I Walked Into the GPO With a Typewriter and a Revolver

ANU Productions commemorates the formation of Cumann na mBan 100 years ago. 

On April 2 1914 a group of women met in Wynn's Hotel on Dublin's Abbey Street to discuss the formation of a woman's organisation to lend support to the Irish Volunteers. Under the constitution of this women's league, Cumann na mBan, they were to “teach its members first aid, drill, signalling and rifle practice in order to aid the men of Ireland”.

100 years later in the same building, ANU Productions deliver a specially commissioned performance to commemorate the event: Cumann na mBan - Auxiliaries/Allies?

The doors of a function room push open to reveal a gathering of women in high societal gowns. "Play or Watch?" you could be asked, before requested to take a seat at the table. As for those of us left to stand, we quickly realise why. A man from the audience gestures to take a seat and is met with a resounding "No"! 100 years ago, we weren't invited either. 

With the clink of a teacup they plunge into discussions, asking if Irish society has achieved genuine equality for women. As they hash out positions on pacifism versus activism, Irish language and domesticity, the men are left silent and observant.

Louise Lowe's direction then jolts us out of the naturalist scene, with the performers giving to physicality(*), gesturing the raise of their skirts. Even in the advance of freedom, Woman can't escape the sexual liberties that have been made of her.

(*) Two gestures - a sideways slam of the body on the table and a raising of the hand across the forehead and mouth - were recurring motifs in ANU's 'Thirteen', which suggests that they're part of a mythology that isn't limited to the company's connection with the Dublin Lockout.    

A military-dressed member of the women's league, played with pride by Laura Murray, stands on the table and gives an account of entering the GPO during the Easter Rising with a typewriter and revolver, making her Winifred Carney - the only woman to be part of the seizure of the building. Later on, Murray describes clenching a white flag in her hands, meaning she has taken on Elizabeth O'Farrell, the go-between sent to negotiate Pearse's surrender on behalf of the rebels.(*)

(**) Like how 'Thirteen' revealed female figures such as Rosie Hackett and Dora Montefiore who aren't well documented in Irish history, I expect we'll learn about more extraordinary individuals from ANU's work in the coming years. I wonder if we'll see a return of Derbhle Crotty as the theatrical and radical Helena Moloney, who during the Rising fought as a sniper against English soldiers at Dublin Castle. 

Revealing startling images of a battlefield with bullets in the air and skulls on the ground, ANU's commemoration is a far cry from the maternal 'place in the home'. It leaves us to consider that the women of Cumann na mBan had exceeded their mission as auxiliary forces; they were allies in war with their fellow rebels, fighting on the front line.  

More Irish Theatre Highlights of 2013

Wayne Jordan's kinetic production of The Threepenny Opera brought movement that is rarely seen on the Gate stage.

I already made a list of the top 10 Irish theatre productions of 2013 but here are more highlights that deserve mention ...

Irish Theatre Top 10 of 2013

Lloyd Cooney tearing it up in No. 14 Henrietta Street during ANU Productions' marking of the 1913 Lockout centenary.

As per the year end ramble of making lists of the year's best in music, cinema and such, below I give what I think are the highlights of 2013 in Irish theatre.

Before I begin I'll disclaim that while my scope is very Dublin-centred I did travel and provide extensive coverage of both the Cork Midsummer Festival and Galway Arts Festival. My misgivings include failed trips to Limerick, to the Blue Raincoat productions in Sligo, the Beckett Happy Days Festival in Enniskillen, the City of Culture events in Derry, and to any of the theatres in Belfast. These aside, however, I'll argue that this still is a comprehensive list of the year's finest in Irish theatre.

This year I made the decision to drop out of college and begin writing to arts editors looking for a job (if any of you said editors are reading, expect more pesterings in your inbox).

This commitment has meant that I have reviewed 102 performances in 2013 whilst keeping up the day job. These were spread between the reviews here, for Irish Theatre Magazine, and some work that I do for the Arts Council. The most read reviews here on the blog were my reviews of King Lear and Living the Lockout, my counterpoint to Una Mullally's Irish Times article on the most creative people in Ireland, and my opinion piece reacting to the Limerick City of Culture programme. 

Choosing 10 out of 102 wasn't easy but here they are:

ANU Productions, 'Thirteen': Where Do We Stand Now?

Photo: Patrick Redmond

As I mentioned before, I am reviewing Thirteen in two parts. Part one is here.

Here are my thoughts on the remaining chapters (Soup, Save The Kiddies, Inquiry, Protest Part 2, Incitement, Bargaining, and Assembly) and on the event as a whole.

