Tough start for Everyman's new artistic director as she can't set foot in the theatre
Sophie Motley has just begun her role as artistic director of the Everyman theatre in Cork.
When Sophie Motley was last in the Everyman Palace Theatre in Cork, in the summer of 2019, little did she know that a year-and-a-half later she would be artistic director of the venue — and unable to set foot inside the building.
“The last time I was in the Everyman building was midsummer 2019, and on Monday I am going to be running that building, yet I’ve not been in there. Thankfully, there is a brilliant 360° virtual tour so I have been standing on the stage looking out on the auditorium and thinking, what will it look like if every four seats, you’ve got a person, will that still feel like a full building and how will people feel safe?”
It is a poignant image, tinged with the frustration and disappointment felt by all the artistic community since Covid struck last year but also reflecting the role that technology and streaming has been playing in the theatrical space.
Motley is still hunkered down at her home in Shropshire in England, near the Welsh border, where she has been artistic director of the award-winning rural theatre company Pentabus for the last four years. She will be carrying out her Everyman role remotely for the time being.
“Essentially, as soon as the numbers come down and the borders are a little more open, I will get over to Cork,” she says.
Motley grew up in England but has spent plenty of time in Ireland, holidaying with cousins in Kilkenny during the summer and later studying at Trinity College, Dublin. She worked with the Abbey, various theatre companies including Rough Magic and set up her own company, WillFredd Theatre, before heading back to England to work with Pentabus.
“Working with Pentabus was an opportunity to go away and learn how to be an artistic director. There are not many opportunities to do that in Ireland as all the small companies are run by the people who set them up. My plan was to learn how to do it and come back. I am very lucky that my dream has been realised.”
Motley is a great admirer of the work of the Everyman’s outgoing artistic director, Julie Kelleher.
“Julie and the Everyman were a formative part of my early career, with WillFredd theatre. We co-produced three shows at the Everyman, so I’ve been there as a visiting freelance artist. Julie did such a fantastic job at the Everyman, so those are huge shoes to fill. And I’m not from Cork, which is a really tricky one as well,” she laughs.
“But I do know how Irish theatre works and I know a lot of the artists already. In that sense, it will be fantastic, stepping back into a community that I know and love but seeing it from a completely different side.” Motley is relishing the opportunities that working in a theatre such as the Everyman offers.
“The key for me is balancing the local, national and international….because the Everyman is not just the most important theatre in Cork, it is one of the most important theatres in the country, and it can have that international reputation.
" But also, alongside that, I have spent the last four years making teeny-tiny plays in rural communities, in parish halls, for people who have never experienced theatre before."
Motley says she is aware that there are a lot of people who think theatre is not for them, and she hopes to convert some of them during her time at the Everyman.
Of course, the shadow hanging over all of this is the pandemic, which has seen artists around the country scramble to find new ways of bringing their work to audiences.
“We will be making digital work until it is safe not to,” says Motley. “A decision was made to close the building at the beginning of January with this new lockdown and that feels like it was the right thing to do. I am really interested in how to challenge the boundaries of what digital work is. What happens if you put a digital artist with a live artist, if you pair an actor who has never done anything on screen with a filmmaker?”
Motley is bursting with ideas for when live performance does return, but is conscious of the utterly changed landscape to which performers and audiences will be returning.
“I have a huge wish-list. But I imagine we will be socially distanced for quite a long time,” she sighs. “The key thing to remember is, if you have not been to the theatre for over a year, what do you want to go and see? First, you need to feel that the building is safe and your safety is being thought about but at the same time, what is going to bring you back? I am reading plays, thinking ‘if I hadn’t seen a play in two years, would this be what I would want to see?’. I think there needs to be some joy in there.”
