@ GV2

Filed under:Visualisation — posted by Hugh Denard on February 3, 2011 @ 4:34 pm

I gave an informal overview and update on the project at noon today to Carol O’Sullivan and her colleagues in the Computer Science Department at Trinity College.

I related the “digital jig-saw puzzle”, which the Old Abbey is turning out to be, to other digital visualisation projects I’ve been involved in with my colleagues in the King’s Visualisation Lab, including work on the Theatre of Pompey in Rome, the Roman villas at Boscoreale and Oplontis, and their theatrical frescoes, the London Charter, as well as the Body and Mask in Ancient Theatre Space and Theatron3 projects and the “Vanishing Point(s)” artwork for the Great Hall at King’s College London that I worked on with artist Michael Takeo Magruder.

It was a relaxed and enjoyable session, and great to hear about activities in which Trinity is involved, including research on facial perception and an exciting project extending to the Book of Kells digital analysis of various kinds (PDF).

We agreed that there continue to be areas of common interest, and as we move towards the actual creation, with NOHO, of the project’s digital model (starting next Monday, 7th Feb) it will be interesting to keep thinking about, and planning, how we might, with Carol and her colleagues, model not only performance, but also the demographics and social expectations of spectatorship in the Old Abbey Theatre.

Carol also mentioned some fascinating work (PDF), by Frank Boland (TCD) and Gavin Kearney (now University of York) on digitally modelling the acoustics of Christ Church and St. Patrick’s Cathedrals in Dublin. Perhaps this kind of work is an avenue we could explore in a future phase of the project?


Feasting on Killiney Hill

Filed under:Research Sources — posted by Hugh Denard on February 2, 2011 @ 6:34 pm
Stones from Old Abbey Theatre's facade: "Savings Bank"

Vestibule Facade Fragments

A productive day, yesterday, starting with a morning meeting in the Long Room Hub with a small group of experts in Irish theatre history and digital humanities to discuss the prospect of digitizing a number of key research sources. Can’t say more at this point, but watch this space…

Afterwards, I took the DART out to Killiney (should have been Dalkey, but I overshot) where Helen Fogerty, daughter of Daithi and Joan Hanly, picked me up in her car. We drove up the hillside, past Bono, to the house in which Helen grew up, and where her mother still lives. Immediately, in the front garden, were these dressed stones; inscribed “Savings Bank”, they once were part of the Old Abbey Theatre’s Marlborough Street facade. Before getting down to business, we were treated, with Chlora Hall, to a delicious lunch (thank you, Viera!) with a clear, crisp vista from our high vantage point out over Killiney Bay. Bounded by Bray Head and the distinctive peak of the Sugarloaf Mountain to the south, and by Dalkey island to the north, and with the obelisk of Killiney Hill – once known as Victoria Hill – to the west, this is one of the most spectacular views on the east coast, and one I’ve loved from childhood.

Remnants of the window frames of the old Abbey Theatre's vestibule.

Window-frames from the Marlborough Street vestibule.

Needless to say, by the time lunch was ended, we were in a suitably convivial frame of mind to take on the remnants of the old Abbey Theatre. In the old boathouse at the top of the drive is a collection of window-frames and other wooden fittings from the demolished vestibule, the dull green of their paintwork still visible. One would have to lay them out in a row and systematically compare them with photographs of the Theatre’s 1951 facade to make a great deal of sense of them, and it’s unclear (at least at this point in my archival research) whether these are the original frames, or date from a later period.

Peacock Theatre Entrance Pay Desk 1961

Peacock Theatre Entrance Pay Desk 1961

One plain, wooden construct is labelled in chalk “PEACOCK THEATRE ENTRANCE PAY DESK 1961”. D.P.Hanly recounted: “When the plans for the new building [the new Abbey Theatre] were ready in March 1961, the entrance facade and the vestibule, which many still remember as the Abbey Theatre, were being demolished. The contractor, Christy Cooney, told me that his instructions were to dump everything. I was horrified that this last historic part of one of the most celebrated theatres in the English-speaking world would be lost for all time. I asked him, please, to number each stone and to ‘dump’ them in our garden at home instead. He said he would be delighted and this was done.” (“The Man with the Abbey Theatre in his Garden” unknown journal, section heading “Inner Vision”, p.55).

