This Motal Coil

MICHAEL D. Higgins obviously got under the hypersensitive skin of Sunday Independent journalists who have accelerated their systematic, and at points, paranoiac attack on the Minister since he proposed some relatively revolutionary ideas about the arts, in a recent issue of Hot Press.

Last Sunday week the newspaper allowed the fourth of six of its writers to attempt to undermine some of these concepts, namely Michael D's suggestion that tax-free status be extended from "creative" to "interpretative" artists, such as actors. He also argued that theatre directors and producers should be considered as eligible for Aosdana grants.

If either of these options was currently available for people who work in theatre then perhaps Dublin's Olympia Theatre would have no need to stage a benefit evening for actor Godfrey Quigley, who is unable to work due to Alzheimer's Disease, complicated by chronic emphysema. However, the show must go on . . .

On Sunday, September 12th Niall Toibin will present a special performance of Anthony Shaffer's thriller Sleuth starring Alan Stanford and Robert O'Mahoney, the proceeds from which will be used to "improve the quality of Godfrey Quigley's life by, hopefully, installing a chair-lift in his house and eliminating some of the constant worry of continued medical expenses," according to Olympia spokesperson, Ann Sinnott.

Niall Toibin - though he rejects Michael D. Higgins' suggestion that actors might be exempted from paying tax - agrees that they should be eligible for Aosdana grants.

"Basically, I don't think anybody should be free from having to pay tax but his idea to widen the range of people who can receive yearly grants as members of Aosdana is certainly something worth pursuing," he says. "And the point about Godfrey is that had he been stricken by most other diseases he would have been able to work but he can't, because Alzheimer's is so debilitating. In fact, he probably won't know what's going on in the Olympia on the night."

Toibin and Quigley have been friends for years and worked together in plays such as Liam Liar. Niall admits that, although he himself doesn't need Alzheimer's Disease to strike a colleague in order to be reminded of his own mortality, the experience has made him doubly aware of how transient theatrical careers are.

"Basically, I've realised that nobody remembers you after a few years," he says. "In normal circumstances nobody ever talks about Michael McLiammoir anymore. Once you stop performing, you're gone, vanished. Whereas, if you're a big film name, there's always the possibility of a revival or your movies being shown on television - whatever. Yet what's awfully sad is that the great performances given by all actors on stage are lost forever.

"It's only about 12, 13 years since Michael died and what amazed me when I did the show in the Tivoli earlier this year was that there were some 30-year-olds who didn't know who Michael McLiammoir was. That really shocked me and saddened me, to a degree."

And yet Niall Toibin, as a lover of theatre, still wouldn't advise actors to head instead for the world of film. "No," he says laughing. "I'd tell them to get as much money as they can, while it's going, by way of compensation. Because, for all the years you put into it, you're not going to get any degree of immortality from theatre."

Recommended: The work of playwrights, on the other hand, clearly lives for decades, after their deaths, and longer. Under the banner of Art and the Spiritual, and courtesy of Coca Cola, the Yeats Festival returns to the Peacock stage for the fifth time from September 1st-25th. This year, the plays are The Hour-Glass, The Words Upon the Windowpane and The Cat and the Canary.

Yet to prove he has quite the longevity of Yeats, Paul Mercier has two plays in production in Dublin at the moment, Studs (Tivoli) and Pilgrims (Project). Both are recommended, though I can't get away from my personal reservations about the work of Passion Machine, which does, I still believe, tend to present patronising perspectives on Dublin's working class.

I would have no reservations whatsoever, meanwhile, in recommending Co-Motion's Frank Pig Says Hello at the Gate.