Stanislavski in Ireland: Focus at Fifty is an insight into Ireland's only arthouse theatre from the people who were there. Through interviews, articles, short memoirs and photographs, the book tracks the theatre from its inception, detailing the period under its founder Deirdre O'Connell and then the period following Joe Devlin's arrival as its new artistic director. Many of Ireland's leading theatre and film artists trained and worked at Focus, including Gabriel Byrne, Joan Bergin, Olwen Fouéré, Brendan Coyle, Rebecca Schull, Johnny Murphy, Sean Campion, Tom Hickey, and Mary Elizabeth and Declan Burke-Kennedy. The book comes complete with a chronological list of Productions. It is aimed at students of theatre, actors, directors, academics, as well as the casual reader.
«What I recall from the opening night of Focus productions is a powerful sense, not only of a period and place, but of a set of lives, relationships, conflicts and dramas having been created on stage. The fact that what happened on stage was based on technique lifted the achievement of The Focus Theatre and the contributions of Deirdre O'Connell beyond any individual or occasional brilliance. A new approach to theatre was being launched. A theory and practice based on the work of Konstantin Stanislavski was being made available to Irish theatre.» (Michael D. Higgins, 2001).