In 2016 DruidShakespeare was the first production to take the major awards of Best Production, Best Actress, Best Actor and Best Director. Photo: Matthew Thompson
Back in the mid-1990s, it seemed Irish productions were rarely off the road. The Gate’s Beckett Festival was praised at the Lincoln Centre in New York. The Abbey production of The Well of the Saints took the Critics’ Prize in Edinburgh. At the Royal Court in London, Druid’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane was getting calls for a West End transfer.
Speaking at the launch of the new Irish Times Theatre Awards in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in 1997, the newspaper’s editor Conor Brady pointed out the contradiction of Irish theatre receiving so much international hype without having any prizes at home. “Awards are not the only end of theatre, but they are the most tangible expression of professional and public respect,” he said.
Three judges were sent down the length of the country and returned with a decisive result for the first ceremony: giving Best Production and Best Director to the Abbey’s Tarry Flynn. That this attractive adaptation of Patrick Kavanagh’s novel, shorn of its puritanical isolationism, won over Druid’s gritty Leenane Trilogy, proved more conspicuous when The Beauty Queen of Leenane won four Tony Awards five months later. Interestingly, the Abbey hasn’t won Best Production since.
The first Irish Times Theatre Awards were at least consistent. The 1999 nominations lost its marbles when it gave Best Production to Passion Machine’s excellent Dublin Trilogy without nominating it in any other category. This has happened only once again - when Loose Canon won for Phaedra’s Love in 2009. While one production doesn’t have to sweep the awards every year, it certainly looks more definitive than handing out a trophy to everyone.
The most expected permutation would be that the Best Production winner also received a nomination for Best Director. This has happened in 14 of the 21 ceremonies but only six productions took home both, including the Gate’s indifferently reviewed The Homecoming in 2002. Also interesting - the Gate hasn’t won Best Production since.
Judges have liked to play games in the past. In 2001 three Abbey productions - including the controversial Barbaric Comedies - were nominated in the Best Production category to corner a modest-scale play for Tinderbox called Convictions, tipping the odds against an underdog that, of course, ultimately won. The best upsets are ones you don’t see coming.
If we’re keeping count, Rough Magic has taken home more Best Production awards than anyone. It’s a nice reminder of the company’s brilliant output in the 2000s, balancing wordy dramas like Copenhagen and Don Carlos with giddy works such as Improbable Frequency and The Taming of the Shrew. Only the Lyric Theatre and Druid are in touching distance of beating the record, with two-apiece.
The breakout winner of the 2000s was really Selina Cartmell, whose electrifying production of Titus Andronicus stormed the awards in 2006. Cartmell’s three Best Director wins have since tied her for the most awards with Garry Hynes.
In the early 2010s the awards were partly shaped by Michael Colgan’s decision to pull the Gate Theatre from the race. The artistic director was unimpressed that a production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons didn’t secure any nominations. He eventually brought the Gate back into the running, and the theatre did well in 2014 for its stirring production of A Streetcar Named Desire.
It’s been welcoming to see the judges introduce some diversity into the Best Production category in the past decade. Pan Pan’s The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane, an undeniably postdramatic riff on Hamlet, won in 2011, as did another leftfield play, Dead Centre’s Lippy, in 2014. After years of taking Michael Keegan-Dolan’s dance plays out of the competitive categories and giving them the “Judges’ Special Award,” Swan Lake/Loch na hEala won gold in 2017.
That same imagination could really be extended to the Best New Play category, which rarely includes work of more experimental nature. Sonya Kelly’s terrific Furniture is omitted this year, likely for its episodic structure. It’s hard to imagine avant-garde playwrights like Veronica Dyas and Dick Walsh getting a foot in.
But most of the grumbling right now is over the Best Movement Direction category. Introduced in 2017 to recognise the body in performance, it has yet to nominate a single dance work. Similarly confusing is the Best Ensemble category, presumably designed for productions where singling out a single performance is impossible, but this year includes The Lost O’Casey - whose Sarah Morris is up for Best Actress.
Those criticisms aside, the Irish Times Theatre Awards do show signs of growth. In 2016 a unanimous victory was given to DruidShakespeare, the only production to ever take the major awards of Best Production, Best Actress, Best Actor and Best Director. It also won Best Costume for Doreen McKenna and Francis O’Connor’s magnificent garments. That’s the kind of clear result made by a serious awards ceremony.
The success of the Lyric’s Red last year further narrowed the gap between Best Production and Best Director, while also winning for Patrick O’Kane’s superb performance and Ciaran Bagnall’s striking design. That suggests that the judges are getting more resolute, making the Irish Times Theatre Awards more satisfying to watch. Someone should really come in first place.
The 22nd Irish Times Theatre Awards take place at the National Concert Hall, Dublin on March 31st.
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