Abbey Theatre opens its doors

This moment will never be repeated

Abbey Theatre opens its doors

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Éamon de Valera on the Abbey Stage

This moment will never be repeated

Éamon de Valera on the Abbey Stage

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Three sisters in a rare on stage moment

This moment will never be repeated

Three sisters in a rare on stage moment

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A 1907 poster proudly promotes Irish Plays

This moment will never be repeated

A 1907 poster proudly promotes Irish Plays

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Abbey Theatre handkerchief sold on the 1913 American tour

This moment will never be repeated

Abbey Theatre handkerchief sold on the 1913 American tour

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Purgatory, for the first time

This moment will never be repeated

Purgatory, for the first time

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After the Abbey fire

After the Abbey fire

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The Abbey Theatre Fire

This moment will never be repeated

The Abbey Theatre Fire

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Abbey Theatre Acting Company

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Abbey Theatre Acting Company

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Peadar Lamb in The Country Boy

This moment will never be repeated

Peadar Lamb in The Country Boy

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Kathleen Watkins plays the harp in the Abbey Christmas Panto

This moment will never be repeated

Kathleen Watkins plays the harp in the Abbey Christmas Panto

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Institutions and the church centre stage in the 1960s

This moment will never be repeated

Institutions and the church centre stage in the 1960s

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The Men from Clare

This moment will never be repeated

The Men from Clare

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The Abbey Theatre & the 1916 Rising

This moment will never be repeated

The Abbey Theatre & the 1916 Rising

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Recall the years premeire

This moment will never be repeated

Recall the years premeire

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The signatures of the stars

This moment will never be repeated

The signatures of the stars

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Cyril Cusack and Hugh Hunt

This moment will never be repeated

Cyril Cusack and Hugh Hunt

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Niall Toibin in Borstal Boy

This moment will never be repeated

Niall Toibin in Borstal Boy

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Madame Knebel, the Russian director

Madame Knebel, the Russian director

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Peter O’Toole, Eamon Kelly and Donal Mc Cann in Waiting for Godot

This moment will never be repeated

Peter O’Toole, Eamon Kelly and Donal Mc Cann in Waiting for Godot

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The Dubliners were on the Peacock stage

This moment will never be repeated

The Dubliners were on the Peacock stage

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Abbey Staff take to the stage

This moment will never be repeated

Abbey Staff take to the stage

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Abbey staff on the roof

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Abbey staff on the roof

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Family Connections

This moment will never be repeated

Family Connections

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No Escape

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No Escape

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From Russia with Love

This moment will never be repeated

From Russia with Love

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Abbey Theatre opens its doors

On 27 December 1904 the Abbey Theatre first opened its doors to the public. A triple bill was performed on the night starting with two new plays On Baile’s Strand by W.B. Yeats and Spreading the News by Lady Gregory. These were followed by Kathleen Ni Houlihan by Yeats.  The first words on stage were spoken by Frank Fay as Cuchullain dressed in costumes by the Abbey benefactor Miss Annie Horniman. Her largess had allowed for the purchase of the old Savings Bank on Marlborough Street and its conversion along with the old Mechanic’s Theatre, thus creating the Abbey Theatre.

Sara Allgood acted in all three production performed. Note the misspelling of her name!

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Éamon de Valera on the Abbey Stage

Éamon de Valera starred as Dr. Kelly in A Christmas Hamper. He was a member of Mr & Mrs. McHardy-Flint’s Dramatic Company. At the time he was a Maths teacher in Blackrock. He often boasted about appearing on the Abbey stage. Now here is the proof.

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Three sisters in a rare on stage moment

This is a rare picture of the three Allgood sisters on stage together.

Annie Allgood (left), the youngest of the sisters acted in just three plays at the Abbey Theatre. Her elder sisters Máire O’Neill (Molly Allgood, right), Sara Allgood (centre) were the major stars of the day.

These two fascinating women created many of the iconic roles of Irish theatre. Máire O’Neill was the fiancé of J.M. Synge. He wrote the role of Pegeen Mike in The Playboy of the Western World especially for her. Sara Allgood created the role of Juno Boyle in Juno and the Paycock, Widow Quinn in The Playboy of the Western World. She acted in all three plays that opened the Abbey Theatre and was Lady Gregory’s favourite actress.

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A 1907 poster proudly promotes Irish Plays

They say in the early days all you needed was the name of the play to sell the show. But as you can see here there was actually a mine of information on the early Abbey Theatre posters and they can provide a window into the workings of the theatre at the time.

IRISH PLAYS is brandished proudly, displaying the founders’ emphasis on new work and setting the Abbey Theatre apart from other theatrical ventures of the day.

Three one act plays were being presented for three nights only – this showcases a busy and prolific producing and rental theatre. Lady Gregory, W.B. Yeats and Padraic Colm were on the billing.

Annie Horniman is acknowledged as the Leasee, the person holding the lease on the building at the time and William Fay is acknowledged as General Manager and Stage Director. The Casts of all three plays are displayed prominently as well as the roles they would play in each piece. Curiously set and costume designers were not acknowledged until some years later. Ticket prices also feature, the stalls being the most expensive seats priced at 3 shillings while the back pit seats were six pence.

All the early Abbey Theatre posters and programmes were printed by Dublin firm Corrigan and Wilson.

The typography used on today’s Abbey Theatre posters is inspired by this original typography and style.

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Abbey Theatre handkerchief sold on the 1913 American tour

When the Abbey Theatre toured America in the year 1913, they looked upon it as a marketing opportunity to raise the profile of the theatre but also to raise funds for a Municipal Gallery of Modern Art (the Hugh Lane Gallery). Why? Lady Gregory, (Hugh Lane’s aunt) and W.B. Yeats were major supporters of Lane’s quest to find a permanent home for his Municipal Gallery. They were dismayed at the lack of popular support for the Gallery. Yeats went on to address this and other political issues in his seminal poem September 1913.

The linen handkerchief reads:

“Sold by the Irish Players at $1.00 towards a building to save Sir Hugh Lane’s great gift of Pictures for Ireland, April 1913”.

The handkerchief also depicts sketches of the Abbey Theatre company by John Butler Yeats, carried out in New York.

The Abbey Theatre traditionally embraced the ensemble stance, treating all actors equally. However it seems they embraced the American star mentality on this occasion. The handkerchief features the major stars of the day including J.M. Kerrigan, Sara Allgood, Eithne Magee, Sydney J. Morgan, J. A. O’Rourke, Udolphus Wright and Fred O’Donovan.

This particular handkerchief survived the Abbey Theatre fires of 1951 but did not escape unscathed.

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Purgatory, for the first time

Purgatory, Yeats 12th play at the Abbey Theatre was first performed in 1938. The most modernist of his plays, it is said to pre-figure Beckett. Seamus Heaney once said of the play “seeing Purgatory is like dreaming a dream that marks you for life”.

Purgatory was staged during the Abbey Theatre’s Festival of Irish Drama. This was a 12 day festival featuring 24 plays including The Plough and the Stars by Sean O’Casey, Kathleen Ni Houlihan and On Baile’s Strand also by W.B. Yeats and Riders to the Sea and The Well of the Saints by J.M. Synge.

In just 34 years, the Abbey Theatre had built up a substantial repertoire and the tradition of presenting a new play in the context of that wider body of work, was well underway. That Abbey tradition continues to this day.

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After the Abbey fire

This image of the doors leading from the balcony of the old Abbey Theatre down to the vestibule shows the devastation wrought by the fire of 1951. Only a ribbon of fabric remains forlornly hanging from the rail on the left, the last remnant of the curtain used to keep out the draught coming up the stairs. The decoration above the doorway shows one of the many decorative features of the old Abbey Theatre. One of the few surviving decorative elements of the old theatre is a copper mirror crafted by the Youghal metal works. This mirror is proudly displayed present day in our foyer..

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The Abbey Theatre Fire

At first glance the damage resulting from the Abbey Theatre fire doesn’t look as dramatic as expected. However, the safety curtain served its purpose and for the most part protected the auditorium from serious damage. The stock of costumes, props, and scripts were stored backstage and were particularly vulnerable. The play in production was The Plough and the Stars by Sean O’Casey. Ironically the play ends with the two English ‘Tommies’ singing “Keep the Home Fires Burning”. Staff and actors who took part in the immediate clean up operations recalled rescuing costumes and borrowing props from other theatres allowing them to transfer the play to the Peacock stage the next night.

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Abbey Theatre Acting Company

Here a detail from an Abbey Theatre programme gives an insight into the Acting company of the day. Images of seven company members are displayed along with details of their names for referencing in the cast list. At this time the majority of the acting company were credited in the programme by the Irish version of their names. However some of the older company members such as Eileen Crowe and Harry Brogan were so well known by the English version of their names that no change was necessary. Others like Micheál O hAonghusa and Peadar O Luain are known at this time by the Irish version of their name. For Kathleen Barrington, Derry Power and Bill Foley both versions are listed.

For more information on the Abbey Theatre Company listen to our podcast as part of the Abbey Theatre Oral History Project here.

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Peadar Lamb in The Country Boy

His photograph depicts Peadar Lamb as Curly Maher in the Abbey Theatre production of The Country Boy. The play written by John Murphy was his only foray into playwriting. The scenes take place in the kitchen of the Maher home, a small farmhouse, located in Mayo. Curly is stuck at home living on the family farm, yearning to move on. His wants to get married to his sweetheart Eileen and find a life of his own but is obedient to his father’s wishes. His brother Eddie by contrast has moved to America, and on a visit home upsets Curly’s equilibrium by presenting alternative options to the life seemingly set out ahead of him. The dilemmas presented to Curly proved very popular with Abbey audiences at the Queen’s Theatre, so much so it had over 100 performances between 1959 and 1965.

Peadar Lamb’s first performances at the Abbey Theatre was in the Christmas Pantomime Sonia agus an Bodach in 1954. On 29 December of this year Peadar goes into rehearsal for our forth-coming production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.

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Kathleen Watkins plays the harp in the Abbey Christmas Panto

Kathleen Watkins, well-known harpist and wife of broadcaster Gay Byrne, played Bainrion an tSneachta in the Abbey Theatre’s 1959 Christmas Pantomime, Gráinne Na Long by Eoghan O Tuairisc.

In this pantomime, Don Juan, son of the King of Spain sets out to seek An Chuillionn, a Princess of the Lord of Snow. Christopher Columbus is not willing to make the voyage with him and he appeals to Gráinne Ní Mhaille the Irish woman-pirate who agrees to transport him to the Far North. Through treachery, Gráinne is captured by the English, confronts Queen Elizabeth and is imprisoned in the Tower of London whence she is rescued by Don Juan. Ultimately, of course, Don Juan, marries his Northern Princess.

Panto plot-lines were known to go on many tangents; during this panto Julius Caesar is seen arranging to impose the Roman type and Roman script on readers and writers of Irish.

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Institutions and the church centre stage in the 1960s

Child abuse, a major and painful issue in Irish life in recent years, was reflected on the Abbey stage back in the 1960s.

“On 30th January 1961 a play by Richard Johnson, The Evidence I Shall Give, was premiered at the Abbey Theatre. It ran for 42 performances, and then was restaged in July of that year when it ran for a further nine. It returned in August for 21 more, in September for nine, and finally in October for six. Such a run, with a total of 87 performances, was most unusual.”

–       An excerpt from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (Part IV section 1.169 (5)), a play at the Abbey Theatre

Here are two newspaper reviews which gives an insight into how the play was received in 1960s Ireland.

“… although the author is obviously sincerely concerned with the fate of homeless children, the picture he paints of life in the Barrabeg institution has grounds for causing resentment among those who know what a splendid job dedicated religious communities are doing in this field.”

The Irish Independent, 31 January 1961

“I doubt if any thinking person who sees this play… will leave it without examining his own and the communal conscience on its main theme.”

“The Mother superior, who registers as an eminently reasonable woman on her first appearance, emerges, under cross examination, as the sinister figure of the tyrant-matriarch, as the tragedies and torments of all institutionalised children are quietly bared.”

The Irish Times, 31 January 1961

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The Men from Clare

This photograph is of the Cuas football team used in the 1963 Abbey Theatre production of The Men From Clare by John B Keane. In order to create the photograph the cast of the play is augmented by Abbey staff at the Queen’s Theatre. Actors Vincent Dowling, Pat Laffan and Clive Geraghty are to be found in the photograph which was taken behind the theatre on Pearse Street.

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The Abbey Theatre & the 1916 Rising

A small plaque unveiled in the foyer of the Abbey Theatre in 1966 commemorates the Abbey Theatre staff who took part in the Easter Rising of 1916. Many of those listed had a long association with the theatre.  They include actors Sean Connolly, the first rebel to be killed in the Rising, Máire Ní Shiubhlaigh, Helena Molony and Arthur Shields, usherette Ellen Bushell, prompter Barney Murphy and scenic artist and occasional stagehand Peadar Kearney. The quote ‘It is a hard service they take that help me’ is from Kathleen Ni Houlihan by W.B. Yeats.

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Recall the years premeire

After the fire of 1951, the Abbey Theatre had to relocate to The Queens on Pearse Street. The Abbey Theatre reopened 15 years later to the day, in a new building designed by Michael Scott and Associates. On the night the new Abbey Theatre reopened in 1966, Walter Macken’s Recall the Years was performed. It was billed as “a dramatic presentation of the history of the Abbey Theatre – of its plays, playwrights, poets and performers, riots and reactions, from its inception to its burning”.

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The signatures of the stars

A special programme designed to mark the occasion of the opening of the new Abbey Theatre after 15 years at The Queens features the autographs of Abbey Players down through the years obtained from both the Abbey archives and the Abbey Players of the day.  The President at the time, Éamon de Valera wrote a letter for the programme in which he celebrates the return of the Abbey Theatre to its original site “in a fine modern building”. Éamon de Valera himself had trod the boards of the Abbey Theatre years earlier.

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Cyril Cusack and Hugh Hunt

This photograph shows Cyril Cusack and Hugh Hunt deep in discussion in the Abbey Theatre roof garden during rehearsals for The Shaughraun by Dion Boucicault.

Cyril and Hugh would have encountered one another in the 1930’s at the Abbey Theatre when Hugh Hunt was appointed as a play director from 1935 to 1938. On this occasion Cyril Cusack was playing as Conn The Shaughraun in a production that toured to London.

For more on Hugh Hunt listen to Memories of Hugh Hunt a podcast from our Oral History Project here.

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Niall Toibin in Borstal Boy

In 1967 the stars aligned to create a magical production. Frank McMahon’s adaptation of Brendan Behan’s Borstal Boy and Tomás MacAnna’s direction came together to create a powerful production to showcase the talents of the acting company. The cast is a veritable who’s who of Irish theatre and the production would go on to tour to Paris in 1969. Frank Grimes as the Young Behan and Niall Toibin as the Older Behan are seen here in rehearsal.

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Madame Knebel, the Russian director

The 1968 Dublin Theatre Festival production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard has stood out for many as a defining moment in the Abbey’s history. Actors involved in the production hold fond memories of Madame Maria Knebel of the Mosow Art Theatre who directed the production at the Abbey Theatre and the inspiration she brought to the company. Here we see Máire Ní Ghráinne as Dooiashia and Harry Brogan as Feers.

Actors Niall Buggy, Kathleen Barrington and Máire Ní Ghráinne recount their memories of the production in The Cherry Orchard, a podcast from our Oral History Project: listen here 

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Peter O’Toole, Eamon Kelly and Donal Mc Cann in Waiting for Godot

Peter O’Toole starred in the Abbey Theatre’s first production of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett directed by Sean Cotter. During the run of this play, the theatre was also hired out on two Sunday nights for the E.S.B. Itinerant Settlement Week and for a Choral Concert presented by The Lindsay Singers. The Abbey Theatre was a hub for social events such as these.

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The Dubliners were on the Peacock stage

Did you know The Dubliners acted at the Abbey Theatre?

It was discovered in 1971 that at the time of Brendan Behan’s death that he had one unfinished play called Richard Cork’s Leg. Alan Simpson edited and completed the text and directed it at the Peacock Theatre as part of the Dublin Festival in 1972.

Set in a Dublin graveyard, Richard’s Cork Leg is best described as a comedy; it was described in the programme at the time as ‘an entertainment’. The Guardian described it is ‘a joyous celebration of life’ and a characteristic postscript to Behan’s earlier work.

