manifesto-25

Texas and New York. March 2009.

And here was me thinking that the Texas weather was going to be real fine. Not a bit of it! Rain and cold and damp and a little like Killiney Hill of a weekend in July. Slight exaggeration. Not impressed. New York was no better. Almost succumbed to buying one of those $ 10 umbrellas that last 10 minutes but the light broke through. New York is in trouble. There is no doubt about it at all. Today I counted at least 50 stores that are shut. Closed. Finished. Ranging from the traditional corner shop to larger stores and then to my surprise I discovered I was in Times Square as one of the last customers in The Mega Virgin Store before it closes its doors for good. 50%, 70% and 80% reductions and I  thought it was Christmas but no. All junk. All bands that never made it,  recession or not and still there are some who are saying the light at the end of the tunnel is not a Downtown train.

Texas Women’s University is a fine place with a theatre department led by the talented Sharon Benge. High standards in high places from Ms Benge who to put it simply has a touch of class about her and calls a spade a spade. Good to work with her and her students. Driven. New staff recently joined that department who have that positive can do attitude that will drive any recession running and screaming to the coast. We are talking again about developing a project (The Original Theatre Project ) which would see the TWU students developing a play that Martin Maguire will create sourced in ideas and images and starting points developed with the students in October. This could be a great follow up to The Long March which we presented in Dublin, New York and Denton, Texas. It’s good to see ambition and optimism at work, not to mention a pot roast,  a pound cake fresh bread and coffee at the house of Sharon and her husband, Bill. Two finer folk you’ll not find and dinner subsequently in Lily’s (not Lillies) was fun prior to a first night at Fort Worth Jubilee Theatre’s  The Piano Lesson by August Wilson. A good production and having spent 20 years attending first nights in a white Dublin it was uplifting to get to a first night where I was the odd man out in a country with its first black President. History is in the confidence and the warm embrace of that audience. Big smiles and white white teeth!

Dallas Fort Worth to JFK with a Delta pilot riding shotgun. Two hours and forty six minutes of him telling me everything and I mean everything about being a pilot. He writes fantasy  screenplays and novels in his spare time when he is not realizing that the front wheels on one of his flights wouldn’t drop and he worked it through, a simple crash landing. No worries. Fascinating to get the inside track on a whole load of issues that sounded pretty confidential to me.

There is a life about New York that needs to be lived. I walked. Two hours. Three hours. Times Square and soaked it all up. Tried to get a seat for August: Osage County at The Music Box theatre on Broadway. No go. Back at the hotel tried on line and got a $160 ticket for $50 with $70 in extras. Tried again and got a ticket for the Sunday matinee for $76 and without one ounce of hyperbole worth every cent. To Julliard prior to this to audition four young people for our two year training programme and like London a couple of weeks ago, I was uplifted by the caliber and quality.

There is a sense of thinking just beyond the same old same old of the old days with people really prepared to talk through the reasons for needing to become an actor and most were able to talk about a play they have seen recently with a clarity and an articulation that impresses. I took time to explain about the innovative Manifesto work we are now doing. It excited beyond words. Sometimes you do need to get away from the face to see the face. And back to Tracy Letts and her extraordinary play August:Osage County. Devastating to watch the destruction of the American family. Performances of extraordinary authenticity and a sense of ensemble that is the reason we all get up in the morning. This play will rank up there with Eugene O Neill, Arthur Miller, Sean O Casey and dare I say it…..William Shakespeare.  Would I go that far? Almost! Three hours and twenty minutes of transformation.

Patrick Sutton