Lighting a Literary Fire 
By Martin Hintz 

Eamon Quinn rushed into McHugh's pub on Belfast's Queen Street. Tousled and breathless, he was between meetings and readings. Laden with playbills, posters and related printed material, the 29-year-old Quinn was making his rounds as administrator of the Tinderbox Theater. 

Tinderbox is currently one of the principal clients of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and is funded by the Belfast City Council. It was also the first theater company in the United Kingdom to receive funding from the National Lottery to commission new plays.

Quinn pushed dark-rimmed glasses back up his nose, settled into a chair, took a deep breath and told the story of one of Britain's most "out-there" theater companies.

Tinderbox has never been content to mollify its audiences, crowds which include loyalists and republicans, Catholics, Protestants and those who just don't care. When a character in a recent Tinderbox play was depicted as a gay IRA fighter, "there was some protest, but at least no one throws stones or gets murdered on the way to the theater in Belfast," Quinn indicated.
The company was organized in 1988 to promote the writing of Northern Ireland's "new cubs," the young writers living through the country's troubled times. The Tinderbox precursor, Theatre 101, was noted for putting on such productions as Harold Pinter's raw One for the Road and his The Dumb Waiter.

"The Tinderbox was formed out of the concept that a spark could set fire to the theater world here. There were few outlets at the time for new works, so we started commissioning plays and one-person reviews that eventually would tour Britain, Europe and even the States," Quinn reported. The first play, Stone by Edward Bond, was "pretty avant-garde" for that time, Quinn recalled.

Noted Irish actor Stephen Rea was involved in one production when his company, Field Day, and Tinderbox co-produced Northern Star by Stewart Parker in October, 1998. "He's always good craic," said Quinn of Rea, "but there's no bullshit about him. He has hugely high standards and pushes us always to do better."

Among the plays presented over the past few years have been Stewart Parker's Catchpenny Twist and his Pentecost, Brian Friel's Faith Healer, Marina Carr's This Love Thing, Ken Bourke's Galloping Buck Jones , Joseph Crilly's Second-Hand Thunder and Daragh Carville's comedic Dumped . The company's presentations have earned dozens of awards, including the Allied Irish Bank Better Ireland Award for promotion of new writing. It is also involved in a Canada-Northern Ireland writers' exchange.
"As a new writing company, we can jump into bed with anyone," Quinn smiled.

Although Tinderbox isn't producing anything this spring, it doesn't mean that activities are moribund. As always, Tinderbox it is concentrating on developmental work and is in the process of recruiting a new artistic director. Already this year, the company has commissioned Tim Loane — a founder of Tinderbox and an Oscar nominee in 1998 for directing in the Best Short Film category -- to write his first stage play.

Quinn, from Bessbrook — a small town near Newry in South Armagh — attended Queens University in Belfast and received a degree in English literature. While in school, he became involved in amateur drama productions, usually working behind-the-scenes as a stage manager. "I rather decided to get out of that because as stage manager, you'd be lifting heavy things for the rest of your life," he laughed. 

He subsequently went on to link with the Tinderbox as its administrator, which gave him more control over operations rather than having to do backbreaking grunt work all the time.

"Irish theater is no longer looked on as a big ticket item. Now, smaller companies like ours are on the scene," Quinn pointed out. "And, of course, even we always have to deal with Northern Ireland issues, like sectarianism. But we encourage audiences to look further afield, to the outer world beyond Belfast," he said. "Obviously, politics permeates our lives even if we don't want it." Tinderbox considers itself an Irish theater in the sense, as Quinn indicated, that "when we say, 'Ireland,' it isn't a political statement. It's just where we are." 

Quinn went on to point out that Tinderbox "tries to strip back the veneer of life in Northern Ireland and gets beyond any single issue, as well. Imagine yourself as a writer only writing about contemporary events. If you simply did that, part of your plays can be out-of-date in no time, so we need to go for broader issues." Quinn said that it was embarrassing for young writers and performers in Belfast to meet people from other parts of the world who have managed to resolve their differences. Tinderbox does not utilize a set troupe of actors, but draws on quality performers throughout the artistic community. Peter Ballance, who starred as Tim in Daragh Carville's Language Roulette, recently toured the States with Belfast's Lyric Theatre production of Philadelphia, Here I Come. Emma O'Neill, as Anna in the same play, was graduated with honors in English literature from Queen's University and appears regularly on BBC Northern Ireland radio and television, as well in numerous stage presentations.

The company is seeking a set venue for its plays, a real home, according to Quinn. Such a move is necessary to continue growing, he said. In the past, Tinderbox has put on plays in churches, the Ulster Museum, the Lyric Theatre and numerous other halls that were available for the run of a p lay. "Ah, we're looking for a 200-250 seater that would be a magnet for work from outside Belfast, in addition to nurturing our locals," he said.

Quinn looked around the pub, cocking his heard toward the rush of traffic on the street beyond the stained glass windows. "There's a lot of material to write about here, but that can be a curse as well as a blessing," he concluded.
 
 

For more information on the Tinderbox Theatre Company, contact Eamon Quinn at McAvoy House, 17a Ormeau Ave., Belfast, BT2 BHD (email: tinder@dircon.co.uk; phone: 44 28 9043 9313)