THE RETURN OF LIVE THEATRE

“IT’S the only show in town!” beamed Colm Maher, front of house manager (and resident lighting designer) at Bewley’s Cafe Theatre.

It may have been a quiet occasion, but it was still an extraordinary event. To find oneself sitting in a performance space, exchanging (distanced) conversations, and then to witness a performance of subtlety, charm and quiet tragedy, ending with the welcome and overwhelming sound of live applause, was enough to bring tears to the eyes after months of deprivation.

Bewley’s Cafe Theatre has found a temporary home at the headquarters of the Irish Georgian Society on South William Street in Dublin, playing at lunchtimes in the delightful and exquisite surroundings of the Exhibition Hall, with audiences limited to 20 or so.

The atmosphere was perfect for the opening choice — a revival of Michael James Ford’s 2004 adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s short story The Happy Prince. Ford plays it himself, his rich and marvellously modulated voice getting every nuance from the lyrical prose of the story of a swallow left behind in a northern city as winter sets in. He joins with the statue of the town’s dead Happy Prince to bring joy and relief to the poor and miserable populace, long abandoned to their fate by the indifferent pomposity of the self-serving bureaucrats.

But staying to do the kind will of the helpless statue of the prince keeps the little bird too long from the flight to catch his fellows in Egypt for the winter. And the snow closes in on both the swallow and the statue, stripped of its richly jewelled decorations and trappings. A sad fairytale with immortal resonances.

Ford is directed by Bairbre Ni Chaoimh, and the incidental music is arranged by Philip Dodd and played by Denice Doyle. It is a fitting return of live theatre to our capital city.