The Stage

Abbey advisory council votes to replace itself

Published Tuesday 23 August 2005 at 10:25 by Anthony Garvey

The advisory council of the Abbey, Ireland’s troubled national theatre, voted itself out of existence at the weekend (Sat), clearing the way for a new streamlined management structure that, it is hoped, will provide the expertise to resolve the current crisis and guarantee future independence.

The vote, taken after an emotional three-hour meeting, brought down the final curtain on the National Theatre Society of Ireland, a shareholding body that has run the Abbey for more than a century. Some members complained they had no choice but to accept abolition as the Arts Council had warned it would withhold Abbey funding unless new structures were put in place.

Both arts minister John O’Donoghue and the arts council had insisted reform of the Abbey’s cumbersome governance system was essential following a series of crises that culminated in the recent discovery of a black hole in the theatre’s accounts, with losses last year of 1.85m euro, double what had been expected. Welcoming the weekend vote, the minister said “it shows in the most tangible way the selfless commitment of the advisory council members to the welfare of the Abbey and of Irish theatre”.

Under the current system, the nine-member Abbey board is made up of two ministerial nominees, four nominees of the shareholding body, one staff representative, one actor and one playwright. But in the new arrangement - to be implemented over the next few months - the minister will nominate the chairperson and two members of the Abbey board. The other six members will be appointed by a selection committee made up of the Abbey chair, the chair of the Arts Council and an “independent person of standing in the arts sector, nominated by the Arts Minister”.

Critics claim this proposal gives the minister too great a say in the national theatre. Playwright Ulick O’Connor, a member of the Abbey advisory council, who voted against its abolition, described the proposal as amounting to “a planned take-over by the state and its agencies”. He was equally critical of the plan to move the Abbey from its traditional home to a new site in the Dublin docklands.

“Once you get civil servants and entrepreneurs, the builders, involved, it’s like people with bows and arrows fighting the tanks. The bureaucrat is so hard to defeat because he doesn’t come out in the open. As for the entrepreneur, he wouldn’t be an entrepreneur if he wasn’t a cute hawk,” he said.

Another advisory council member, playwright Jimmy Murphy, voiced similar concerns. “I’m worried that the minister is being given too great a say,” he admitted. “I have a problem with that.” A former artistic director of the Abbey, Tomas MacAnna, said that to have a theatre without a playwright on the board would be “a theatre of the absurd”. Reflecting that view, the advisory council, before voting for its own abolition, sought an assurance from the minister that a prominent playwright or actor would be among the new board nominees.

Chairperson of the outgoing Abbey board Eithne Healy acknowledged “there are fears we will stuff the new board with accountants”. However, he insisted: “That won’t happen.”