The Lyric Theatre began life 75 years ago, in the unlikely surroundings of a family home in a leafy Belfast suburb. Its founder was Mary O’Malley, an indomitable woman from Cork, who was determined that the city should have its own poet’s theatre, similar in outlook to the Dublin drama group of which she had been a member during the 1940s.
The philosophy of Dublin Verse Speaking Society, subsequently renamed the Lyric Players, was modelled on that of the poet WB Yeats, who as one of the founders of the Abbey Theatre insisted on the need to prioritise the words and artistic vision of playwrights.
In 1947, after marrying Pearse O’Malley, a psychiatrist from Co Armagh. the former Mary Margaret Hickey moved north, to a large house on Derryvolgie Avenue, off the affluent Malone Road in Belfast.
Within a few years she had proved herself something of a force of nature. In 1951 she was elected to Belfast Corporation as an Irish Labour Party councillor; in 1958 she was appointed an honorary member of the Ulster Society of Women Artists; and in 1959 she founded the long-running literary magazine Threshold.
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Most significantly, in 1951 she established and was the driving force behind a group of exceptional artists who formed the Lyric Players Theatre. Two of them, the dancer Helen Lewis, a Czech-born survivor of Auschwitz, and the Austrian visual artist Alice Berger Hammerschlag, were refugees from postwar Europe.
Regularly presenting high-quality productions of Irish, English and European classics in the converted stable loft of O’Malley’s home, they injected into the staid theatrical traditions of Northern Ireland a wave of groundbreaking artistic style and vision, entirely in keeping with her quest for creative freedom.
This year the Lyric is celebrating its 75th anniversary with a vibrant, multifaceted programme that places the spirit of its founder very much at its heart.
“We are going right back to the theatre’s origins and celebrating the achievements of the remarkable woman who started it all,” says Jimmy Fay, the Lyric’s executive producer.
“I’ve been asked several times about reviving some of our past shows, but I didn’t want to focus too much on revivals, because the Lyric always has been, and always will be, forward looking, forward moving.
“Still, it’s good to look at a play like Christina Reid’s Tea in a China Cup, which people talked about a lot but which hasn’t had a professional production in a long time. Dan Gordon will be directing it [in May]. He appeared in the original Lyric production and has been able to bring to the table some fascinating information and insights.”
Reflecting on the Lyric’s celebrations, in 2018, of 50 years at its permanent site on Ridgeway Street, Fay recognises that the focus then was fixed on the handsome, award-winning building into which it had moved a few years previously. This time around, he says, the tone and content are quite different.
“For our 75th anniversary it’s about acknowledging the roots of what we are and where we come from – the very idea of the Lyric, if you like, and what it brought to Belfast. While it is now a cultural institution, its beginnings were radical – I mean, the whole Yeats thing was quite avant-garde.
“Mary O’Malley brought here a sense of liberation for the time that was in it. It was postwar; people were looking for something different; and I think that’s how she galvanised and scooped up all those extraordinary artists.
“Take people like Alice and Helen, and Tom Stoppard, who I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. They reinvented themselves as Irish or British people but also brought a distinctive middle-European and Jewish sensibility to their work. That was the energy that Mary tapped into. She created that avenue, that space for those imaginations to explode and try different things.”
The launching pad for the year-long commemorations is A House of Play: 75 Years of the Lyric Players Belfast, a year-long collection of visual arts, theatrical, musical and literary events, showcasing the range of artistic endeavours that constitute the Lyric’s rich history. It kicks off on Friday, January 30th.
Its title is taken from Brian Friel’s expressed good wishes at the opening of the Lyric’s new building in May 2011. His stirring lines are carved in sandstone at the ground-floor entrance: “A new theatre can be the most exciting building in any city. It can be the home of miracles and epiphanies and revelations and renovations. Building a new theatre – especially in times like these – is both an act of fortitude and a gesture of faith in your community. Because what you are saying to that community is this: This is your playhouse – come and play with us here.”
The House of Play programme was conceived and orchestrated by Fay’s colleague Claire Murray. The Lyric’s formal partner for the project is the Ulster Museum; it has also formed associations with the University of Galway, whose library contains the entire Threshold archive, Belfast’s Linen Hall Library and the Seamus Heaney HomePlace, which has lent Carolyn Mulholland’s bronze bust of the poet.
