid-sized venue.
Meanwhile the giant US Oak View Group is
(pre-emptively) ‘exploring plans’ for a new
Dublin venue larger than the 3Arena, perhaps
in Simmonscourt. The Bord Gáis Theatre
which specialises in Broadway and West End
productions and holds 2000 seats, is the
largest theatre in Ireland and had been
originally intended for the use of either the
Abbey or the Department of Arts and Culture
directly. As both failed to pay for its set-up, it
went into the private hands of John and
Bernie Gallagher.
Rise in number of suburbn
heres
Not surprisingly, in view of demographics,
Dublin’s suburbs have fared better. In the last
25 years the following theatres have opened
in Greater Dublin: the Civic Theatre, Tallaght
(1999), Axis, Ballymun (2001), The Séamus
Ennis Arts Centre, Naul (2001), Draíocht,
Blanchardstown (2001), Pavilion Theatre,
Dún Laoghaire (reopened 2001), the Helix,
DCU (2002), the Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray
(2002), the Mill Theatre, Dundrum (2006), the
Rua Red Arts Centre, Tallaght (2009), The Lir
Academy Theatre, Grand Canal Dock (2011),
the Viking Theatre, Clontarf (2011), the
LexIcon Studio, Dún Laoghaire (2014), the
Whale Theatre, Greystones (2017), the
Millbank Theatre, Rush (renovated in recent
years),the Moat Theatre, Naas (refurbished
and expanded), Theatre@36 Stillorgan.A
theatre is currently being constructed in
Swords as part of the new Cultural Centre
there, with a 165-seat capacity.
Quliy
The Abbey
At curtain time the most important thing is
artistic quality. Parker cuttingly claims the
Abbey “has been hard pressed to make work
that can claim automatic superiority over the
activities and work produced by companies
that manage on a fraction of the Abbey’s
budget”.
The Abbey’s mission under its current
directorship (since 2021) has been to
“eectively and imaginatively engage with all
of Irish society through the production of
ambitious, courageous theatre in all its
forms”. The formula is a bit ‘kitchen sink’ and
the phraseology around “all” strange but
let’s assess it anyway.
Perhaps the “courage” part was best
represented by Fiach MacConghail’s tenure
(2005-16) when there was a focus on
relevance, and theatre still somehow infused
the body politic.
While the direction chosen by his
successors, Graham Murray and Neil McLaren,
was strong on engagement, their tenure was
a soup of scandal, unclear vision and artistic.
They brought in a policy of short production
runs only, abandonment of established,
renowned classic.
Excellence is its own ambition. At the end
of a 2017 interview with the two, Village
explicitly sought their view on quality,
“asking the helpful Press Manager to kindly
ask them for comments on how they’re going
to achieve ‘world-class’ standards”. In
particular, they were asked to address the
criticism of the independent Arts-Council-
funded 2014 report which devastatingly
asserted that the Abbey wasn’t then
“reaching ‘an acceptable standard for
professional theatre presentation’”. There
was a bit of a kerfue over whether the quote
(from the Irish Times) was accurate and
eventually the reply came through: “This is
not something Neil and Graham are going to
comment on because it was before their time
at the Abbey”. They didn’t want to talk about
64 April-May
April-May 65
More than a quarter
of the theatres that
were open in 2008
are now closed,
and no new major
permanent venues
have replaced them
The 2023 Abbey production of Moliere’s
Trtuffe ws rre bow to the clssic. Both
its sets nd the cting were striking
‘Milk’ t the Abbey: three strs
vision or standards.
According to the findings of independent
consultants Crowe Ireland, in the years
preceding Murray’s and McLaren’s departure
in 2021, the Abbey, which was badly chaired
by Frances Ruane, misspent almost €700,000
on legal and administrative costs related to
their terminations”.
In 2022, another Village article concluded
that: “The Abbey’s tragedies are its descent
from Yeats, and succumbing to a banal
interpretation of the National Theatre thing. It
needs to aspire to sustained artistic excellence
and to take risks in promoting pieces that oer
a vision of radical political progress in
Ireland”.
