PLASTIC PADDY: THE IRISH AMERICAN PROJECT | CROW STREET, THE IRISH THEATER PROJECT: INTRODUCTION
11:06 AM
I'VE COMPLAINED ABOUT the Guthrie's artistic director, Joe Dowling, in the past, and sometimes I feel a little guilty about the fact. I grew up with the Guthrie when it was headed by Alvin Epstein, Liviu Ciulei, and, particularly, Garland Wright, and I think I have sometimes knocked Dowling for not being those men. Some of my criticisms have been justified, and some, I expect, have just been from the Guthrie not being the theater I wish it was. But there is an advantage in having Dowling in charge of the Guthrie, and I don't know that I have given him enough credit for it: Dowling was the head of Dublin's Abbey Theatre for seven or eight years, and having him at the helm of the Guthrie means that every so often, the Guthrie is like The Abbey Midwest. Dowling is good at directing Irish plays -- often very good, in fact -- and has access to and his pick of actors from Ireland and Great Britain. You can usually count on there being one Irish play per season, and seeing The Plough and the Stars with Milo O'Shea, which was staged at The Guthrie in 2000 (I reviewed it), is an undeniable treat.
I say this as an introduction to a new project, which is exploring Irish (and, to the extent that it exists, Irish-American) theater. I do this for one particular reason. I feel that I have sort of lost my way as a playwright. I don't know precisely what it is; it's probably a few things. I have sort of gravitated away from my early writing, which borrowed from folk culture and fantastic literature and excited me, to semi-contemporary scripts told in a fairly realistic fashion, and the voice I have been writing with is one I no longer recognize as my own. I've also felt that theater can no longer be what it once was; I think we are at a transformative moment in American theater. But I don't know yet what it will transform into, and it is something I have been thinking about for quite a while. So I start projects, and they interest me for a while, and then I feel that I have hit a dead end.
But I'm not sure looking forward like this is the way to write. After all, playwrights are inheritors of long traditions of theater, and they're job isn't to invent something new so much as it is to find contemporary ways of using these traditions. And so I think it would do me well to look back on one specific tradition, that of Irish playwrighting, and see if it inspires me in any way. As I've mentioned, Minneapolis is a pretty good town for this, and not just because of the Guthrie -- I would say in the past decade I have seen three or more plays by Irish playwrights per year from various theater companies, and sometimes more. I will, in fact, be seeing three this week, two at the Guthrie (an Oscar Wilde play and a Brian Friel piece) and one at the Walker Art Center, a touring production of The Walworth Farce.
But there are a lot of Irish plays, and it won't be enough to just hope that somebody gets around to producing them soon or later. So I will be reading a lot, and that's mostly what I will be reading about. And, when I get a chance, I will be talking to people who make Irish theater, or have studied it, and I'll include that here as well.
As for the name? Well, Crow Street was the location of one of Ireland's first theaters, and I find the name evocative. There was also a theater on Smock Alley, and I was sorely tempted to use that, but I had to ask myself what I like more, crows or smocks. When it comes down to it, I guess I prefer crows, although, given my druthers, I think a crow wearing a smock might be especially amusing. And this is why Irish theater has suffered without having me on hand to make suggestions like that.
More Plastic Paddy
I say this as an introduction to a new project, which is exploring Irish (and, to the extent that it exists, Irish-American) theater. I do this for one particular reason. I feel that I have sort of lost my way as a playwright. I don't know precisely what it is; it's probably a few things. I have sort of gravitated away from my early writing, which borrowed from folk culture and fantastic literature and excited me, to semi-contemporary scripts told in a fairly realistic fashion, and the voice I have been writing with is one I no longer recognize as my own. I've also felt that theater can no longer be what it once was; I think we are at a transformative moment in American theater. But I don't know yet what it will transform into, and it is something I have been thinking about for quite a while. So I start projects, and they interest me for a while, and then I feel that I have hit a dead end.
But I'm not sure looking forward like this is the way to write. After all, playwrights are inheritors of long traditions of theater, and they're job isn't to invent something new so much as it is to find contemporary ways of using these traditions. And so I think it would do me well to look back on one specific tradition, that of Irish playwrighting, and see if it inspires me in any way. As I've mentioned, Minneapolis is a pretty good town for this, and not just because of the Guthrie -- I would say in the past decade I have seen three or more plays by Irish playwrights per year from various theater companies, and sometimes more. I will, in fact, be seeing three this week, two at the Guthrie (an Oscar Wilde play and a Brian Friel piece) and one at the Walker Art Center, a touring production of The Walworth Farce.
But there are a lot of Irish plays, and it won't be enough to just hope that somebody gets around to producing them soon or later. So I will be reading a lot, and that's mostly what I will be reading about. And, when I get a chance, I will be talking to people who make Irish theater, or have studied it, and I'll include that here as well.
As for the name? Well, Crow Street was the location of one of Ireland's first theaters, and I find the name evocative. There was also a theater on Smock Alley, and I was sorely tempted to use that, but I had to ask myself what I like more, crows or smocks. When it comes down to it, I guess I prefer crows, although, given my druthers, I think a crow wearing a smock might be especially amusing. And this is why Irish theater has suffered without having me on hand to make suggestions like that.
More Plastic Paddy
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