Murray, who is the Lyric’s head of development, comes from a theatrical family; her brother is the actor Fra Fee, who played the role of Katurian in the Gate Theatre production of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman in 2025.
She has put heart and soul into collating this jigsaw of exhibitions, performances, poetry readings, music recitals and one-on-one conversations, describing it as a “real passion project”.
“We are just the stewards of this building,” she says. “We have a responsibility to ensure that the Lyric’s precious legacy lives on after us by bringing together and preserving it for future generations.
“We have so many stories to tell, and that was our jumping-off point. While it has survived and thrived all these years as a theatre, not many people realise that, from 1963 to 1969, the Lyric owned an art gallery, the New Gallery, in the Grosvenor Road, which was run by Alice.
“It also set up Threshold, the longest-running literary journal in Ireland, a modern dance group directed by Helen Lewis, a drama school, and Belfast’s first music academy – now the Belfast School of Music.
“We are acutely aware that, sadly, there are not too many people still around who remember those early days. That was a real motivation for applying to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for money to set up a dedicated, funded post for a heritage manager, someone who would really interrogate and dig into those unearthed treasures.
“We will be honouring the many artists who contributed to the Lyric’s history and built its reputation from its earliest days. We will be clearing Colin Davidson’s portraits from the wall above the stairway – what we call Colin’s wall – and borrowing a lot of works to hang there.
“Anne Friel is generously loaning Basil Blackshaw’s famous portraits of Brian and herself; a private collector is loaning Louis le Brocquy’s portrait of Seamus Heaney, which used to hang in the foyer; there will also be a painting by Jack B Yeats.
“The exhibition will split into two parts. The first part will concentrate on the principal players of the Lyric – Seamus Heaney, Brian Friel, John Hewitt, Sam McCready and others – as well as the visual artists who were involved.
“There will be paintings which celebrate Alice’s and the New Gallery’s legacy, whose ethos was as an outward-looking, European vantage point. Mary wanted to show people new things, to open up new horizons. Threshold’s philosophy was the same.”
From May there will be an exhibition of work that has never been seen before, some by artists who have been forgotten or are virtually unknown. They include Kathleen Bell and Jean Osborne, among others, many of them women, whose work was influenced by Berger Hammerschlag.
There will also be new paintings by Davidson and Neil Shawcross, both of whom have a long history with the Lyric. Shawcross, whose work frequently focuses on objects, has painted Blanche’s trunk from A Streetcar Named Desire, while Davidson’s subject is an aerial, autumnal cityscape of Belfast, with the Lyric clearly visible.
Anniversary events will be hosted on a re-creation of O’Malley’s Derryvolgie Avenue stage in the theatre’s Naughton Studio, complete with 42 uncomfortable wooden chairs and a set painted by Berger Hammerschlag. On the windows overlooking the Lagan, panels depicting famous artists will each represent a different art form – Stella McCusker for actors, Neil Martin for musicians, Heaney for poets, Friel for playwrights and so on. And there will be a special commemorative issue of Threshold, which Fay will edit.
Kim Mawhinney, senior art curator at National Museums NI, expresses both the organisation’s and her own pleasure at this partnership.
“It’s been a real privilege to curate A House of Play, showcasing the original artists and paintings of those who were involved from the Lyric’s very beginning,” she says. “I’m thrilled that our two cultural institutions are working together in this unique way.
[ Threshold: when Belfast was home to a leading Irish literary journalOpens in new window ]
“We’re indebted to the artists and private collectors who have lent significant artworks to hang alongside the theatre’s own collection. I’m excited about other aspects of the project too, like the Threshold poetry exhibition. And I can’t wait to see the re-creation of the Mary O’Malley theatre, which emerged out of our creative collaborative discussions.”
In a cash-strapped climate, where cultural life has slipped so far down the political agenda, one wonders whether it would be possible today to set up such a theatre. Jimmy Fay pauses before answering.
“We’re keen to tap into that adventurous, pioneering, can-do spirit as a way forward. But setting up such a theatre today? My first thought is that it was as impossible, and improbable, then as it is now. It took real vision and a lot of support from family, friends, artists and audiences to create the Lyric in 1961. And it still does.”
A House of Play: 75 Years of the Lyric Players Belfast begins on Friday, January 30th
