On 28 October 2015 Fiach Mac Conghail, Director of the Abbey Theatre, announced the Abbey’s programme for the 1916 commemorations, entitled Waking the Nation. Intended to “interrogate rather than celebrate” the Rising, the ten-play lineup includes both newly commissioned plays and the “best plays of the last 100 years”. However, the programme has generated some controversy with its selections. Surprising some and confirming others’ fears, women, it seems, have been left out of the bill. Only one out of the ten playwrights is a woman; only three of the directors are female. The uproar the announcement received sparked a rebuttal of Waking The Nation and a surge of female empowerment in theatre: #WakingTheFeminists was born.
I’ve had many messages over the past week from older women who have stopped working in theatre. I’ve had messages from younger women who have been considering giving up because it’s been so hard. I’ve had messages from students who are worried that they’ll never get work.
Lian Bell, a set designer and arts manager, is a prominent spearhead of the campaign. Her frank, honest and open discourse has inspired individuals across the country and the world to join the debate. Dr Melissa Sihra, author of Women in Irish Drama and lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, has been inspiring similar discussions amongst the student body. Their call to action has been heard and, thanks to #WakingTheFeminists, gender inequality in Irish theatre is finally being discussed.
Gender-bias in Irish theatre is nothing new. Twitter erupted in the weeks following the announcement with comments of disgust over the Abbey’s blatant disregard of the integral role women played in both 1916 and in Irish theatre. A shocking expunge of women from Irish history, Waking the Nation was the final straw of a long-biased tradition. Working in theatre, inequality, like in many other industries, is commonplace. As a female set designer and arts manager, Lian has battled with bias both externally and internally: “I think I unconsciously pushed against being seen as ‘just’ a girl. – which says as much about my own unconscious gender bias as that of the world around me.”
For Lian, gender inequality often manifested in subtle and unconscious ways: “I don’t know if I can pinpoint specific stand-out examples of bias or marginalisation happening to me. I think it’s more insidious than that, and only becomes clear when you take a step back and look at things in a broader sense. I know that, without meaning to, I can change the way I speak when in meetings with men when I get the sense that things will go more smoothly and get done more quickly if I don’t look as smart as I am. I don’t like that I do that, and I try to stop myself. Thankfully it doesn’t happen that often. It’s an awful feeling doing it, and to know that it works – but I don’t think it’s that uncommon a thing for women to do.”
I think that the most poignant, heartbreaking and hopeful image that came out of Thursday’s meeting was one where playwright Anne Devlin, whose award-winning plays have never premiered in Dublin and never been produced by the Abbey, is walking towards the front door of the theatre, with the #WakingTheFeminists team smiling out from the first floor window.
Melissa agrees that this bias is deeply rooted in Irish theatre, and casts doubt on the legitimacy of the festival’s “interrogation” of the Rising: “It is simply an injustice which does not interrogate the Rising in any way but rather re-affirms the insidious, ingrained, gendered bias of Irish theatre, culture and politics. The promise of equality in Article 3 of the 1922 Irish Constitution, which stated that ‘every person, without distinction of sex, shall… enjoy the privileges and be subject to the obligations of such citizenship’, was not followed-through in the following decade. The false-promise/myth of equality upon which the Irish State was founded has been carried-through in this contemporaneous re-enactment of sexism where women simply do not figure as subjective human beings.”
It’s impossible to tell how much talent the industry has lost to sexism. Lian says: “A lot. I’ve had many messages over the past week from older women who have stopped working in theatre, and hadn’t really talked about it because they felt it was entirely their own failure. I’ve had messages from younger women who have been considering giving up because it’s been so hard. I’ve had messages from students who are worried that they’ll never get work.” Speaking at the launch of the Abbey’s programme, Tánaiste Joan Burton stated the importance that the 2016 Centenary Programme is “inclusive and reflective of all narratives on this island. We, as citizens, owe it to the Republic that we live in today to allow political debate, discussion and analysis of all the threads which have led to the creation of our modern State.” If 2016 is supposed to belong to everyone, it is baffling that a national, state-funded theatre can completely overlook gender equality, a seemingly basic concept.
The perplexity continues when it is considered that the theatre that has neglected the female voice was itself co-founded by a woman. Melissa was disgusted by the omission of Lady Gregory from the programme: “She co-wrote, with WB Yeats, the most significant Irish play: Kathleen Ni Houlihan, which, for better or worse, inspired young men and women to mobilise for an independent Ireland, to join the IRB and to fight in the 1916 Rising. Gregory is central to the era, to its representation and its transformation in art and political change and yet, she is completely excluded from the Abbey stages in 2016 – annihilated from all recognition as an artist-activist, theatre manager, playright, Abbey founder and board-member. She was a gifted dramatist and purveyor of Irish folk tradition, and yet she is 100% absent from the Waking the Nation Abbey program. For this shocking elision, The Abbey Theatre must be interrogated. Further we must not forget that not one of her plays was produced on either stage at The Abbey for the 2004 Centenary program.”
According to Lian, the reaction to #WakingTheFeminists has been overwhelmingly positive. “There’s a sense that this has really been a very long time coming and that’s why it was so close to the surface. A number of directors of companies, venues and festivals have come out publicly saying that gender equality is important for them and their organisation. We’ve had large numbers of messages of support, as well as individuals publicly writing testimonies. The media attention in the past week has been huge and is continuing – we’re also getting quite a lot of international attention, thanks to the support of people like Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Wim Wenders on Twitter.”
The strength of the campaign was clear to see last week when #WakingTheFeminists took over the Abbey for a day of protest. As Lian said: “I knew we needed to take the conversation off social media and into the real world, even for a short while,and using the Abbey Theatre was hugely symbolic. I think it was important to give everyone a chance to physically show their support for each other. Which is the only reason this whole thing has happened – by people deciding not to be afraid, and by other people supporting them in that decision.” For Lian, the task is not to debate equality: “Equality is not up for debate. What we need to do is plan real strategies and policies that we can stand by and will serve us. Speaking entirely for myself, I’m not interested in hearing an apology – I don’t think anyone can apologise for the breadth and extent of gender bias in our society, and I’m not sure what good it would do. I’m far more interested in people and organisations making a commitment to implement change.”
The Board and Director of the Abbey have admitted that Waking the Nation neglected gender equality, and have committed themselves “to develop a comprehensive policy and detailed plan to help address gender equality with the cooperation and input of the wider Irish theatre community”. However, Lian believes, that the further change can be spread, the better: “If there’s a way to make it a sectoral change, that would be great. If it spread further than just in the theatre, that would be amazing.” Criticism has been expressed about the disparities in the Irish film industry in which it has been suggested that a mere 13% of produced screenplays between 1993 and 2013 were written by women. Lian was among the many who were heartened by the Irish Film Board’s recent statement, acknowledging the major underrepresentation of women in Irish film and announcing its new strategy which will “declare its strong and heartfelt commitment to gender equality and diversity as a strategic priority”.
The future is positive for women in theatre and beyond, but Lian warns that we must not become complacent if we are to do justice to those whose work we have neglected in the past, have yet to see, or yet to cultivate: “I think that the most poignant, heartbreaking and hopeful image that came out of Thursday’s meeting was one where playwright Anne Devlin, whose award-winning plays have never premiered in Dublin and never been produced by the Abbey, is walking towards the front door of the theatre, with the #WakingTheFeminists team smiling out from the first floor window.” #WakingTheFeminists looks forward to the day when Devlin, and the work of so many others, will finally be given a just place on the stage that it deserves.
Photos by Bryan O’Brien and Fiona Morgan
