Page 17 - Patrick Scott Scrapbooks

Art
NEW YEAR
EXHIBITION OF IRISH ARTISTS
JANUARY 9-FEBRUARY 7 DA\'ID GAU,ERY
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D.W .-Y es. but ludicrous too.
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PATRICK SCOTTi
talks to
Doroth.y Walker
wanted to ask you ·Bu·t before I started paint- down on my knees ('lo do a llb..>J•l your use of unprimed ing on unprimed canvas, L sup· pamtmg, not to pray tor in- canvas. Durini the summer pose l wasn't really so in- spiration ! I always work on
did in tlhe " Bog" paintings -surely that was before Frankenthaler 1
became a lapsed architeot ! denly something mighit: happen, There was an exhibition of might go well, other things
volved in experimental tech- the floor). l'm not really sure niques- it was straightforward what's going to happen until
Helen Frankenthaler had a big
ex1bibiition in London at the
Wbitechapel; she was bailed oil on canvas. And I think
as being an impoiotant art·ist perhaps my painting really only
because of tlbe influence she started to develop from bhose
has bad, on people like Morris days, which coincided with the
Louis for example; through time when I gave up architec-
using unprimed canvas. But ture and started working full but, in fact, l don'it: know
tbis was exactly what you time as a painter - when I wha>t's going to happen. Sud-
drawings I had about then, when Lhad been in the coun·try and I didn't have any materials except an old sketchbook and foun•tain pen ink and bits of string. l had no brushes, or even a pen. So [ did the draw- ings with bits of dipped
lead automatically from the way something turned out might swiit:ch me in another direction from whait 1 bad planned.
line, treated now, marvellously, P.S. - Yes, those evolved in a very exci>ling Japanese
is a different technique. l use
tempera, which soaks in, and I
damp the canvas beforehand.
I think my paintings have
always been influenced by the
teohnique and it is very hard
to separate the work from the
teohnique - the actual tech- some that in every extiibiotion, Japanese flag than by anything nique is the thing which leads people expec t a great new
else.
tion. D.W .-These
from getting over the tech- manner. There has always
I'm actually in the process of doing it. l cannot give descrip- tions of great plans that go on in my min<l- l think about what l'm going to do all righ·t,
P.S.-1 don't know-I didn't
know she had been doing i<t,
she might have been using it
before l was born. The reason
I did it was because I wanted
to ge-t the spread of the paint
sinking in, and sof1ening at
the edges. Tony Undringle, in the ink.
an Australian painoter in Lon- D.W.-Wbere you more or curring themes are coming idea of the horizon line, frantic to do something new?
don, uses unprimed canvas less whipped lihe paper with back in a new way again- like although it appears in paint- too, but with oil paint, which ink? the sphere and the horizon ings which are not landscapes
by any means.
P.S.-1 beard a London dealer say recently that the maximum span for 'an artist
D.W.-At the same time,
there are always very constant
themes in your work, and in .
your latest paintings, old re- get away from the landscape fantastic frequency and all
was now about five years, nical problem of trying to do been a slight Japanese look . very much a pain·ter, although before he would be etUd: of
something ma-terials.
w it ho u t
any
to your work. P .S.-Y es, I
there is so much non-painting date, which is terrible. And going on, semi-sculpture, re- depressing.
sa·id
D.W.-Do you find it irk- been more influenced by the SO Qn.
photography and
the pamting in a certain direc- . breakthrough ?
P.S.-Yes, but I don't bother come up time and time again by people - but no<t con- man like Rothko doesn·t give
themes
D.W.-Like the gold paint- aboat it, l think: it's a bit in differenit: kinds of pain·tings sci-0usly as far ·as I'm aware. a tinker's curse about the
ingi;, the technique of applying foolish to expect - Jt·ke a
0 Ablley'tOmpaiiY
fail O'Casey
a new characteristic.
seen to varying degrees in many COMPARISONS may be odious, past presentations until one is but when it comes to an Abbey forced to suspect that voice pro· Theatre presentation of "The 1ection and breath control, aside
An,other
'Plough'
revival
By JOHN REDMOND
If our National Theatre must insist on giving us yet again anothe rproduction of its stal· wart old reliable, O'Casey's ''The Plough and the Stars", all we can hope for are suffi· cient felicities to keep us stimulated. This, by and large, Shelah Richards' new produc· tion at the Abbey, which began
NEWe.fdiitliESl)IN°
ABBEY 'PLOUGH'
Miss Richards has as acting u_sual three Irish style. material practically an entirely smgle intermission makes ne•w cast to that seen three more cohesive drama. years ago at the same theatre, FRESH TOUCHES and she also has as designer the
wel1-known painter Patrick Scott . In addition, Miss Richards has who has come forward with mtroduced several fresh touches attractive and time-savi11g re· to _the O'Casey tragedy of volvi11g sets for the four acts. the RIS!ng more elasticity of
In consequence, only one in· mo':'ement. Thus the play now terval, London and Continental begms, not in the Clitheroe style, is needed instead of the living room, but in· the
outside. ·
The second act with the crowd going to the meeting held outside the pub (the best stocked pub in any "Plough" I've seen), and Rosie ·Redmond is shown on her "beat" after hff brie•f first encounter with the Covey,
sleazy prostitute.
