Orla
O’Loughlin may have stepped down from her role as artistic director of the
Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh after seven years in post, but her presence is
never far away. Her final production, of Kieran Hurley’s play, Mouthpiece, is
still running, and a trailer of it plays on a loop in a TV monitor in the bar.
As part of Scotland’s new writing theatre’s just announced Spring 2019 season,
O’Loughlin’s Herald Angel winning production of Cora Bissett’s Edinburgh
Festival Fringe hit, What Girls Are Made Of, is about to head out on tour.
Apart from anything else, even though she’s preparing to start her new job as
vice principal of drama at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, she
only lives ten minutes away, and can’t keep away from the place.
“We’re
neighbours,” O’Loughlin beams, “and it’s a nice place to be.”
With
Mouthpiece as her parting shot, to say O’Loughlin and the Traverse are parting
on good terms is something of an understatement.
“I
think it’d been a good year for the Traverse, so it feels like a good time to
be leaving, to leave the Traverse in a healthy confident state, - with three of
our shows this year – Mouthpiece, Ulster American and What Girls Are Made of –
guaranteed significant future lives. I’m really proud of that, and I’m really
excited to see what the next evolution is here.”
O’Loughlin
has mixed emotions about her departure.
“This
place has been significant for me,” she says, “and I’ve given my heart and soul
to it. The people here are extraordinary, and the artists I’ve worked with have
been so inspiring and challenging, but it’s time to go. It’s time for the next
challenge, and I’m someone who likes a challenge. I like to keep moving, and
it’s the longest I’ve done any job.”
O’Loughlin
came to the Traverse after five years running the Shropshire-based Pentabus
theatre company. In her seven years in Edinburgh, she has directed a series of
plays that began with Morna Pearson’s The Artist Man and the Mother Woman,
continued with Ciara by David Harrower, and includes works by Stef Smith, Zinnie
Harris and Gary McNair.
“I
hope through my work I’ve been able to contribute a bit to that conversation
about who we are and where we’re going, what’s important to us, what has to change
and how we’re gonna’ do it,’ she says. “And a show like Mouthpiece I think
beautifully coalesces so much of what I believe in. I think it embodies so much
of what the Traverse exists to do, which is to confront and challenge and hold
a safe place for difficult stuff.”
While
artists taking on academic roles is far from unusual, O’Loughlin’s move to
Guildhall seems to fit with an aesthetic which has made developmental work more
forward facing. The most high-profile of these events was The Traverse 50, a
major initiative which celebrated the Traverse’s half century by working with
50 writers over the year.
“I
think the Traverse 50 is something we’re still feeling the reverberations
from,” O’Loughlin says. “You think part of that fifty was Frances Poet, Martin
McCormick, John McCann, Ellie Stewart, Sylvia Dow, James Ley – and look at them
now. It was my second year at the Traverse, but what a wonderful induction into
the history and legacy and the characters and stories of the place, so it was a
gift.”
O’Loughlin’s
new post feels like a natural fit.
“My
conversation with Guildhall is that your new vice principal is an artist, and I
come to you as a director. I’ll be working as a director, both within and
outwith the institution, but what I’ll also be is a strategist, reimagining
what it means to be an artist in the 21st century, and how we equip
our artists to be robust, have agency and understand their role in society.
That isn’t what it meant five years ago, twenty years ago, a hundred years ago,
and we need to ask what our responsibilities are, where is our agency, what do
we want to say and how are we going to say it?”
This
again ties in directly with O’Loughlin’s time at the Traverse, which has seen
her nurture a new generation of writers and theatre artists in a way that has
made the Traverse itself appear a different place to how it was seven years
ago.
“And
the world is a different place,” she points out. “The world is moving so
quickly and so chaotically that everyone seems to be in a state of change and
flux. But I’d like to think that we’ve produced work that more broadly
represents the society that we exist in, in terms of gender parity, working
class experience, questions about gender or family or place and nationhood. I’d
like to think we’ve put front and centre a range of voices and experience, and that
range feels more representative and inclusive and diverse.
“I’d
like to think that’s what’s maybe shifted, is that this new generation of
Scottish writing talent are at the top of their game, and not only work in
Scotland, but whose work travels internationally and on the major stages of the
United Kingdom. I’d like to think we’ve had a role in supporting and
encouraging that, and giving them their main stage debuts. I’m really proud of
that, because when I started at the Traverse I could see who the current
generation were – David Greig, Rona Munro, David Harrower, Zinnie Harris – but
who was next? Who was coming up? And now I think we can see them. They’re here.”
One
of the biggest blows to the Traverse during O’Loughlin’s tenure was an 11% per
cent funding cut from arts funding body Creative Scotland, which had a serious
impact on the theatre’s day to day running.
“It
was really tough,” O’Loughlin admits, “because that cut came out of nowhere. We
had no forewarning. We’d just had a very successful 50th year, and
it came out of the blue. However, as a response to it we doggedly said we were
going to do more, and weren’t going to be diminished by it. But there’s no
doubt it took its toll psychologically. It’s hard to hold an organisation
steady through that, and we were shocked for a long time. I think there’s maybe
a subtext of, oh, well, the Traverse can take it, but actually, like nearly
every other institution, we’re held together with sticky tape and blue tack and
string, but we couldn’t lose faith in it, because we believe in what we do, and
now we’ve just had our most successful year ever.”
It is
now up to the Traverse’s new artistic leaders to help navigate conversations
about funding now. Associate director Gareth Nicholls has been appointed interim
artistic director for an unspecified period while the Traverse takes stock. In
the meantime, O’Loughlin’s loyalty to the theatre and its achievements are
plain.
“I’d
like to think that they’d recognise the great success that the Traverse has
enjoyed, particularly this year,” she says. “Audience numbers are way up, we’ve
had the most successful festival on record, and so much of our work is up and
out there, so let’s hope the Traverse will be recognised.”
Mouthpiece,
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh until December 22. Details of the Traverse
Theatre’s 2019 Spring season can be found at www.traverse.co.uk
The Herald, December 18th 2018
Ends
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