Review | Wilde Stages
A Review of Brian Merriman’s
Wilde Stages in Dublin – A Decade of Gay Theatre
Between directing the Dublin Gay Theatre Festival since 2004, writing plays, a foray into film, and fund-raising for charity, you would have to wonder where Brian Merriman got the time, or energy, to write a book. Yet this he did when he penned Wilde Stages in Dublin – A Decade of Gay Theatre. The book’s style is unusual, in that it has different strands throughout. One strand is a timeline of the Dublin Gay Theatre Festival from 2004, interspersed with anecdotes about the various characters he came across; actors, agents, producers and directors. Some of these he admired and respected after the festival, and some showed their worst sides. Another strand throughout the book is a history of the gay movement in Ireland, its
trials and tribulations, and the prejudices that a theatre director, who tries to put on a gay theatre festival, had to face, including when trying to get funding. There is also the strand in which the festival, which Merriman had founded and nurtured, was being whisked out from under his feet, and it took legal action to get it under his protective wings once again, now in a slightly revised form. This book could very well have been expanded into three books – a timeline of the Dublin Gay Theatre Festival as it became the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival, a kiss-and-tell of the trials and tribulations which accompanied that becoming, and a history of the gay movement in Ireland, of which Merriman has seen both the best and the worst.
Perhaps the time has come for writing such books, as Merriman states towards the end of Stages:
My wish is that my own role will now diminish as others step up to invigorate this event with new ideas and voices, to bring it through its second decade.
Wilde Stages in Dublin – A Decade of Gay Theatre is now available from gaytheatre.ie – MKB EILE Magazine 29