THE CELTIC CONNECTION • APRIL 1992
Page 3
THEATRE
Photo: David Cooper
HARDEE T. LINEHAM of Toronto and Patti Allan of Vancouver in The Vancouver Playouse production of Macbeth.
Irish Film Centre is Being Built
A new Irish Film Centre (IFC) will open at 6 Eustace Street, Dublin, in 1992. The original plan for a national centre was put together six years ago by the Irish Film Institute. Since then, organizations such as Film Base, Film Makers Ireland, and Dublin Film Festival, Federationof Irish Film Societies, Media Desk, and Espace Video European have helped realize the plan.
Facilities for research, production, and editing are now under construction. There will also be two cinemas, a bar and restaurant, a bookshop and video library. Film courses and seminars will run at the centre and the Irish Film Archive will be housed on site.
The IFC will be open to the general public, overseas visitors and the film community.
—Niall McCullough
$1 Million Theft at Dublin Library
Dr. David James, an expert in Islamic art, will be sentenced July 23 for the theft of artifacts from the Chester Beatty Library in Ballsbridge, Co. Dublin. He is the former curator of the Islamic section at the library.
It is estimated that Dr. James began stealing items in 1983 after he failed to become director of the library. The exact amount of missing artifacts cannot be determined because of lack of cataloguing over the years. Many of the items were sold in London.
In his defence, Dr. James said he stole because he needed the money. People who testified as to his good character were the Irish Film Censor, a professor of music at University College Dublin, and the Irish Ambassador to Egypt, who sent a written testimonial.
—Naill McCullough
MacBeth With Soldiers in Gulf War Uniforms
MACBETH
by William Shakespeare A Vancouver Playhouse Production
Directed by Larry Lillo
By RICK CAMPBELL
It may seem somewhat out of place reviewing a play by an English playwright in The Celtic Connection, but the play is Macbeth and the writer is William Shakespeare.
Scottish nationalists might take offence at this bloody portrayal of power-grabbing bloodlust were it not for the fact that Shakespeare's English history plays are filled with the same royal treachery.
The beauty of Macbeth lies in its concentration. It is the shortest of his plays and therefore we are all the more alarmed at the swiftness with which the bloody deed follows upon bloody deed. The supernatural element that accompanies Macbeth's descent into evil adds a disturbing quality to the play's action.
The plot you may remember. Three "weird sisters" predict that Macbeth shall be the first Thane of Cawdor, then King of Scotland. To accomplish the latter, the once respected soldier plots with his wife to murder the present king while he sleeps under their very roof.
As is the case with many such crimes, complications, ensue prodding the increasingly paranoid Macbeth to even fouler deeds, including the massacre of the unsupportive MacDuff's family and the assassination of his once-close friend, Banquo.
Larry Lillo's spare production focuses the audience s attention on the text, which contains some of the Bard's most beautiful (and bloody) language. Designer Pam Johnston's effective, raked flight of steps also contain many surprises: a burning fire for the cauldron scene and a trap door through which Banquo's ghost
Irish Replace Missing Horses
IRELAND — Thirty-nine Irish race horses left Shannon for Kuwait recently. This is the first of what is hoped to be many such shipments as the Kuwaitis try to re-establish their once flourishing racing industry.
Apparently, the country's stock of horses were either eaten, or taken by the Iraqis.
L.F.
disappears (and presumably all that blood pours somewhere). The moody lighting of Louise Guinard nicely increases our sense of growing evil. Phillip Clarkson s costumes cleverly blend present day camouflage with Tenth Century armour.
Much has been made of Hardee Lineham's performance in the press but otner noteworthy performances have been neglected. Patti Allan is a very powerful as well as tragic Lady Macbeth. Oliver Becker brings stature and grace to Banquo.
Both Duncan Fraser as Ross and John Moffat as MacDuff are rightly noble warriors. Tansin Kelsey and Wendy Noel make marvellous "weird sisters". Kelsey also brings dignity to the doomed Lady MacDuff. Barney
O'Sullivan in a number of roles ■ and Jo-Norman Shaw as Lennox also do fine work.
The bloodiness of this play is one for our own bloody times, and Lillo reminds us of this by having the soldiers wear modern Gulf War style battle togs beneath the armour. In the battle scenes, as the lights flash and blood spills, it is worth noting that though we do much of our killing now from a great height with the lights flashing on video game style screens, that human nature has changed little from the Tenth Century.
"To be thus is nothing; But to be safely thus!" would not seem inappropriate coming from the mouth of a Saddam Hussein or a George Bush. It is, after all, an election year.
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