Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (I sure don't...)

Very early Thursday morning here...(actually Wednesday night when I started this post; as you can see, I'm finishing it Saturday morning. BAD blogger!) and it's been several evenings, day and evening of gogogo in Dublin. And I have to catch you up from Tuesday already!

Tuesday was actually a "work" day for me...that is, work that isn't based here: all kinds of deadlines and emails and things from the world that doesn't stop for me to have fun (but I still find ways).

It was also Mark Finley's last night in town. (He has a real life/real job, too!) But it wasn't to be...the place doesn't open until 6, but the fine concierges at the Westin (Tuesday's hotel), reserved space for us at the Trocadero, a few blocks away (and also a Festival supporter). It's a theatre restaurant from its headshot-lined walls to the framed playbills and posters in the lower level. I got lost on the way from the toilets back to my table. I managed to get lost 3 times in the Shelbourne on Monday. Older, labyrinthine buildings are a highlight of Dublin, and also a bete noire for me.

The meal at the Troc was a great success, and we headed for an evening of theater. I went up to the Teachers Club to see Pig Tale; the first time I'd seen this version, revised and edited since the New York run last September. The changes reinforced for me how sweet and beautiful the story is, and a very appreciative crowd was with it all the way. We stayed through the very quick changeover for Fiona Coyne's Careful. This two-hander was brought to Dublin by the Artscape folks from South Africa; the ones who did Dalliances last year...we shared the Teacher's Club space with them, and marveled at the quality of the work. This year brought another winner: the story of an older actress (Diane Wilson) who is cast as a lesbian in a new play, and a theatre critic (Deirdre Wolhuter), who is "the only dyke I know" to the older actress. It's a very well-crafted comedy, and the two actors drive it home. I watched it with Chris Weikel and Mark Finley, and by the end, we were casting it from the actors we know.

At the Front Lounge, we caught up a bit with some of the now-familiar faces, introduced ourselves to new ones, and did a lap of the room, as my sister says, hearing about the other shows, and how their audiences were; and making the kind of connections that lead to having a place to stay in another city some time in the future.

I keep an eye out for the people from the shows I've seen at the festival bar (it varies this year between the Front Lounge and Pantibar). This is where grand ideas spring forth (some of which are even feasible when you wake up the next day). Friendships made...information exchanged...and the next thing you know, you're having dinner at Zuni with someone from LA that you met in Dublin, or walking up the street and hearing dialogue from a new play that you know would be just perfect for one of the actors you've met.

And I got up Wednesday and started this post and now it's Saturday morning, the last weekend of the festival, and we leave on Monday. Where did the week go? (I started asking myself that around Tuesday morning).

Today (Saturday) is my last hotel move (two nights in the Morgan!) and I'll be leaving from the lovely Grand Canal Hotel in Ballsbridge to head into Temple Bar, just down the street from the closing gala (The Closing Gala? How the heck is that happening just tomorrow?)


And I'm not even up to Wednesday's hotel & how we spent the day...am I making you seasick with the zigging and the zagging?

But Wednesday morning saw me heading down the coast to Dun Laoghaire, only 7 miles from Central Dublin, but in a whole different mindset. Jamie and Chris rode down on the train with me (about 20 minutes on the DART from Tara Street Station), and we decided to spend the afternoon exploring what's ostensibly a neighborhood/suburb of Dublin, but more like a seaside resort town. I was staying at the Royal Marine Hotel ; Queen Victoria ate breakfast there! At one point, I looked down from my sea-view room across a vast expanse of green lawn that runs almost down to the sea and saw people in white uniforms playing lawn bowling. A gentle rain fell, and a foghorn blew, and if it hadn't been for the broadband connection on my laptop, I might have felt like a character in an E.M. Forster novel.

The first time I came to Ireland was via Dun Laoghrie; back in my just-after-college backpack and Eurailpass days, I took the train from London to Holyhead and got on the ferry to Ireland. It was an overnight trip, and I propped myself up on a bench and drowsed and dozed about as well as I do on overnight plane trips. I took the train up from the ferry into Dublin, which was a much poorer and smaller city then. As I wandered the streets looking for the 2-pound a night hostel recommended by Let's Go, I noticed that many of the shops and stores seemed to have their speakers pointed out in the streets, and they were playing music. Beatles music. John Lennon music. "They sure must love the Beatles," I thought. Then I saw a newspaper stand and all the papers had big headlines saying John Lennon had been shot in New York. I didn't live in New York in those days, and I remember thinking "What kind of a city is it where they shoot a Beatle?" And I bought a paper, and I found Bewley's and had tea and pastries from a cart, and read about the news I'd missed.

Autobiographia Literaria
by Frank O'Hara

When I was a child
I played by myself in a
corner of the schoolyard
all alone.

I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds
flew away.

If anyone was looking
for me I hid behind a
tree and cried out "I am
an orphan."

And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!

...and I'll continue on about looking for James Joyce in Dun Laoghrie, and all the rest (Oscar Wilde and the New Theatre and a Jamesons in a pub) after I move hotel for the last time (this time).