The best of both worlds

HAVING served as director of Project Arts Centre for ten years, Willie White took the reins of the Dublin Theatre Festival in late 2011. He didn’t have to travel very far. The festival offices are located just a few yards from the Project in Temple Bar. But conceptually, the distance between the two jobs is more of a jump.

The Project Arts Centre is a spiritual home for contemporary arts practice in Ireland. During White’s tenure, experimental theatre in Ireland finally came of age, with a raft of new companies and theatre-makers coming through, many of them benefiting from development structures that White had helped put in place.

By contrast, while the Dublin Theatre Festival has become an ever more welcoming arena for diverse theatre practices, the festival itself retains a strong continuity with the traditional modes of literary theatre. ne of the most appealing aspects of the Theatre Festival in recent years has been the way in which both the traditional and contemporary strands of theatre have sat side by side. White says that, far from being a straightforward advocate for contemporary practices, he is drawn to this mix.

“One of the things that appealed to me about the Dublin Theatre Festival was that it would be an opportunity to programme contemporary theatre,” he says. “But I was also drawn to the possibility of programming a greater range of theatre, including work that wouldn’t have been appropriate at the Project. So I’ve been avidly pursuing all the major companies in the world, the Royal Shakespeare Company and all the usual suspects, and that’s one of the joys in programming a festival like this.”

The festival has to balance various duties and objectives, says White. The most important is to entertain its audience, but it must also provide a platform for the best Irish theatre-makers, and, he insists, it should also provide an overview of theatre as an art form.

“It’s important, both for artists and for audiences, not just to see excellent Irish work but to get a snapshot of theatre practice throughout the world,” says White. “Last year we brought over The Wooster Group from New York, and they were 30 years overdue. This is a company who have influenced generations of theatre-practitioners. You could read about them or watch a video but there’s no substitute for actually experiencing a company of that calibre live. Some people found it a revelation. Other people found it more challenging. But it’s important, I think, to give audiences a sense of the possibilities of theatre.

“Of course, we know a certain kind of theatre best in Ireland and we’re very, very good at that, but theatre is practised differently as an art form in other parts of the world. And that’s not to say that one is better than the other, or that one is backwards and the other is forwards. Actually, it’s to say, isn’t it wonderful that theatre has so many different facets?”

These facets are very much on show at this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival, which kicks off next week. Highlights include The Gate Theatre’s new production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, the Abbey’s premiere of Frank McGuinness’s new play, The Hanging Gardens, and a new production of Waiting for Godot on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of its premiere in Paris. There are also a number of acclaimed international productions including Neutral Hero by Richard Maxwell, David Greig’s dark new work, The Events, and the RSC’s new production of The Rape of Lucrece starring Ireland’s own Camille O’Sullivan. In addition, there are shows from India and Japan, the visit of exhilarating circus troupe Circa, and the traditional children’s theatre strand to look forward to.

The festival’s guiding motif this year is a celebration of the place of Irish artists in the world.

“Historically, Irish artists have been forced to work outside their own country,” says White. “Nowadays it’s less so, but our artists still go abroad in search of opportunities. And there is great interest in the work of Irish artists. Their reputation precedes them. Look at the Three Fringe Awards in the Edinburgh festival recently, or Druid’s touring the world, and the continued success of Pan Pan. And then you have someone like our keynote speaker Fiona Shaw who is a leading international theatre artist.”

White has one more year to run on his contract. His programmes to date have certainly been meaty affairs, full of quality and variety, featuring some of the standout performers and companies in Irish and international theatre. Notably, he has had to work under a reduced budget, following the loss of the festival’s title sponsor in 2011, yet it has lost none of its ambition.

“Of course the loss of a title sponsor impacted,” says White. “But we have a stable relationship with the Arts Council who, with public money, supports the festival as a strategic player in the arts. It is their continued support that gives us a foundation to plan with and then go on and raise further support elsewhere. The key thing is we have a responsibility to continue delivering on that investment of public money and to stage — as Bill and Ted might say — the ‘most excellent’ festival we can.”

* The Dublin Theatre Festival runs from Sep 26 – Oct 13 www.dublintheatrefestival.com