Dublin 7

October 11, 2013


It is 3 in the morning in Dublin. I left a wake-up call for 4, which I always do but never need.

Did wander Thomas Street past the Guinness tower, which I believe is farther than I’d gone before. It is rougher, working-class, like Camden Street, which always gives me joy to walk upon. I thought of a title for a book, When I Lived on Camden Street. If only now I could recollect enough to write it. Visited the Town Hall Museum, which I had never done, and which is informative. Dublin City has more public space than it knows how to use, now that the Castle in theirs. The light was clear and wonderful, cutting the sharpest shadows, though most of the day was too cold for me. Sat in Farrington’s and wrote a poem, looking out at St. Winifred’s Well. Remembered the Podder, the Dodder, and the Liffey all on my own. Told the barmaid about them. She’d heard of none but the Liffey. She said, patiently turning to her tasks, “You learn something every day.”

Felt triumphant in getting a ticket to the sold-out Neutral Hero, a much-talked of import from the USA. It was awful to the point that one almost thought it a joke, a test slipped in to see how many would fall for intentionally awful work. Linda has a friend in the cast (I tried to guess which one; I think I did) so I didn’t want to talk to her about it afterwards, and fled out into the anonymity of the Temple Bar at the end. My old Galway friend John Nee was there, and even the hope of talking with him was parried by the horror of staying for the talk-back. People sat on a row of chairs, rose and came forward when it was their time to talk. The story, told in long soliloquies which were memorized (and undistinguished, though sometimes viewy) prose, was roughly a young man’s coming of age story. The young man (“the hero” the play called him) was the worst actor on earth, and everyone had a look of panic, or perhaps indifference, on their faces so invariable that the director must have told them to be deliberately without affect. It was something of which the East Side Community center might be modestly proud to put on for Parents’ Night, but for it to be at an international theater festival was ludicrous. Surely someone had seen the thing before issuing the invitation. Linda saw a rehearsal– I will say for it that it was well-memorized– but also she had her friend to consider, and maybe couldn’t say it was crap. How did somebody think to put something like that on a stage? Where did somebody think it fit in the progression of the theater arts? Perhaps I should have stayed for the talk-back to find out.

My cabby home was Nigerian, and we talked about Goodluck Jonathan, and the cabby’s theory that he rose to power by virtue mostly of his name. My cabby the night before was one of those combative Irishman, and I had to deal the whole ride with his wanting to pick a fight.

This, but for one hour, has been the least neurotic sojourn abroad. I thought of little but what I was doing in the moment, and that was well. Barring flight disasters this morning, I will count it all as an unexpected success. The theater was disappointing, though somehow I don’t find myself disappointed. The Merrion is paradise. They saw me sharing a taxi with Linda, and last night at turn-down, they turned down both sides of the bed, left two bottles of water, assuming I had a guest.