Poor plays often can have
their faults concealed by clever embroidery on t!he part of the actors, but "Plough" is far, far from being in that category, and several times last evening I felt that the piece was being over· played. Some of the deeper points were blurred and I longed for a more reticent approach. The looting scenes, and the lead up to them, in act III were cases in poin; overexpos•ure in voice and gesture tend to turn the comedy into farce. The pub altercation between Jenny and Bessie in act II also is overdone
As well as that there is gener. ally an amount of indistinctnes; that is very disturbing in the National Theatre.
BY DESMOND RUSHE Our Drama Critic.
Plough and the Stars", they
from a feeling for the rhythm Sean O'Casey's classic, they are whom they _should be funda·
livering with exquisitely con· out like a sore thumb.
jewelled lines, with all their ex- ln the new revival, directed travagant colour, all their by Shelah Richards, there is eloquent irony, and all their considerable success in revealing
are inevitable. And in the case and meaning of language, are
of the current production of total mysteries to people to
unfortunately, unfavourable.
mental requisites. ·
What has happened to the re· In a play such as "The Plough nowned Abbey talent for de- and the Stars" the lack sticks
last night, managed to do. Mind you, there's n-0thing extraordinarily innovative you can do with this play by this time. Anyway, it can be argued that the play is fine
trolled modulations O'Casey's
richly idomatic humour? There the anti-heroic quality which is precious little of.it on display O'Casey put into the play with
Maire Ni Dihomhnaill ibega:n at enough to sustain itself without full raucous steam as Bessie
debunking anger. O'Casey had at the moment. a marvellous contempt for the Instead, we have, for the most notion that a mother or a wife
any tampering. Nevertheless, the Burgess, but was at her best revolving set was very effective, (and most movcing in the later
facilating fluidity. The resulting scenes with Mrs. Gogan (Joan changes from street to room O'Hara, very ·good, too) and with
FIERCE FRENZY There are some
part, words that are muffed, would joyfully sacrifice a son
telling moments in the acting; for in- lstance, Bernadette McKenna's .fierce frenzy over her absent .husband in act III; Bill Foley's .pugnacity as Fluther in act II; Clive Geraghty's naturalness as Jack Clitheroe; Maire Ni Dhomh· naill's death scene as Bessie Burgess; John Kavanagh's Spiky Covey;? and Nuala Hayes's
muttered, mumbled, swallowed
or screeched until a deplorable Irish freedom. proportion of the dialogue, not
to mention its essence, escapes
in a half-understood and whooly
unsavoured jumble.
Nora Clitheroe. Bessie's heart of
Even Mollser's rending and magnificent "titter o'sense" line
This message, at least, comes through, and Bernadette McKenna. as Nora Clitheroe, is
at the end of Act I is lost to not only completely audible but those who are not familiar with altogether credible and very
it. This bewildered commeM, coming from the lips of a dying child, must· reach an audience and shatter it. That it does not do so in this production is not so much a failure on the part ol Terri Donnelly, who plays the consumptive girl quite ade· quately, but a reflection on the Abbey company's general incapa·
moving in her vain efforts to keep her husband for herself. The love scenes and the partings between herself and Clive Geraghty's excellent Tack Clithe- roe are among the few things to be remembered with plea· sure.
The settings, by Patrick Scott, are beautifully designed on re· volving platforms which
nissing.
110le) merely irritating.
Nuala Hayes made a good, if
liightweight, Rosie Redmond· Clive Geraghty hadn't very much to d-0 as Jack Clitheroe and Terri Donnelly was a deco·rously ill Mollser. ·
Al in all, then, a handsome, interesting production of a play we've seen just that once :Wo often in the Aibbey.
city to make themselves intel·
ligently and sensitively aiidible. smoothly, quickly and
Nor is this regrettable failin!! lessly.
once I had
have
couturier, wondering what the from way back, from the l'.m sure other people would glossy art magazines.
· tbc: gold ·7
P.S. - I discovered an old
packet of gold leaf that L had
for years and l was trying it
out, and then the British let it mfluence me. Because I
Museum came up wiith the don't really know what rm P.S.-lrs quite ·true, the gardism-l mean in a.world _would be no harm. l think you suggestion of bow best to .fix going to do until I actually circle has always fascinated sense-new painters arriving need a li<ttle stillness to-get on it ttJ canvas. st;i,rt doing it, untAI l get me, and l find it k> on the boriLon with sooh with your work.
new line is going to be, <>r the next collection. People do ex- pect this, in fact, but l don't
women with sticks on their influences more easily. heads, to those great explosive
P.S.- But there is thii! race to be in with something new all the time and to be swinging
or a husband on the altar of Very moving
achieved a
quite
cinematic I
ones, the Devices, t.l.e gold circles· too.
D.W.-Do you think that
there is, at the moment. some-
thing of an excess of ava11>t- all the time. A little &!illness
D.W .-Y ou
have s-tayed
liefs, use of
gold beneath the grim exter,ior I Like the play itself, the sometimes find very hard to acting was of the traditional take, but this actress ma<le it Abbey old reliable kind, with unusuaUy •believable and un·
some pleasant surprise. Bill sentimental.
Foley was a goOd Fluther who, Best of all in many ways was I felt, could have been even Bernadette McKenna as Nora, all
bettered. Likewise with Harry frailty and passion. Her 'mad' Brogan's Uncle Peter and John scenes were quite splendid Kavanagh's The Covey: just beautifuHy modulated and never that final imaginative spark was (as with man•y actresses in this
effect.
Patrick Scott.
P .S.-Y es J still go on paint- to go on painting their own ing in my own sort of fa&hion. ideas no matter what the I suppose L must be .influenced dealers and cri·tics think. A
Hibernia, January 9, 1970. , Page 23
For that toucl1 of