September 05, 2004
New Quay
The Abbey Theatre is in trouble. This was supposed to be it’s big (centenary) year – instead, they plan to fire one third of their staff to save money.
I don’t know the ins and outs of the Abbey’s malaise, but it did seem strange that they chose to do Synge’s “Playboy of the Western World” when Druid were also committed to the Synge cycle, so that a few weeks after Druids play finished, the Abbey version came along (you wait a decade for a ‘definitive’ version of Playboy to come to Galway, and then two come along at once).
The Abbey was conceived (as the Irish National Theatre) by Lady Gregory and W B Yeats while they holidayed in the Galway village of New Quay a century ago.
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