Scale model of the old Abbey Theatre

Scale model of the old Abbey Theatre

In a second, smaller outhouse, were finds of a different sort: heavy, slate counters, billboards and signs dating from the 1930s, and a scale model of the old Abbey Theatre – undoubtedly the one published by James W. Flannery as Plate 1 in W. B. Yeats and the Idea of a Theatre: the early Abbey Theatre in theory and practice (Yale, 1976). Nobody had seemed to know what had become of this model, so it was an unexpected joy to happen upon it here. This, of course, is a digital modeller’s dream: although care must be taken. The model is labelled: “Showing the collection of buildings occupied by the National Theatre Society in 1904.” More accurately, as Holloway’s drawings in the National Library attest, the model shows the buildings that the Society gradually acquired over the years, starting in 1904. Although each detail will have to be checked and cross-checked against other sources in order to assess its accuracy and, in particular, its degree of correlation with the earliest phase of the Theatre, the model undoubtedly gives us an extraordinarily useful three-dimensional impression of the internal and external architectural framework of the old Theatre.

Stones of the old Abbey Theatre on Killiney Hill

Stones of the old Abbey Theatre on Killiney Hill

Finally, we went out to the long, garden to the rear of the house, to see what has to be the most enviable garden feature in Dublin. Small, seemingly haphazard, piles of dressed and rusticated stone lie deposited in the planted borders. At places, ageing shrubs throw their limbs protectively over discarded cornices and lintels, while elsewhere a gentle shawl of moss and pine needles enfolds the granite into the hillside landscape like the return of an erstwhile estranged child. Here and there, half-faded numbers, in white paint, remain visible. Ensconced within the natural theatre of Killiney Bay, the monumental historical weight of Hanly’s stones offers an odd frisson.


Gardening

Filed under:Research Sources — posted by Hugh Denard on January 27, 2011 @ 7:41 pm

Just over a week ago, I blogged about the stones of the Old Abbey Theatre lying, unloved, in the Dalkey garden of the late Daithi P. Hanly. Next Tuesday, I will actually get to travel out to Dalkey to see and photograph the stones, canopy, railings, windows and the rest; should be quite an experience!


Archiving Holloway

Filed under:Research Sources — posted by Hugh Denard on January 26, 2011 @ 1:21 am

With project time rapidly elapsing and visiting hours to the Prints and Drawings Department limited to Mondays and Tuesdays, today’s priority was to photograph the 1904 Holloway designs for the Abbey. There’s a form to sign, that assures the Library that any photos I take with my own camera are for my own personal research only and (sorry readers!) will not be shared.

The paper Holloway used is now extremely fragile; not, it would seem, a product designed for long-term preservation. Many of the drawings have distinctly distressed edges, and some of the larger sheets have even cracked apart into two or more separate fragments that have to be reassembled to be understood. Here and there, entire sections of plans are missing.

My time-slot started at 2.30pm but, treating the drawings with the tender care they deserve, it took every moment of 3-and-a-half hours to photograph all 36, including a handful that are double-sided. So, not much time, today, to linger lovingly over them and ponder their secrets.

Enough, however, to note that the collection includes a survey of the “Hibernian Theatre of Varieties, Lower Abbey Street”, as well as a couple of site plans, the all-important seating plans, and floor-by-floor plans and elevations of the “proposed alterations”, including for the canopies over both Marlborough and Abbey Street entrances – the far less ornate design for the “PIT” entrance leaving in no doubt who was (not) at the top of the Abbey’s social pecking order!

There’s just a handful of close-up details, of decorative architectural mouldings, and even of “presses” in the dressing rooms. Oddly, only one of the Abbey drawings is dated (July 7, 1904). An interesting item is a single page of text, being a: “specification of work required to be done according to the accompanying plans…”, signed by Holloway. For fun, the collection concludes with a drawing inscribed “Electric Theatre, Talbot Street Dublin for Electric Theatre Co. Ltd. Proposed New Balcony”, which is signed and (unusually) dated 8/3/12: a gratifying spin-off project for Holloway following the presumable success of his adventures in the Abbey.

