The Formal Gardens, Royal Hospital Kilmainham
Thursday, October 13
Andrew Hinds, Artistic DIrector of Classic Stage Ireland, joined us for our JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK TalkBack, giving us a window into this classic Irish play from the point of view of an Irish theatre practitioner. JUNO has bee produced 45 times in the 75 year history of the Abbey, so clearly it is an iconic Irish work.
The thematic portion of the discussion centered on the social and family disfunction produced by the short but very ugly Irish Civil War (JUNO was written and produced in 1924, in the war’s immediate aftermath). The play was radical in its time in that it presented tenement life on the stage of the national theatre, supplanting the heroic and mythic works by Yeats and Synge.
O’Casey believed that the period from 1916-1923 had failed to produce a successful independent state — that more energy had been spend ridding the country of its English dominated past than thinking about its future. Without clear aspirations for the country’s future, the men became lost, the women became caretakers of the men, and factions continued to fight bloody little battles of vengeance.
Talk-back was followed by a trip to the west end of Dublin and two stunning experiences.
First was the Irish Museum of Modern Art, which is housed at the former Royal Hospital Kilmainham. Like London’s Royal Hospital Chelsea, the RHK was built to house army pensioners, not patients. And like Christopher Wren’s Chelsea work, the RHK is a masterpiece. Often considered Dublin’s foremost work of seventeenth century architecture it makes for an unusual yet completely satisfying home for modern art. Here’s a link to photos of the RHK, which do not do it justice.
A lovely post-lunch stroll down a tree lined allee brought us to an entirely different type of experience, the Kilmainham Gaol. The prison which served as the film set for THE SINS OF THE FATHER and MICHAEL COLLINS was built in 1796 and closed in 1924 with the emergence of the Irish Free State. Eight years earlier it had been the site where the British executed the leaders of the Easter Uprising. It is grim, dark, terrifying and every inch is suffused with history, occupying the same place in Irish political history and myth as the Bastille does in French. As grim as it is/was, the mid-19th century gaolers had a problem on their hands — the Famine made the daily meals an attractive alternative to life in the streets. The prison was overrun by petty criminals who’d let themselves get caught and convicted in the hopes of sustenance. Here’s a link to a view of the Victorian Wing of the prison.
Thursday night took us to the James Joyce House (the setting for his short story THE DEAD and the location for John Huston’s film adaptation) for THE LULU HOUSE, a site specific multi-media event inspired by Frank Wedekind’s LULU plays and GW Pabst’s film PANDORA’S BOX, which starred Louise Brooks as Lulu.