The regime over the last five years has failed
to stem the descent of theatre into irrelevance.
It is rare that theatre animates discussion on
politics or anything else.
If the quality is good, it is certainly neither
world-class nor aspiring to being
world-class.
Seeing how the Abbey, which staged 35
productions, with an attendance of 109,203
(in 2023). received €8.5 million from the Arts
Council in 2024, it is worth taking a pulse.
Even now, four years since McLaren and
Murray’s departure, their policy of short
shows and no return to the focus on the
traditional Abbey ‘canon’ of classics prevails.
No-one is raving or taking Abbey shows
abroad.
Reviews broadly tell the tale. In February.
The Irish Times reviewed ‘Milk’ (three stars
out of five), a dance play by the Haifa-based
Palestinian company Khashabi. using
contemporary theatre techniques to explore
themes of despair, blending spectacle with
tragedy “in new ways”. Though the drama is
not sustained, “The combination of splashing
movement and religious art evokes the Greek
choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou and
boundary-pushing work usually presented at
the prestigious Avignon Festival, in France,
rather than at our own national theatre.
(Abbey, please stage this kind of production
more often)”.
That seems an appropriate resonance with
the mission statement.
In November 2024, ‘Emma’, an
unchallenging crowd pleaser, was reviewed
by the Irish Times’ chief film correspondent,
Donald Clarke. It is telling for the state of Irish
theatre that the newspaper no longer employs
a dedicated drama critic. Clarke said it was
an “agreeably quirky take” that shakes the
story’s structure “a little too vigorously”.
Only three stars then.
In late September, Clarke reviewed ‘Grania’,
a play by Lady Gregory, noting that the
production was elevated by Colin Richmond’s
set design and Sinéad Wallace’s lighting,
honouring the evocative language of Lady
Gregory, breathing new life into the epic love
story. Earlier that month in the Peacock, as
part of the Fringe Festival, ‘Afterwards’ — “a
post-Eighth Amendment comedy in an
English abortion clinic” — was commended
(by Clarke, four stars) for its impeccable
performances and crackling dialogue,
though it was “a little schematic”.
We’re seeing a pattern of gentle criticism
of imperfect art.
In October, Enda Walsh’s new ‘Safe House’,
(two stars) was described as an “oppressively
desolate song cycle”. The production
featuring Kate Gilmore as a vulnerable young
woman, at times overwhelmed her character.
Homelessness and trauma are in there:
“Unsafe homelessness becomes represented
by startling displays – by unexplained
coughing-up of blood”.
Politically right-on but poor quality.
In April 2024, the Irish Independent praised
“Children of the Sun” as a “brilliant, inventive
big-house play for a Europe in chaos”. The
production was noted for its relevance and
engaging portrayal of societal upheaval.
Clearly an eort is being made to address a
range of themes, tastes, and refinements,
even if it is light on the canon, and the politics
is right-on with abortion, homelessness and
Palestine all featured. A good balance of
politics and quality.
None of those shows run for more than two
weeks and it is dicult to imagine how real
ambition, even if present, would have time to
grow into excellence under these conditions.
Overall there is evidence of eectiveness
and imagination in engagement but it is
dicult to discern real ambition or courage;
and excellence is so rare that it seems not to
be part of the ambition.
The Ge
As to the Gate Theatre, ‘King Lear’, playing
since late February (three stars): was deemed
“propulsive” by the Irish Times, though it
“doesn’t quite solve this tragedy’s age-old
problems…this staging is short on big ideas”,
a heavy deficit. Donald Clarke, perhaps with
filmic expectations, couldn’t resist
proclaiming: “It may be infantile to expect
video-nasty relish in the gouging of
Gloucester’s eyes, but something more than
the perfunctory scue here would be nice”.
In January 2025, The Irish Times praised
Lisa O’Neill’s residency (part of the Gate’s
encouragingly named Gatecrashes series),
highlighting her storytelling prowess as she
64 April-May
April-May 65
The Abbey’s tragedy is succumbing to a banal
interpretation of the National Theatre thing. It needs to
aspire to sustained artistic excellence and to take risks,
with pieces that offer a vision of radical political progress
in Ireland. The regime over the last five years has failed to
stem the descent into irrelevance. It is rare that theatre
animates discussion on politics or anything else
Frnces Rune
delved into cultural, political, and social
narratives, including the tale of Violet Gibson
who shot Mussolini: and an angle on
Kavanagh’s ‘The Great Hunger’, “Giving voice
to the disenfranchised is something she does
so well, with a particular anity for women…
with a free singularity that can fold in dicult
subjects, such as homelessness”. Four out of
five stars.seemed to indicate progressivism
entertainingly delivered.
In November 2024, The Irish Times (Donald
Clarke again) described a family-oriented
adaptation of ‘The Borrowers’ (three stars) as
“solid good fun launched at family audiences
for the festive season”, noting its broad
appeal despite a straightforward narrative.
At least it wasn’t the usual ‘Christmas Carol’.
In July 2024, The Irish Times lauded
Caroline Byrne’s revival of Brian Friel’s
‘classic’ ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ as
“triumphant” and “breathtakingly beautiful,”
transforming the play into a dreamlike
experience. The Irish Independent described
the production as a “dark delight”, with
Byrne adopting an “exquisite melancholy”
tone. In May 2024,the Irish Independent
noted that while ‘Circle Mirror Transformation’
featured “dazzling moments”, it lacked
substance, relying heavily on top-class
acting from the cast, including Niamh Cusack
and Risteárd Cooper. The Irish Independent
observed structural faults in ‘The Pull of the
Stars ‘(April 2024), attributing them to the
literary origins of Emma Donoghue’s novel.
In February 2024, the Irish Times
commended the “heroic performances” of
Olwen Fouéré and Hugo Weaving in ‘The
President’ though it noted the play’s lack of
forward momentum (four stars).
The Gate picks up the classics the Abbey
left behind, but, as this selection of reviews
suggests, it rarely oers ambitious or avant
garde approaches. Things are played safe,
with a saccharine unchallenging glamour that
delights the Southside crowd. There has been
a decline in élan since the departure of the
brilliant but disgraced, Michael Colgan, Selina
Cartmell, with stellar production credentials
including a famous ‘Titus Andronicus’ took
over in 2017 and delivered some blockbusters
like ‘The Great Gatsby’, featuring the cleverly
discovered young Mescal, but she was
deflated by Covid. During her tenure, 82 per
cent of directors were female, up from 8 per
cent before she started. Róisín McBrinn
succeeded in 2022. She has directed a
democratic Roddy Doyle’s ‘The Snapper’ and
a “breathtaking” version of ‘Tony-award-
winning’ ‘Fun Home’
All in all, the survey of recent newspaper
criticism hardly suggests Dublin, whose
bourgeoisie are increasingly well-catered for
in other spheres, notably for example by
indigenous film and Michelin-starred
restaurants, is worth a detour for its classic or
contemporary theatre.
Outside of Western Europe, publicly-funded
theatre unites dierent social classes: not in
Dublin, yet.
A crucial part of the Arts Council’s strategy
plan for the last decade, titled optimistically
‘Making Great Art Work’ is cooperation with
local governments. In Dublin, this has driven
theatre into suburbia.
Ticket prices
In Ireland no theatre subsidised by the State
can be for-profit. The money received cannot
be spent on commercial, stand-up, or amateur
shows. Free from those standards, the
corporate theatres predictably take the easy
way out. Both in programming and marketing,
these venues are focused on profit.
While many claim to sell tickets for €20 euro
or less, these constitute less than 10 percent
of the total number of available seats.
For example, tickets for the ‘Ferryman’ at
the Gaiety (two stars: “sounds as if it was
written using Wikipedia”) are advertised
from €19, but that is only true on a few,
midweek, dates in the early afternoon, in one
section out of more than forty. After some
thwarted rummaging, the next best thing are
two sections at €30 before prices hike to €45.
All that, with a 10 percent service fee on top.
This experience is brought to us by the
Ticketmaster agency which has dominated
the stage internationally since 2010, oering
venues good rates and access to a stable of
performers.
Last year, it made the headlines after
‘dynamic booking’ (such as hiking up prices
mid-sale as demand increases) caused fans
to pay hundreds of euros over market price
for Oasis tickets during the band’s tour in
Ireland and the UK. Both the European
Commission and the Irish Competition and
Consumer Protection Commission are
currently investigating possible abuse of the
agency’s dominant position in the market but
neither seems concerned with the company’s
apparent monopoly. It is also plausibly
alleged that Ticketmaster secretly works
alongside scalpers to artificially increase
prices and collect fees multiple times for the
same ticket.
Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live
Nation Entertainment is currently involved in
an antitrust lawsuit brought by the US
Department of Justice and 29 States but it
remains the only source for online tickets for
big commercial venues.
Currently, it is only the smaller theatres
that reliably sell aordable tickets. The Civic,
Mill, New, Smock Alley and Glass Mask
theatres oer plenty of places in the €20–25
range. The Abbey oers a number of them as
well, but they are in high demand and
purchase is dicult. The Gate similarly oers
a few seats under €20, but then averages at
over €30. For theatres with corporate owners,
most available tickets are €30+, rising
quickly to €50 and €60.
Cinema
In the Arts Council’s survey, when asked
about the reason they don’t attend an event
they would like to go to, 44% (56% of adults
under 35) cited cost. It is not dicult to
imagine why cinemas, whose average ticket
price stayed under €10, do better.
66 April-May
April-May PB
Government Review
Following the failure of a €6.675 million IT
project intended to deliver a grant-application
system, in February the Government
launched an external review of the Arts
Council which had unlawfully chosen the
most expensive tender. For a start, Village
understands that the failure has been
significantly understated, as other costs
have been consolidated under a general
“business transformation” heading. The IT
project had been central to a new modus
operandi, and its failure is a serious strategic
reversal. Worse, a source told Village that
the vacancy-prone board is “devoid of any
serious vision. Not focused at all on quality”.
The very future of the Council, plagued
(according to a 2023 internal survey) by poor
morale and governance for years, is at stake.
The review will be led by Professor Niamh
Brennan (UCD). The IT project’s
mismanagement is now being taken up by
the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), raising
concerns among exposed civil servants.
Maureen Kennelly, the Council’s Director,
is the primary culprit. However, details of
which staff members participated in
oversight committees remain undisclosed
and disputed. Meanwhile, the Department of
Arts did not appoint representatives to these
committees, in breach of government policy.
Kennelly’s contract expires, frustratingly, in
April and it is not clear if she will present
before the PAC or ‘do an RTÉ’.
‘Engagement’
In the first week of February, it released its
annual Engagement Survey, which found
20% of the Irish population attended at least
one cultural event in 2024. This is a six-point
increase compared to 2023, almost returning
to pre-Covid levels. Still, it compares
unfavourably with the UK which is registering
a 27% increase, even post-Brexit and with
harsher national spending cuts.
The Council’s ten-year ‘Making Great Art
Work’ strategic plan dedicated €130 million
to, among other goals, ‘Spatial and
Demographic Planning’ and ‘Developing
Capacity’. A 2019 Review of Arts Centres and
Venues conducted by the Council under the
plan shows “that there is access to MAVs
(Multi-Disciplinary Arts Venue) in every
county, with most counties having more than
one“. The jargon is tellingly oputting but the
achievement not to be gainsaid.
It’s dicult to make a judgement on the
last few years, post-Covid, unfortunately. Its
plans are outdated, jargon-ridden and
non-specific.