I’ve some workaday cataloguing to do, tomorrow, to match my photos with descriptions, and fulfil my promise to Honora to give her an inventory. In the process, I’ll get a chance to spend some more time with the collection and really find out what’s what.

With characteristic kindness, Honora copied for me the list of artists in Holloway’s 1119-strong collection of sketches and paintings, which contains 150 by the man himself, as well as 125 by Frank Leah. There are also pieces by Micheál MacLiammóir and George Russell (AE).

The collection includes an affectionate portrait by Ben Bay (one of 56 items that Holloway collected by Bay) of a bewhiskered Holloway as eternal boy, pictures scattered at his feet like toys on a nursery floor, an oversized volume portentously labelled “Architecture | Ethics” in his hands.

Bay’s drawing, and its title, “When we were boys”, casts a droll, but warm eye on a man who sustained his childlike passion for plays and playhouses through judicious, “grown-up”, labours of love such as his monumental Impressions of a Dublin Playgoer and, of course, his painstaking architectural work on the Abbey itself.


Twittering

Filed under:Project — posted by Hugh Denard on January 25, 2011 @ 11:58 am

Encouraged by Trinity College researcher, Lisa Coen, I’ve taken the plunge and enrolled the project in the “Twitterverse”: http://twitter.com/#!/OldAbbeyDigital


Holloway’s Plans in the NLI

Filed under:Research Sources — posted by Hugh Denard on January 24, 2011 @ 11:25 pm

I spent a blissful 3 hours in the Prints and Drawings Department of the National Library of Ireland this afternoon, courtesy of Assistant Keeper, Honora Faul. The room is a vastly-ceilinged, tripartite chamber bathed in natural light and punctuated by large, dramatic, white, fluted Ionic columns. Quite a setting!

Laid out for me were three portfolios of Joseph Holloway’s architectural designs for the Abbey, created in 1904. They’re pencil on paper, for the most part, with occasional dashes of pen or coloured ink. Most of them have the quality of working sketches, full of half-erased lines and changed figures. It is thrilling to see and touch Holloway’s process of “inventing” the space of the Abbey; his drawings lend an additional vividness to entries in his journal such as: “Called up with rough sketch plan of the Abbey Street Theatre [The Mechanics] to Camden Street “Theatre” to have a chat over it with Mr. W.G. Fay.” (Journal entry for Friday, April 15th 1904).

The 34 drawings, Honora told me, while they have been numbered (AD 2171-2205), haven’t been individually catalogued, so creating an inventory seems a worthwhile exercise, not least because the process of systematically describing them requires me to pay a quality of attention to small details I might otherwise miss.

Using, for convenience, the fields in the IAA’s inventory of the Scott collection (Number; Description; Inscription; Medium; Scale; Dimensions), and making my own notes for the digital modelling process, I got through the first of the three portfolios today (AD 2171-2179). JH’s jottings in the margins indicate concern with the number of seats required to make the theatre financially viable. One plan of the Stalls and Pit (AD 2175) is inscribed:

“Stalls 230. (£34.0.0) Pit 200. (£10.0)”

A different plan of the seating in Gallery and Stalls (AD 2179) squeezes 15 more into the Stalls, its 245 seats now yielding £36.16.0, at the expense of 14 seats fewer in the Pit (including “Tip up seats”). We don’t know the sequence in which the plans were drawn, but it seems likely that Holloway is doing his best to maximise the number of higher-earning seats at the expense of the cheaper seats in the Pit. (AD 2175, intriguingly, also gives the rows of seats in the Stalls a gentle, classical curve – a solution that evidently did not find favour.)

The largest, most sumptuous and complete of Henderson’s plans is reproduced in the 2006 companion volume, by James Quin, Eílís Ní Dhuibhne and Ciara McDonnell, to the Yeats Exhibition at the National Library. WB Yeats Works and Days: Treasures from the Yeats Collection contains, besides the drawing, photographs of the old Abbey interior, including what looks like a post-fire shot along the balcony (p.81).

Honora was wonderfully helpful, giving me a spontaneous tour of the scope of the Joseph Holloway holdings in the P&D and Ephemera Departments, including a staggering number of theatrical playbills from the Dublin theatre scene, and his collection of sketches and paintings by a small constellation of Irish artistic types, including some 125 by his own hand. There is a digitization project made in heaven just praying to be dreamt of, here.

