Sir, – The closure of the Lambert Puppet Theatre after some 46 years should be seen as a larger and more complex problem than simply the loss of a small but charming source of entertainment for the young. Its demise needs to be understood as the outcome of major policy failings in local and national arts policy, education policy and cultural infrastructural planning. For the theatre to have survived as long as it did is a remarkable testimony to its company and founders but the challenges of long-term survival in the arts are ultimately too great unless achieved within a larger, thriving ecosystem.
Producing intelligent, imaginative, live entertainment for young people has largely disappeared as a concept. RTÉ, which was extremely important in the establishment of Lambert in the public imagination, has effectively abandoned meaningful programming for young people altogether. With the exception of very fine work at the Arc in Dublin, theatre for young audiences is left to the efforts of a small band of touring companies doing their best on minuscule budgets and facing into the headwind of a primary and secondary curriculum which, under the current ministry, is doing what it can to thoroughly root out the arts and liberal studies. While the addition of computer coding and computer science in our national curriculum is not without merit, a young person’s learning experience without the human insight, imagination and dreams of companies such as the Lambert looks like an ever-more arid and featureless landscape with little scope for the key question of all learning: “What if?”
As anyone working with young people on a regular basis will confirm, their imaginative power is extraordinary but fragile. Access to live theatre and challenging screen-based entertainment is essential in helping children and young adults to develop fundamental emotional, ethical and social skills and to not just to see themselves as economic units.
Within a local and national setting there is far too little mutualisation of resource. Two very fine studio theatres exist within a mile or two of the Lambert’s current home and are generally empty during the day when young audiences could attend. The cost to the State in maintaining this modestly scaled but influentially significant company would be small. The Lambert’s contribution and the emotional and physical energy they have expended generationally means that they have earned a break if they want it. But before we let this wagon roll down the road and into the sunset permanently let’s consider, “What if?” – Yours, etc,
LIAM DOONA,
Knockfadda,
Roundwood, Co Wicklow.