6 days ago
Classic Abbey theatre posters take centre stage at new exhibition
Ahead of National Heritage Week, design and cultural historian Dr. Linda King introduces the exhibition she recently curated for the National Print Museum - Poster Boys - The Work of Kevin Scally and Brendan Foreman for the Abbey Theatre.
'In 1981 I designed twenty-seven posters: nine for the Abbey and eighteen for the Peacock. The Peacock ran productions for shorter periods and also had a number of lunchtime shows. I designed programmes for every production as well as seasonal leaflets. Theatre was cheaper than the cinema in the 1970s and '80s and there was a lot of it.'
This comment, by graphic designer Brendan Foreman, is one of the many fascinating reveals in the exhibition Poster Boys. The exhibition comprises fifty-six original posters designed by either Foreman or his predecessor, Kevin Scally, all drawn from a larger archive held by the National Print Museum.
Foreman and Scally created hundreds of posters between them over a two-decade period. In a pre-digital age, a 'run' of posters for one production consisted of between 200 and 500 units. In 1966, Michael Scott, the architect of the 'new' Abbey Theatre, included display cases on the exterior of his new building to accommodate these forms of mass advertising. However, Dublin's streets, cafes and pubs were where the promotion of plays really took place: plastered beside and over other advertisements, these theatre posters jostled for attention and became integral to the fabric of the city.
The exhibition created several opportunities: to draw out new perspectives on the history of the National Theatre, while simultaneously – and in keeping with the remit of the National Print Museum, to preserve the craft of printing and showcase graphic design and print cultures – to contribute to the history of Irish graphic design and Irish social history more broadly.
Poster Boys encourages the visitor to question. For example: how can an entire narrative (play) be successfully synopsised into a single image (poster)? What factors (theatre directors, technologies, personal preferences etc.) determine the visual interpretation of a play? What print technologies were used to create these posters and how has the printing profession changed in light of new modes of communication?
These issues are amplified through the use of Brendan and Kevin's voices which are peppered throughout. They refer to working conditions (Brendan's office was a re-purposed toilet in the basement of the Peacock, Kevin's was his kitchen table); design successes and failures; and the support of family (both designers' young sons were instrumental in the final designs for John B. Keane's Sive (1985) and Pat Ingolsby's Rhymin' Simon (1978]).
The broad range of visual styles employed by both designers is expansive and individual posters reflect Irish popular culture and public interest in any given year. The phenomenon of Space Invaders is referenced in Robert Packard's The Unexpected Death of Jimmy Blizzard (1983); the Wood Quay excavations in Brian Friel's Volunteers (1975), the rise of package holidays in Bernard Farrell's Canaries (1980), and The Troubles in Graham Reid's Hidden Curriculum (1982). The posters also reference the history of international poster design: the influence of French pioneer Toulouse Lautrec is clear in Tom Stoppard's Travesties (1977); post-WW2 Polish posters in Brendan Behan's The Hostage (1980); Milton Glaser's emblematic Bob Dylan poster (1966) in Edna O'Brien's A Pagan Place (1977); or US pulp fiction in Hugh Leonard's Time Was (1976) and the Patrick Pearse Motel (1986), both gently mocking Killiney as a substitute for the Hollywood Hills.
The inclusion of original sketches and artwork gives insights into design and printing processes and a large map records Kevin and Brendan's preferred printing companies (all long gone). During one curator's tour, members of The Chapel - the retired printers and compositors who volunteer with the Museum - recalled that Dublin city once had almost 200 printers while now that figure is in the single digits. Significantly too, both Kevin and Brendan began working as graphic designers at a time when the profession was still emerging. This point is deliberately inflected in the title Poster Boys as a way of acknowledging their pioneering work.
The National Theatre is a beloved institution about which a lot has been written. Poster Boys presents some alternative but complimentary histories, that demonstrate the role of printed heritage in unpacking discrete aspects of Irish social history.
