[Fiach MacChongail outside the Abbey Theatre, Abbey Street, Dublin]
“Tonight we’ll perform The Risen People at Larkin Community College in Dublin City Centre to secondary school pupils and the local community. On Saturday we concluded our inaugural Theatre of Memory Symposium which saw the leading thinkers and doers in Ireland imagine how theatre and the arts can respond to the events of our past. However following the unprecedented publication by The Irish Times on Saturday 18 January of private evaluation reports about productions at the Abbey Theatre, there is another debate ongoing.
The cruel publication of these reports, without a clear context, and halfway through a private evaluation process has undermined the trust between the Abbey Theatre and the artists we invite to work with us.
The background to this event is as follows. An international evaluation panel was established as a pilot for the Abbey Theatre because I was concerned that people who had a possible conflict-of-interest with regard to the Abbey Theatre were assessing us. Also I felt as a national theatre we should be benchmarked against other theatres.
When The Irish Times submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Arts Council in mid-November I advised the Arts Council that there was a need to protect the artists and individual directors, actors, designers and writers referenced in these reports. When the Arts Council advised me they were making these documents available to The Irish Times, I asked that all the names of all the actors, writers, directors and designers be redacted.
When I was alerted to the fact that The Irish Times were planning to report on this matter, I offered to meet the journalist in question to discuss the wider context. I felt strongly that The Irish Times should understand and acknowledge the bigger picture with regards to the process of evaluation between the Arts Council and the Abbey Theatre. The journalist didn’t agree to meet with me but it was suggested to me that I could write a piece in response to his article. I declined the offer because I disagreed with the publishing of this article. I am however concerned about the ramifications of this event.
Theatre is built on trust and collaboration. I believe artists should be able to create theatre and art in supportive and respectful conditions. The making public of private evaluation reports poses questions about how publicly funded arts organisations are evaluated in order to receive funding. I believe artistic sensitivities should be treated in the same manner as commercially sensitive information. Otherwise how can theatre be evaluated? How can artists at the Abbey Theatre and elsewhere go about their creative work with a degree of trust and the respect they deserve? Does this risk setting a precedent for the publication of every Arts Council evaluation report?
This is an extremely tough environment to make theatre in. The whole arts sector is working with diminished resources. It means I have to make tough decisions so that the investment in our art can be maximized to the best of our ability and that value for money for the Irish tax-payer can be achieved. I have no issue with evaluation. Every publicly funded organisation is evaluated and rightly so.
Saturday was a sad day for the arts in Ireland, a day when opinion was presented as fact. I’d like thank all the supporters of the Abbey Theatre, the artists we rely on, the audiences that we make our work for every night. I am proud of every play that we have staged at the Abbey Theatre. I am proud of every artist who chooses to collaborate with us to achieve theatre on a bigger, more ambitious scale than any other Irish theatre. I am proud of our dedicated staff. I am proud of our support of emerging writers, actors, designers, directors. I am proud that we are a mission led theatre – that our theatre is socially and civically conscious and that we hold up a mirror to Irish life as our founders intended.
The Abbey Theatre will not be left wanting when it comes to interrogating and reflecting Irish society at a time when we need our artists to help us make sense of our times. May this debate continue but with respect for the artist at the heart of it.”
Fiach MacChonghail.
Fiach MacConghail’s response to The Irish Times article (AbbeyTheatre)
Earlier: ‘World Class Drama’ Drama
(Sam Boal./Photocall Ireland)
