From The Irish Times, 11 October 1974: 13. Copyright © The Irish Times. Reprinted by permission.
A feeling that this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival had been successful for the organizers but not for the writer Miss Edna O’Brien prevailed yesterday morning in the Constitution Room of the Shelbourne Hotel filled for the final press conference of the festival. However, half an hour later, as Miss O’Brien excused herself to take her son to the airport one felt that she would survive the savaging in the reviews of her play at the Abbey.
Miss O’Brien’s play, The Gathering, was the featured event at yesterday’s press conference together with a general review of the two weeks of the festival. She was a little late in arriving and when she did was flanked, almost protectively, by the manager of the Abbey, Mr. John Slemon, and the press officer, Mr. Ronan Wilmot.
Mr. Brendan Smith, director of the festival, announced that his final projection for festival occupancy lay somewhere between 84 percent and 86 percent which would be a record. There would be an overall deficit of something less than £3,000, which was within the limits that had been estimated.
Mr. Smith then turned to the journalists and invited questions, but none was asked. Mr. Slemon took the initiative and said that the Abbey was very pleased with the play. The theater was booked out until the end of the week, and they were hopeful that another play by Miss O’Brien would be presented by the company.
Had Miss O’Brien another play ready for the Abbey?
“Not today,” she replied from her seat, between Messrs. Wilmot and Slemon, “but perhaps next year.”
“When I wake up today and find that I’ve displeased the critics, I see the knife and I feel that there must be something interesting, some something that caused this. Chekhov, the writer I admire most, perhaps after Shakespeare, had a bad press, and O’Casey got a rough reception from his audience. Mine is an angry play which tries to get to the gut; I don’t want cozy work. I ask questions about the family, about skeletons, about love. These are not easy questions and are bound to hurt some people.”
Miss O’Brien added that she would like to see the reaction to The Gathering as time passed. The reaction to the play would not, she felt, make her discontinue writing plays in favor of writing more novels. When an idea was to be expressed it could sometimes be done in a novel and sometimes in a play. What she had to say in The Gathering involved interaction between characters and could best be achieved on the stage.
Mr. Wilmot, who leaves the Abbey this week to establish his own management organization, intervened saying that in all his experience at the theater he had never seen an audience with so many knives in their pockets.
“There was a species interest,” Miss O’Brien interjected. “If I had been a fella and a bit older the play itself would probably have attracted more interest.”
She referred to Mr. Wilmot’s remarks and said that it was amazing how great a part of a play the audience was. On the night of the preview there had been a much more relaxed audience and there had been much more energy in the theater. “I am a firm believer in being steadfast,” she said, “and when nobody will give you an inch, you must take an inch.”
She was pleased with her cast, she concluded, and would buy each of them a stiff drink.
Mr. Slemon repeated that the bookings were good and that the play would run as planned until November 15.
Miss O’Brien then excused herself and, again flanked by her Abbey escorts, left the press conference.
Miss Anne Makower, whose presentation of L’Orfeo opened to a capacity attendance in Christ Church, was then introduced. Bookings were good for the remainder of the week.
Mr. Smith intervened to comment on remarks in one review of L’Orfeo that £5,000 had been made available for another production while a meagre £300 had been provided for the opera. “Much of the £5,000 goes in the high rents of the theaters, the wages of staff and other overheads in the commercial theaters,” he said, “and these costs simply do not arise in regards to Christ Church.”
Questioned about difficulty in getting information on fringe events, Mr. Smith said that, if anything, the fringe theaters were developing a greater sense of independence from the festival. He expressed particular appreciation for the work in these centers where so much could be done, especially in regards to late-night shows, that could not be economically provided within the framework of the festival in the larger theaters.
Referring to the demise of the Irish-language productions, which had been a feature of earlier festivals, Mr. Smith was critical of those who did not support these shows, “especially civil servants and others who are getting extra money in their pockets from their command of Irish.”
The director was questioned at length about the relationship between the Abbey and the festival, but refused to be drawn into an open controversy, “It does not add to the joys of a director,” he conceded, “when, after the program is printed, a show at the Peacock is withdrawn, but the Abbey have their own troubles.” He added that when he first heard of the Molière adaptation, The Happy Go Likeable Man, his understanding was that it would open during the festival rather than three weeks before it.
“The Abbey have a view,” he said, “that in producing Ulysses in Nighttown they were bringing back a show which would be of interest to foreigners visiting the festival.” He agreed that in the earlier days there had been a lack of cooperation between the Abbey and the festival but, especially in the past five years, there had been close contact with Mícheál Ó hAodha, on the council, and Tomás Mac Anna, on the selection committee, which had contributed much.
After the repeated criticism of the Abbey, mostly from the journalists, had worn itself out and Mr. Smith had repeatedly refused to be drawn, the press conference concluded with the director announcing that next year’s festival will run from September 29 until October 11.