P&D only admits readers on Mondays and Tuesdays; I’m lucky to have secured an additional slot tomorrow afternoon. Ordering photographs from the NLI’s Reprographics Department (which typically take just a one or two days to arrive) costs between €13 (8″ x 10″) and €32 (24″ x 20″) for black and white images, or between €25 and €38 for sepia/colour. Alternatively, you can request a CD of TIFF images for €19 per image. Requesting permission to publish images requires a separate application.


Coming soon…

Filed under:Research Sources — posted by Hugh Denard on January 22, 2011 @ 11:31 pm

Steve Wilmer suggested I have a look at John Lynch’s 2004 documentary, “The Abbey Theatre: the first 100 years” (Production Company: Subotica) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0899205/. With any luck, the Irish Film Archive ought to have it – I’ll check with them on Monday 24th.

Monday 24th at 3pm: meeting Honora Faul in the NLI Prints and Drawings Department to look at Joseph Holloway’s 1904 architectural plans and drawings for the Abbey.

Wednesday 2nd Feb, morning: meeting Mairéad Delaney, Abbey Theatre Archivist, to look at pre-1951, floor-by-floor survey of the Abbey and surrounding buildings; four portraits originally hung in the old Abbey; whatever additional sources can be found to help us reconstruct the architecture, but especially textiles and colour-schemes, of the 1904 Abbey interior. I’m hoping we’ll manage to find that elusive wooden model of the old Abbey…


BRILLIANT IRISH ARTISTS – British Pathe

Filed under:Research Sources — posted by Hugh Denard on @ 1:10 pm

BRILLIANT IRISH ARTISTS – British Pathe.

Silent footage, from 1925, of Irish actors performing and in mufti. Gives a fascinating portrait of acting styles and the social presentation of the actor. Would be interesting to identify the performers and roles – Pathe gives only generic descriptions (“a man playing the role of an old fisherman smoking a pipe and looking grumpy” etc.).


NEW ABBEY THEATRE – British Pathe

Filed under:Research Sources — posted by Hugh Denard on @ 1:03 pm

NEW ABBEY THEATRE – British Pathe.

Pathe Newsreel from September 1963 of the laying of the foundation stone of the new Abbey Theatre. Contains film footage of the old Abbey, and of a wooden model of the old Abbey.


Irish Architectural Archive

Filed under:Research Sources — posted by Hugh Denard on January 20, 2011 @ 9:40 pm

Back when we met on 14th January, Niall in NOHO pointed me in the direction of the on-line Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720-1940. A search for “Abbey Theatre” turns up the following entries for Marlborough Street, Nos.002-3:

Name: HOLLOWAY, JOSEPH
Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, MARLBOROUGH STREET, NO. 002 (ABBEY THEATRE)
Date: 1904
Nature: Conversion of Mechanics’ Institute into theatre. Gift of Mis A.E.F. Horniman of London. Contractors: R. & E. Farmer.
Refs: Plans and drawings in NLI, AD 2171-2205; IB* 46, 13 Aug,3 Dec 1904, 505, 822

* IB = Irish Builder, a journal that appeared, under various names, from 1859 to 1979.

Name: PURSER, SARAH HENRIETTA *
Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, MARLBOROUGH STREET, NO. 002 (ABBEY THEATRE)
Date: 1904
Nature: Ground floor windows, for Annie F. Horniman.
Refs: John O’Grady, The Life and Work of Sarah Purser (1996), 246-7

Name: SCOTT & GOOD
Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, MARLBOROUGH STREET, NO. 002 (ABBEY THEATRE)
Date: 1934-1937
Nature: Alts. to foyer area including removal of arches inserted by Holloway.
Refs: Drawings, 1934-37, in IAA, Acc. 79/10.13/1-21; John O’Regan & Nicola Dearey, eds., Michael Scott Architect in (casual) conversation with Dorothy Walker (1995), 161

Name: SCOTT & GOOD
Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, MARLBOROUGH STREET, NO. 002 (ABBEY THEATRE)
Date: 1934-1937
Nature: Alts. to foyer area including removal of arches inserted by Holloway.
Refs: Drawings, 1934-37, in IAA, Acc. 79/10.13/1-21; John O’Regan & Nicola Dearey, eds., Michael Scott Architect in (casual) conversation with Dorothy Walker (1995), 161

