Turning back to art today
“The Irish Times” has nominated best new plays recently. I can’t really comment on any of the plays themselves because I have not been to Ireland or even a live play in several years. But I consider Ireland a very play-producing and play-going country.
But one of the things that interested me in the article was the effect of the virus lockdown on public activity like going to a live play, I have mentioned in a previous blog that I resented authorities imposing physical closure of religious-service attendance because of the virus scare. It applies, I think, to live theatre too. Here is from the IT article:
“It has been an unprecedented 24 months for the Irish theatre industry, a fact that the three judges for the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards are keen to acknowledge as they reveal their shortlist for a bumper edition of the awards this year, which encompasses almost 180 new Irish productions premiering on the island between January 2020 and December 2021.
‘The extraordinary circumstances need to be acknowledged from the outset,’ says media and cultural manager Lorelei Harris, who joined the panel of judges at the beginning of 2020. ‘It really is the most important thing to say about the last two years. We are not just celebrating the success or failure of this or that show. The very act of [artists] making work at all needs to be celebrated as significant on its own.'”