Pouring Hall and Soul into love letters

ARTSCAPE:   IT'S A PLAY that doesn't require the actors to ambulate, memorise lines or even act in the traditional sense. This makes AR Gurney's Love Letters ideal for a couple of big names who want to breeze in to town and - with little rehearsal - pack in the audiences.

This makes the Pulitzer-nominated play perfect for 65-year-old David Soul - aka Hutch - and his new sidekick, 52-year-old Jerry Hall, who is far prettier than Starsky, you have to admit.

Getting the two baby-boomers together for an appearance at the Tivoli Theatre (April 22nd to May 3rd) is the brainchild of theatre director Michael Scott. Soul and Hall will sit throughout the performance reading letters aloud to one another, in roles once played by Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, by Lynn Redgrave and John Clark, and even Elizabeth Taylor and James Earl Jones at a benefit performance last December that raised $1 million (€635,000) for Taylor's Aids foundation. Tickets for the Tivoli are €39.50; €30 (matinee).

Cork theatre crisis

Having just launched an oral memoir of Cork theatre stalwart Dan Donovan, by Vera Ryan, the Everyman Palace Theatre is continuing its moves into publishing by commissioning Declan Hassett to write a history of Cork comedy, writes Brian O'Connell. The move towards book publishing has drawn criticism from several Cork writers, who say they have found opportunities for new writing in Cork limited.

There are currently no plans for any new theatre commissions for the upcoming season at the Everyman. Established writer Johnny Hanrahan has been commissioned to adapt John McGahern's Amongst Women, but this is not expected to get a staging until late this year or early 2009. Similarly, the Cork Opera House says it has "no new plays commissioned at this point, but would hope to in the future".

Ciarán Fitzpatrick, whose play Apocalypse, Then was staged by the Everyman Palace in 2007, expressed frustration at the lack of opportunities afforded by Cork's main theatres. "I understand the reservations, in terms of attracting audience or allocating the funding for commissioning new writing, and I get the impression that the Everyman would like to be a supporter of new writing. But you actually have to take some sort of action to make things like that happen," Fitzpatrick said. "In terms of my experience, the commitment to new writing is all a bit throwaway, and there is a real lack of willingness to take a risk with new work."

Fitzpatrick, currently living in London and participating in Rough Magic's Seeds Programme, is hoping to have a play staged some time in 2009. "In Cork there is a gap there when you are young and don't have great experience, but have lots of ideas. It is really hard to get theatre put on, especially theatre with any money behind it."

Lynda Radley, whose play The Art of Swimming played to critical acclaim at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh during last year's Fringe festival, left Cork for Glasgow in October 2005, and has found access to venues much easier in Scotland. She too is critical of the Everyman's move into publishing. "It just doesn't make any sense. There are publishing houses in existence that already have a remit to publish," Radley says. "When I hear that money that could be used to commission new writing is not going to playwrights, I find that really difficult to understand. Okay, so there is a commission to adapt John McGahern's Amongst Women, but his work has been adapted already. There is nothing really new there." Radley points to the fact that many of her contemporaries, such as Raymond Scannell, Tom Creed, Thomas Conway and Oonagh Kearney, are all working outside Cork. "I think one of the reasons why Cork can't support its writers is because there are very few companies or theatres willing to commission. In order for new writing to flourish it can't be a sporadic endeavour."

Everyman Palace artistic director Pat Talbot said the decision to commission two publications was in keeping with the building's remit and that the issue of new writing was down to economics. "I feel those two books reflect the origins of the Everyman Palace Theatre itself. They are chronicling an era which has faded away, and the theatre is uniquely positioned to commission works like that." The challenge, he said, is one of resources and finances. "I'd like very much to be commissioning far more frequently than we do at the moment, but we have to find resources for that within existing budgets, which is a challenge."

Secret life of studios

On April 19th and 20th, 15 visual arts studio organisations in Dublin will open their doors and invite the public in to visit artists' workplaces. Visit 2008 will give the public an insight into the practical day-to-day work of more than 150 artists, across a wide range of media: print-making, painting, drawing, sculpture, glass-making, ceramics, video, film, photography, installation and conceptual art. Many people are unaware of the number of artists' studios dotted and clustered in unusual settings throughout the city: faded Georgian buildings, renovated stables, urban warehouses, an old mill, a hidden gem above a car salesroom, dormant council flats, an old fire station and a state-of-the-art studio complex. To get a Visit 2008 studio map and brochure, see www.visitstudios.com. All events are free of charge.

There's nothing like a girl in a tutu to bring out the photographers, and with three of Ireland's ballet organisations congregating on Wednesday, the photographers had plenty to focus on, writes Christie Seaver.

Newshounds, however, had less to report as Ballet Ireland, Cork City Ballet and Irish National Youth Ballet (INYB) announced a benign plan to share costumes, sets and - at times - dancers, agreeing to consult each other when lining up their upcoming seasons. The arrangement follows a study commissioned by the Arts Council, which recommended the ballet sector develop a collective voice, give more attention to strategic issues and collect more information about their audiences.

That report stopped short of addressing what leaders in the ballet community agree needs to happen: creating a permanent school and full-time professional company.

Arts Council chairwoman Olive Braiden complimented the three groups on working together to advance the art form, but cautioned against expecting Arts Council funding for anything more enduring, since the council knows its budget only one year at a time. "We can support ballet organisations emotionally and in their vision, even if we can't necessarily guarantee what will happen financially in the future," Braiden said.

However small this step may appear, INYB director Katherine Lewis said the collective spirit now shown by the three groups signals a positive turn for beleaguered ballet in Ireland. "If we can put this press conference together in an instant, who knows what else we can do,"­ Lewis said.

The Chester Beatty Library is about to send a major exhibition of calligraphy and Mughal paintings on an 18-month tour of the US. The exhibition will open at the Smithsonian Institution's Arthur M Sackler Gallery in Washington DC in early May and will travel from there to Detroit, Kansas City and Honolulu, finishing in Denver (where Chester Beatty started his mining career), and returning to

Ireland in September 2009. The inaugural exhibition at the Sackler has already been mentioned by the New York Times as a "choice show".

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times