Irish Classical Theater
By Elizabeth A. McCall
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Irish Classical Theater Co. Director, Vincent O’Neill, in front of the Andrews Theatre downtown.
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Walk into the Market Arcade. Let the atrium swallow you whole. Let the expansive ceiling lift the breath from your chest. Circle the indoor trees and walk through the diffused light and out to the street. Across Main, crowds are pouring out of Shea’s. They mingle and mob and mass and ebb under an oxide-treated, wrought-iron sign that reads “Classical Irish Theatre Co.” They gather to watch the cast rehearsing inside. You begin to get a sneaking feeling—the suspicion of the possibility of a future. In Buffalo. You become aware of the existence of musicals other than Cats and Titanic. There seems to be more than just “Main Street ambience” here—there seems to be an actual theater district. And this Irish Classical Theatre seems to play an integral part.
Is it possible? Buffalo is a city with a theater district. A city with life. A city of light. As you push through the glass doors of the Irish Classical Theater, you are enveloped by inlaid wood and sweet mahogany leather. A black-and-white photograph of a man dominates the lobby. He has an expression you might liken to Roberto Benigni and a gesture, you might, if you are versed in the dramatic arts, characterize as Vladimir’s from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. If you know nothing of the classic dramatic, but you observe very carefully—if you look into his eyes—you might see something bittersweet, something heart-wrenching. You might feel that this is a memorial of some kind, and you might be right. You must thoroughly believe you are not from Buffalo because if you disregard the Market Arcade as we always do, think of it as a desolate and useless structure; if you look at the subway and see a sorry, failed attempt at something greater, leaving you with some thing lesser; if you look at the lights of Shea’s and know they are not Broadway, then you’re a native Buffalonian—you are not Vincent or Chris O’Neill. You are not just off a plane, so eager to see America that, although yours is a household name throughout Ireland and the UK, you just played Waiting for Godot for free in Rochester. You would not sleep on the floor of John Everett’s house, who provided the theater at Nazareth College, and end up in Buffalo, accepting a year-long contract with the Kavinoky Theatre. If you don’t look at this as though you’ve never seen it before, you won’t appreciate it. You have to see it as though you are one of the O’Neill brothers. Vincent O’Neill directed Godot while Chris O’Neill played Vladimir. Their first job in Buffalo completely changed their lives, and now it seems they are changing ours.
The man in the photograph is Chris O’Neill, the late co-founder of the Irish Classical Theatre Company (ICTC) with his brother Vincent O’Neill and Jim Ward. Vincent O’Neill, director of ICTC, practically leaves a trail of glitter everywhere he goes. He waves his arm and you can almost watch the sparkle fall from the sweep of his arm. O’Neill, surely the most verbose mime artist in history (he studied with Marcel Marceau for years), is obviously a show man. The gentle charm of his Dublin accent comforts you—and whether or not his charm is part of his showmanship, it is appealing.
ICTC was originally located in the Calumet Arts Cafe on Chippewa. “With Mark Goldman’s inspired vision, we changed that little delicatessen into a theatre of sorts.” Vincent O’Neill smiles fondly when he mentions his longtime friend Goldman’s name. “There were, of course, two pillars right in the center—it wasn’t perfect. It worked though. It gave us a home.” The results of a demographic survey conducted as the ICTC left the Calumet revealed an overwhelmingly unanimous plea: Please, please don’t lose the intimacy. Don’t lose the dynamic between the actors and the audience.
If you hadn’t heard that the ICTC had doubled its seating capacity with its move to Main Street, you never would’ve known. There are only three rows of seats. It is an intimate experience—the furthest seat is no more than fifteen feet from the actors. A dynamic between audience and actor is unavoidable. The only true theater-in-the-round in Buffalo, the stage is 24 x 24’ with a live acoustic. O’Neill explains the company’s sensitivity to acoustics through its history; “When we were in the Calumet—and we will be forever grateful to Mark Goldman for giving us the opportunity to have a home—but we were next door to the Third Room. We had an early starting time of 7:30 p.m. (instead of 8 p.m.) so we could get out of there before the bar crowd came in. But if it was a long play you would be reaching your most sensitive moment in the last ten minutes and they would start pumping ZZTop through the walls. It was...difficult.” In their completely renovated space, they have not only state-of-the-art sound and lighting, but they are 100% column-free. ICTC has transformed the interior, while preserving the exterior of the building.
Three years ago when you looked at the space that ICTC occupies now you would have thought it was three separate buildings. The single building consisted of three facades, twelve feet beyond them was a wall, and beyond that was a mud lot. It was like a movie set. The facades are still historically preserved; to renovate for the new theater they had to remove the support structures brick by brick, and then build onto what was there.
Federal funding helped to build the theater; one of the most important stipulations was to have a residential component. As other great cities in this country have known for decades, to recreate a life and vibrancy in a community there have to be people living there. Finally, a community and sense of life and security is growing downtown. As O’Neill said with a laugh, “Somebody in City Hall has his thinking cap on.” But O’Neill is the one with his thinking cap on. He nurtures those who nurture him. He gives back to Buffalo in a way in which this town is not accustomed.
O’Neill basks in Buffalo. He loves working and living here and his excitement is contagious. He points out the trend of people who have left Buffalo, people who were born here, went to high school or college here, and then went away to New York, San Francisco, or Philidelphia. They are coming back here to work in acting, directing, and design. “Instead of a flight from Buffalo, there seems to be a flight back here because there is now such a substantial amount of work—you have something like fourteen professional or semi-professional theater companies. I think there is no city in America of comparable size with that number of first-class theater companies.”
O’Neill capitalizes on that return flight, drawing from local talent to fuel first-class productions. The mission of ICTC is to produce contemporary and traditional plays, drawing from a broad repertoire of excellent Irish and international authors. The company is looking forward to five challenging shows next season: Bertolt Brecht’s Three Penny Opera; Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House; Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones; Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan; and William Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well. Although recent seasons have been extremely difficult due to moving and settling, the company managed to send two shows off-Broadway in New York and Chicago. O’Neill dreams of acting as a diplomat for Buffalo, making the international festival in Dublin a regular stop on the travel itinerary. “We will send out quality work and other people will say, ‘My god! This is happening in Buffalo! People there really do have high standards. This is quality theater.’ We can create a national image for this company and establish Buffalo as a prime city. I know this is ambitious—but that’s where I came from. I’ve been around the world a couple of times, why not do it again with Irish Classical? This is Buffalo’s theater.”
For more information about the Irish Classical Theatre, call (716) 853-ICTC, or stop by 625 Main Street.
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