Short act to follow.

(From Irish Independent)

HOW DRAMA IS COMING IN SMALLER AND SMALLER PACKAGES

Despite the occasional Broadway or Hollywood epic and the appeal of long-running television serials, drama is coming in smaller and smaller packages. And it suits us.

We pride ourselves on our abilities to multi-task. We have conversations and send text messages at the same time; we check email compulsively, even while writing corporate reports (or theatre reviews). We're happier watching highlight tapes and trailers than full-length matches and movies.

The gradual dwindling away of our species' attention span has created space for new artforms. Short films and even television ads, with their condensed plots, specially composed soundtracks and artsy feel, epitomise the trend towards disposability, because they feel dated after no more than a few weeks. The flash-in-the-pan nature of the internet takes it even further, with the sudden fame and sudden return to anonymity experienced by the subjects of homemade videos on YouTube and Google Video.

Playwrights, who alongside cave-painters practise one of humanity's oldest and most traditional artforms, discovered that audiences lapped up short and sharp doses of drama ages ago. They did it for practical reasons. John Millington Synge wrote 20-minute masterpieces likeRiders to the Sea as curtain-raisers before longer shows likePlayboy of the Western World. A flesh-and-blood trailer, as it were.

When it comes to contemporary drama, though, short plays have generally fallen out of fashion. They're consigned to fringe festivals, even as other forms of culture are speeding up. One troupe working hard to emend that situation is Fishamble.