The Dubliners were kept busy and played multiple roles including; Ronnie Drew as Blind Men, Barney Mc Kenna as A Coloured Gentleman and Undertakers, John Sheahan as Undertakers, Blue Shirts and others and Ciaran Bourke as A corpse, Blue Shirts and others and Undertakers men. They joined Abbey stalwarts such as Eileen Colgan (Bawd I) , Joan O’Hara (Bawd II), Angela Newman, Dearbhla Molloy and Terry Donnelly.

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Abbey Staff take to the stage

September 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of Sean O’Casey’s death. It’s not an unusual occurrence for the Abbey Theatre to stage an O’Casey play. However on 21 December 1973 roles were reversed when the Abbey Theatre staff took to the stage in a performance of The Shadow of a Gunman. This is the programme for the evening signed by some of the cast.

This one off late night production on the Peacock stage had an invited audience of professional actors with special guest, Mrs Eileen O’Casey, widow of Sean. While the backroom boys and girls were centre stage, the Company actors were the programme sellers and ushers for the occasion before taking their seats for the performance. The cast includes General Manager, John Slemon, Lights men Leslie Scott, Tony Wakefield and Michael Doyle, Wardrobe Mistress, Lily Norton, Stage door man, Al Kohler, Stage Manager Ronan Woodcock and Sound Operator, Nuala Golden. The production was ably directed by Production Manager, Brian Collins.

The performance made a lasting impact; in An Irishman’s Diary from the following year, Quidnunc (Patrick Campbell’s pseudonym) noted that he’d personally like to see a revival of this production!

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Abbey staff on the roof

This photograph was taken in 1975 of the Abbey Theatre staff on the roof of the Abbey Theatre. Staff from all parts of the Theatre, from stage crew, accounts, stage management, graphic design, maintenance, costume, box office, scenic art, carpentry, front of house and management are depicted. Clearly the photographer Fergus Bourke had his hands full trying to capture this moment as some hilarity is ensuing. Former General Manager Martin Fahy is seen in the front row along with Michael Colgan on the extreme right.

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Family Connections

The 1987 production of The Field by John B Keane featured members of the Olohan, Conway and Lawlor clans.

This Flanagan ‘family’ portrait by Fergus Bourke includes Darragh Kelly, John Olohan, Rúaidhrí Conroy, Tom Vaughan Lawlor, Neilí Conroy, Catherine Byrne and Aoife Conroy, Kerri-Ann Lawlor, Max Olohan and Jack Olohan.

Rúaidhrí, Tom, Neilí, Aoife and Kerri-Ann performed as the children in the production. Max and Jack, children of John Olohan and Catherine Byrne, are ‘extras’ in what we believe was an improvised family photo!

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No Escape

The report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse or the Ryan Report was published in May 2009. Almost a year later the Abbey Theatre presented The Darkest Corner Series featuring No Escape, compiled and edited by Mary Raftery, a reading of Richard Johnson’s The Evidence I Shall Give which premiered in 1961 at the Abbey Theatre and James X by Gerard Mannix Flynn. 

The Abbey Theatre considered commissioning a play, reading the entire report aloud from beginning to end or doing a series of Talks. It resolved to invite Mary Raftery, the journalist whose rigorous and committed investigation of child abuse led to the establishment of the Commission, to create the script. This was the first time the Abbey Theatre commissioned a piece of documentary theatre.

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From Russia with Love

Did you know the Abbey Theatre toured to Leningrad and Moscow in the 1980s? When officials from Russia visited Dublin, they chose ‘The Field’ by John B. Keane and ‘The Great Hunger’ by Tom Mac Intyre as the two plays that would resonate in Russia.

A full convoy of people including the actors and staff involved in the productions, Abbey photographer Fergus Bourke and journalists travelled to Russia on an Aer Lingus flight. The Company soaked up Russian life and visited the Bolshoi Ballet, (Mikhail Gorbachev was in attendance on the same night). The actors commented on how clean the streets were and the fact that advertising around the streets was to promote cultural events only.

On the flight back applause broke out after Aeroflot, the Russian airline made an announcement congratulating the actors, staff and management of the Abbey Theatre on their tour saying they hoped to see the Abbey Theatre back in the USSR soon.

The cast of ‘The Field‘ Brendan Conroy (Tadhg McCabe), Donal Farmer (The Bird) and Niall Toibin (The Bull Mc Cabe) are photographed here in Red Square, Moscow.

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