It's an emergency - quick, call the artists
They are pontificating in foreign newspapers, adapting classical plays to reflect our economic difficulties, and making bold documentaries and trenchant rap music. So what have they got to
say about the crisis, asks Harry Browne
...
Frank McGuinness turned to a more recent and neglected classic for his stab at financial relevance, an adaptation of Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman for the Abbey. McGuinness and actor Alan Rickman daringly pose the question: why shouldn't we be able to sympathise with the banker whose reach exceeded his grasp, just because he was ultimately brought down by scandal? They answer it too: because he is an absurd egomaniacal monster who allowed his greed to divorce him from his humanity. Like Walsh's suitors in Penelope, Borkman sees his fate sealed in real time, the clock literally ticking on the Abbey stage.
As the hit production ran into the winter, and the national crisis outside deepened into deadlines for Irish sovereignty, it seemed to tick for all of us. The pick of the bunch, though, was a play that seemed to take itself less seriously.
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