IN IRELAND, THERE IS A SOVEREIGNTY ABOUT THE THEATRE, AN IMMENSE INVESTMENT IN THEIR OWN REPERTOIRE, AND A PROFOUND INTEREST IN AMERICAN PLAYS. DOUG HUGHES
Directing Glengarry Glen Ross PHOTO Matthew Thompson
repeatedly. When I work there, I feel as though I’m working in a world-class theatre in the middle of a city with an amazing, tortured history. TED | Are you able to talk about similarities and differences to the American theatre? DOUG | It may be a boring answer, but I think there are far more similarities than differences. There is a haste through the period of technical rehearsals that is particular to the Gate that was absolutely frightening but bracing. Michael Colgan urges everybody to get on with it. The tech process is— ETHAN | Not quite three days. TED | Musicals too? DOUG | I haven’t done a musical there. But it concentrates the mind, let me tell you. I’ve never worked faster on a stage. ETHAN | They close a show on a Saturday afternoon, final dress is Wednesday, and the first audience comes on Thursday. Bracing is a good word—it’s also a little old-school. The Gate has to sell tickets in order to survive. They don’t announce a season, because they don’t have subscribers. They announce a play or two and run those, and while those are going on, they prepare for the next one. It can be scary as an American to get a call in December for a show that’s starting rehearsals in June. Here, we look for 12 to 14 months of lead time to prepare and cast and design.
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SDC JOURNAL
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TED | You mentioned raising money through ticket sales. Do they have arts patrons like we do? DOUG | They don’t. There isn’t that huge corporate phenomenon. That seems to be drying up in the States as well. During the period Ethan and I have been working over there, Ireland has been extraordinarily depressed economically. Fiscal mortification set in after the excesses of the Celtic Tiger era. The country was, and still is, reeling from the imposition of Europe’s draconian austerity policy. But the citizens of Ireland have still found a way to keep theatre alive. People drive from Wexford— ETHAN | People come in from Galway. They’ll make a trip into Dublin for a weekend or a day of culture. That includes going to the Abbey and the Gate. The audience support is absolutely incredible. The Gate seats 371. They routinely fill it in with an eight- to ten-week run. When I was there with Streetcar, there was an unprecedented heat wave in Ireland. It didn’t rain for 45 days, and the temperature soared above 90 degrees. No one has air conditioning in Dublin, because they don’t usually need it. And still the theatre filled to capacity. In that heat and discomfort, a good portion of an American audience would probably have left at intermission. But the Irish audiences stayed and were undistracted by the temperature. You could have heard a pin drop. Their focus was incredible. I think some of them even felt the heat added to the New Orleans atmosphere.
DOUG | And the conversations immediately after the shows that happen in the theatre bar go until four in the morning. That kind of life around the play is something that I’ve really relished over there. In Ireland, there is a sovereignty about the theatre, an immense investment in their own repertoire, and a profound interest in American plays. The Gate is a beautiful theatre that was carved out of the Rotunda Hospital, which had a ballroom in it because that’s how money was raised for the operation of the place. Edwards and MacLiammóir designed a stage using a gorgeous Georgian ballroom. TED | Ethan, when you were invited to direct, did you seek out advice from Doug? ETHAN | I did. I called Doug and I asked if we could talk about the Gate. Doug took me out to lunch, and we had a really great conversation in which he helped me understand the context of how the Gate produces theatre. The Gate theatre staff might be 15 full-time employees. If you compare that to any major institutional theatre here, it’s a vast difference. That’s partly because the Gate doesn’t have a development office and their board of trustees is about six people. But the great gift that Doug gave me was a sense of confidence about working there.