Funding
Generl
The Arts Council has received record funding
of €140 million in 2025, up from €68m in
2010 and €56m in 2014. However, this
follows years of underfunding since the Celtic
Tiger crash after which a Departmental
review, again ignoring quality and vision/
goals, commended the organisation for its
administrative cost-cutting and
organisational reform. It has lapsed since.
In January 2025, the Arts Council announced
€68.5 million in grants to 175 entities, with
€57.7 million allocated to 104 organisations
through the Strategically Funded programme
for organisations who make a significant
impact to “arts infrastructure”; €10m to arts
centres and €746,000 for studio spaces.
But there are current questions about
accountability: a scathing article in Village
from June last year shows that “Neither the
Department of Culture nor the Arts Council
insisted on elementary financial
accountability” in the case of a €3.8m grant
for Dublin’s Smock Abbey Theatre which, as
predicted, ran up significant deficits and
never ran sustainably.Another piece queried
the use of former Arts Council personnel to
expensively review the Listowel Arts Festival.
As long ago as 2015 Kevin Kiely, who claimed
arts administrators and the Arts COuncil
needed “a cold shower”, was writing about
problems of top-heavy administration,
nepotism, and how the Council had agreed
to learn lessons from past “conflicts of
interest”.
There
The Arts Council’s investment in theatre
production is primarily through Strategic
Funding, Arts Grants Funding and Project
Awards complemented by a series of
specifically tailored schemes and a range of
supports to individual artists, all framed by
a ‘Making Great Art Work’ strategy and plan,
the latter of which expired in 2022; and by a
Theatre Policy and Strategy, dated 2018.
This declares, “The Arts Council’s primary
interest is to support theatre artists at all
stages of their careers to create work of
excellence that engages widely and deeply
with the public and that maintains the value
of the arts at the centre of Irish life.
Nearly half of the Arts Council’s theatre
spending goes to the Abbey; another quarter
goes to the Gate, Druid and Dublin Theatre
Festival. The Abbey received €8.5 million in
2024 (€6.2m in 2015) and is pitching for €9.5
million this year. In comparison, the Gate only
received €2.5 million (€2.8 million in 2025;
only €860,000 in 2015). The Druid Theatre in
Galway is the only other theatre to receive
over €1 million.
In late February, 770 people signed a
letter, initiated by theatre practitioners and
supported by the Performing Arts Forum and
Irish Theatre Institute arguing that the key
issue for theatre is financial: funding from the
Council has risen since Covid, but the portion
spent on theatre has gone down by about 9
per cent. With so much going to the Dublin
theatres there is not enough to go around for
other venues and practitioners and
underfunded buildings are little use
culturally: in the last 20 years capital funding
by the Department of Arts — over €165m on
cultural infrastructure through its various
grant schemes in the decade up to 2019 —
has been generous. But for theatre there
must be an ongoing budget. Only the most
successful theatres have been able to
produce a show every day. Most regional
venues supplement theatre with musical,
comedy and amateur performances, which
are not sponsored by the Council. Typical is
the Mermaid Theatre in Wicklow which will
host events on 28 out of the 31 days of March
but only two of them will feature theatre.
New models
Parker argues that: “The funding of theatre
as an art form must continue to be the
responsibility of the Arts Council, but, if the
sector is to be properly supported, some of
the infrastructure cost will have to be borne
by other bodies.Given that two of the major
buildings – and their accompanying costs –
are in Dublin, the city’s council should
contribute to them”.
Even if concerns expressed by Parker are
addressed in the new model, other issues
still arise. Insular as the drama community is
in Ireland, it is all too easy for policymakers
to focus on the artists, rather than the art.
Means should not be confused with ends.
All arts bodies funded by the Department
of the Arts have been asked to explain any
large spending in recent years, Many of them
will be pleased that the systems-focused
process. Like almost every other force in arts
administration, is very far from asking them
to justify the quality of their art.
The Arts Council
