All the world’s a stage as Abbey Theatre celebrates 100 years

THE Abbey Theatre is beginning a celebration of 100 years of plays, actors and historic events.

But the 'Abbey 100' committee are acutely aware of the financial problems which have dogged the theatre over the last century.

The current building on Abbey Street needs to be upgraded while the theatre itself is still criticised as being out of touch with the public.

"The Abbey needs to re-invent itself and become more relevant to today's Ireland," said Eithne Healy, the chairwoman of the Abbey board of directors.

The Abbey 100 programme will reach more than one million people next year through 30 plays and hundreds of workshops, readings and public lectures in Ireland and across the world.

There will be ten new productions from playwrights like Tom Murphy and eight classic plays from the Abbey's repertoire, including JM Synge's Playboy of the Western World. When it was performed in the theatre in 1907, it aused riots for its depiction of a son who pretended to kill his father, and references to women's underwear.

This caused William Butler Yeats, who founded the Abbey in 1904 with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn, to despair but the Theatre survived the controversy.

In 1924, it became the first theatre in the world to receive state. The back premises of the old Abbey theatre was destroyed by fire in 1951 and the present day theatre was opened on the same site in 1966.

The current Government has committed itself to providing new facilities for the theatre either by moving it to a new location or purchasing additional property on Abbey Street.