ANU Productions, 'Thirteen': Why Should We Fight?

Photo: Patrick Redmond

It's about time I wrote something about Thirteen - the thirteen-part theatrical epic by ANU Productions that is using the city as as a mise en scene to bring the Lockout of 100 years ago into focus.

I will be reviewing the event in two parts, with this post discussing the first eight chapters: Citizen X, Resilience, Porous, Suasion, Constituent(s), Backwash, Speakers Corner and Protest: Part 1.

Big Guns Called In for Festival Director's Last Fringe

Promotional art for HotForTheatre's upcoming new show Break

The highlights of the 2013 Dublin Fringe Festival (Sept 7-22) have been announced, which, of course, is the last festival overseen by artistic director Róise Goan.

Headlining international acts include glam singer/theatre artist Taylor Mac and an abridged version of his upcoming 24-hour project where he performs a pop classic from each decade in the twentieth century. Scottish-born Nic Green traces her national and personal lineage in the dance and music performance Fatherland.

The Gathering strand of the festival brings home-gig to Irish comedian Aisling Bea in a double bill with Dead Cat Bounce's James Walmsley, as well as a headliner to Maeve Higgins and her new show about her "break-up with Dublin" and the abandonment issues that arise from her move to London.

WillFredd's Sophie Motley and Sarah Jane Shiels are also at hand, collaborating with renowned musicians Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh and Nic Gareiss in a performance about the role of mice in "traditional music, science, and in our daily lives". Meanwhile, fantastic to see great faith placed in the Galway-based Blue Teapot Theatre Company, whose acclaimed production of Christian O'Reilly's Sanctuary seems to be growing into a national hit.

In Irish theatre, the spotlights are appropriately shone on the two biggest success stories born from Goan's direction of the festival over the past five years.

Louise Lowe was already making strides with her fantastic site-responsive work with ANU Productions, but World's End Lane - the first installment of the nearing complete Monto quadrilogy - in the 2010 festival was a game changer. The success meant that the company migrated to a bigger platform in the Dublin Theatre Festival with Laundry (2011) and The Boys of Foley Street (2012). They return to the Fringe with Thirteen, where the company turn their theatrical historicity back one hundred years to the events of the 1913 Lockout with "a series of thirteen interconnecting works combining performance, installation and digital technology allowing audiences to immerse themselves in the tumultuous events of 1913 as they unfold in present day Dublin"

The 2010 festival also marked the debut of playwright/performer Amy Conroy with superstar hit I ♥Alice ♥I, which, along with follow-up The Eternal Rising of the Sun (2011), has had enough fire to fuel constant touring both at home and abroad. Her company, HotForTheatre, has become an exemplary touring company in Ireland, seeming to hit every venue in the country. Conroy has also gone on to become a treasured and insightful literary voice, writing about courageous souls in modern Ireland. Truly exciting, then, is her return this September in greater company than before with Break - a performance interrogating the public education system and the priorities of the institution that precede those of the individuals.

The full details of this year's programme will be released August 14. However, below is a list of other productions we know going to Fringe because their Fundit campaigns say so ...

• Rise Productions, The Games People Play - The creative team behind the highly successful Fight Night are back, this time with a modern retelling of Tír ná nÓg where the mythical paradise relocates to Drumcondra. Gavin Kostick back on script, Bryan Burroughs back on direction, starring the cunning Aonghus Óg McAnally. 

• Louise Lewis and Simon Manahan, The Churching of Happy Cullen - Also marking the centenary of the Lockout, this physical theatre performance about a mother's rite of passage though a tumultuous period in Ireland's social history already received a promising work-in-progress showing at THE THEATRE MACHINE TURNS YOU ON VOL.3. Lewis always gives a striking performance.

• Denis Clohessy, Animus - Having lent majestic music scores to The Corn Exchange and Rough Magic, composer Denis Clohessy's new project is a "music-driven revenge tale" and is propped up by an exciting design team including Aedín Cosgrove and Jack Phelan, and stars the charming Lucy Camille Ross. 

• X & CO, KITSCHCOCK - Anthony Keigher's pop star persona, 'Xnthony', becomes obsessed with stardom in this exploration of the anxieties and insecurities in a "world that continues to blur the line between public and private identities". 

• John Rogers, Decision Problem [Good Time for Questions] - Rogers's piece of science fiction theatre "charts the origin, rapid rise and possible future of computers", shining light on humanity's place in an increasingly digital universe. 

• 50% Male Experimental Theatre, FIGURE IT OUT - Male may be in the title but this new performance is about the complexities of female identity, with use of dance, live music and film.