Name: SCOTT, MICHAEL JOHN
Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, MARLBOROUGH STREET, NO.002-3 (ABBEY THEATRE)
Date: 1958-66
Nature: New theatre, with Ronald Tallon. Consultant Architect: Pierre Sonrel, Paris.
Refs: IB 101, 10 Jan 1959, 9; John O’Regan & Nicola Dearey, eds., Michael Scott Architect in (casual) conversation with Dorothy Walker (1995), 161-170(illus.),234

Clearly the Holloway plans and drawings are going to be the most important, but I thought it’d be no harm to look at the Scott & Good drawings at the Irish Architectural Archive. So, having made an appointment, I took myself off to 45 Merrion Square this morning to see what they’ve got.

The IAI lives in a fantastic Georgian building, with an impressive collection of physical architectural models in the lobby, and the two principal reception rooms, which together stretch from  the front to rear of the house, are laid out as airy reading rooms for the archive’s collection of reference works, portfolios of architectural drawings, and box files of photographs.  Lovely people; lovely place!

Simon Lincoln had set out the Archive’s collection of designs for alterations to the Old Abbey Theatre, 1934-37, by architects Scott & Good, and for €10 camera fee and €2 per item photographed, I was able to take reference photos of everything of interest.

The highlights, for our purposes, are:

79/10.13/1 “Site Map – Proposed alterations to vestibule of Abbey Theatre” (dated 31/8/34)

79/10.13/2 “Map showing Abbey Theatre Property” (dated 20/9/34)

79/10.13/3-5 “Abbey Theatre” (Views of vestibule of theatre; /3 is undated; /4 is dated 1935; /5 is dated 1934)

79/10.13/6-12 A series of plans and sections relating to the proposed alterations to the Vestibule of the Abbey Theatre; dating from between August 1934 and May 1935.

79/10.13/13 “Proposed Canopy for the Abbey Theatre” (dated 3/11/36)

79/10.13/14 “Abbey Theatre, Balcony Railing” (undated; plan, section, elevation of balcony railings.)

79/10.13/15 “Proposed reconstruction of Abbey Theatre” (undated; long section of theatre)

79/10/13/16 “Survey of Abbey Theatre Auditorium” (dated 12/7/35)

79/10.13/17-19 “Proposed Reconstruction of Abbey Theatre” (general, ground floor and balcony level plans; dating between Jan. 1936 and Jan. 1937)

The reference collection of the IAI also includes an intriguing volume: Ryan, Philip B. The Lost Theatres of Dublin (Badger Press, 1998). The pages on the old Abbey contain a couple of useful interior photographs (the staircase from foyer to Balcony, and a rehearsal in progress as seen from the Balcony). But, together with the varied fare of theatrical entertainments that Joseph Holloway documents in his Dublin Playgoer’s Impressions, Ryan’s volume also put me in mind to think more carefully about the place of the old Abbey within the theatrical geography, and culture, of the city as a whole. In addition to the Abbey, Ryan has chapters on: the First, Second and Third Theatres Royal; The Leinster Hall, The Queen’s Theatre; The Tivoli Variety Theatre; The Coliseum; The Capitol Theatre; The Torch Theatre; and Dan Lowrey’s Music Hall.

On the opening of the new Abbey Theatre, a glossy, illustrated booklet, Abbey Theatre – Dublin 1904-1966, was published; the IAI holds a copy. It includes numerous early production photographs, including one of Cathleen ni Houlihan with Lady Gregory in role as Cathleen, playing opposite Arthur Shields as Michael Gillane; as well as a 1904 photograph of the old Abbey vestibule, and the old Abbey stage in the aftermath of the 1951 fire.

Finally, I went through the box-file for Abbey Street and found, in addition to a useful collection giving a good sense of the character and history of that part of town, a couple of useful photos of the exterior of the old Abbey; one, in particular, giving a wider view of its urban setting than the views usually published show.

I’ll need to return to look at the Marlborough Street box file, which was in use elsewhere in the Archive.



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image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace