It’s an incremental step in the evolution of our social history that writers express their views on the recent debate over the launch of the Abbey Theatre Waking the Nation. 

I for one am outraged at the feeble excuses tweeted by Fiach Mac Conghail and in particular when he states: 

“I’m sorry I have no female playwrights next season. But I’m not going to produce a play that is not ready and undermine the writer”.  

This made me feel sick to my bones. It honestly did, I had a classic “Visceral Puke”. Now, I’m not aware of what plays were submitted, nor do I have any real grasp on what happens when programming for a National Theatre, and I like Fiach’s work…

…But, my instincts tell me this is fundamentally wrong, and I'm not surprised to see how many writers/artists have responded with similar feeling...

My point is this: The National Theatre is a venue, it is bricks and glass, and it stands not as an entity in itself, but as a symbol for what (it seems to me) a few peoples idea of theatre is, or “should” be. When in fact, the only people who have the power to choose what a play can do are the maker(s) and the audience. Theatre is a communion between a maker and her/his audience.

Theatre is not a product mediated by middlemen mangers working on the line of a cultural conveyor belt, testing the produce at different times to see if it is “ready”.  However, this is what it seems to be; or is in the process of becoming - a product line driven by a massively male dominated model.

There is only one thing to do, Girlcott the symbolism of National Theatre in Ireland, and relocate the symbolism to the wider field of theatre under the banner Fair Play for Women (an expansion of Tanya Dean’s concept; see hashtag/fairplayforwomen). The job will be to keep this up persistently, until we drive out the oppression and its nest of cultural commodity…and we have to do it quickly too! Before we are flagged to death with its impotent drivel.