The Silver Tassie

28 August 2010

Druid Theatre Company offers a welcome opportunity to see Sean O'Casey's ferocious first World War play, notoriously rejected by W.B.Yeats for the Abbey Theatre in 1928. Harsh, experimental and unsettling, the work is rarely performed now, although Opera Ireland's superb 2001 production of Mark-Anthony Turnage's opera version stands out in recent memory. The nineteen-strong ensemble includes Liam Carney (left), Derbhle Crotty and Aaron Monaghan, and director Garry Hynes has gathered other leading Druid associates around her: Francis O'Connor, set and costume design; Davy Cunningham, lighting design; with a score by Elliot Davis and choreography by David Bolger. After its Galway opening, the show moves to Manchester and Oxford, then to the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival in October, before an Irish tour. A belated lap of honour, perhaps, for the Silver cup of O'Casey's title. At Town Hall Theatre, Galway, until 7 September. www.druid.ie

Kilkenny Arts Festival

11 August 2010

Prepare to surrender control and boundaries this week as Kilkenny Arts Festival's theatre programme takes audiences far away from passive spectation. Those willing to take the risk will be rewarded by immersive experiences from the Belgian company Ontroerend Goed with The Smile off Your Face (pictured) and British live artist Adrian Howels' Foot Washing for the Sole, among other shows. Director Tom Creed programmes work that explores the various kinds of human encounter that are possible in live performance. He joins an impressive line-up of curators including Gerry Godley and Colm Toibín that ensures that this multi-strand festival keeps up with its appreciative audiences. Until Sunday, 15 August.  www.kilkennyarts.ie 

Hold the Passion

17 June 2010

Founder of the Focus Theatre, Deirdre O'Connell, returned to Dublin from New York in the early 1960s bringing with her the approaches to acting and theatre-making she had encountered in the Actors Studio, where she studied under Lee Strasberg. In the Focus she introduced the Stanislavski method to a generation of Irish actors, and the tiny theatre off Pembroke Street became the crucible for experimentation of all kinds, and a favourite venue for audiences. In a new documentary film directed by Ronan O'Leary, performers including Tom Hickey, Gabriel Byrne, Olwen Fouéré and Johnny Murphy recall those years and pay tribute to O'Connell and her enormous influence. The film will be screened on Sunday, June 20th, at the Irish Film Institute, Dublin, at 1 p.m. www.ifi.ie

Dublin Shakespeare Festival

03 June 2010

Okay, we've no idea whether Joseph Fiennes is on the guest list, but he could well be among the crowd at next week's festival of free performances of Shakespeare, in open-air locations and venues in Dublin city centre. Organised by Trinity College Dublin, the centre-piece this year will be a staging by touring company, The GB Company, of As You Like It in the college's Front Square. In this second year of the festival, the programme includes schools, in an attempt to woo Romeos and Juliets away from their 3-D game versions. And for those groundlings averse to blank verse, music and comedy are provided. Very Elizabethan. June 7-12. More information from www.dublinshakespeare.com

Dublin Dance Festival

05 May 2010

Dublin Dance Festival has established itself as an event at which diverse forms and styles of contemporary dance throw shapes at each other. While showcasing new Irish work in the 'Representing Ireland: Mixed Bills', and bringing experimental work from Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands, somehow festival director Laurie Uprichard manages to give choreography from her native US some leg room (left: Yvonne Rainer). The climax is Noche Flamenca at Vicar Street, with the brilliant, gutsy, flamenco star, Soledad Barrio. This year's festival bounces into action from Saturday night, 8 May, with Irish company Junk Ensemble's Five Ways To Drown at Project Arts Centre. Runs at various venues until 23 May. www.dublindancefestival.ie

Who Is Fergus Kilpatrick?

13 April 2010

Attempts to describe this piece risk sounding excruciatingly po-faced. Oh all right then: it's a meta-theatrical twist on meta-theatricality that spirals into ... more of the same. With laughs. The main thing is to stick with it, as the clever performers from The Company test the audience's patience in the first ten minutes or so. Blame Jorge Luis Borges, whose short story sparked off the idea, which the five actors then willfully deconstructed and left strewn around the stage. Or did they? The hit of last year's Dublin Fringe Festival returns to Project for eleven days. From April 13-24, Project Cube, Dublin. 

The Tinker's Curse

23 March 2010

Playwright Michael Harding performs his own work, The Tinker's Curse, which he has refashioned into a riveting monologue from an earlier, three-hander version, from 2007. In richly textured language, rooted in the stories and oral storytelling rhythms of the Travelling community, he narrates the experiences of Mikey Rattigan, back from a pilgrimage to Lough Derg, without solace, bereft. Grieving for his dead daughter, he finds himself only tenuously connected to the world around him.  Read Harvey O'Brien's review. Produced by Focus Theatre at Bewley's Café Theatre, Dublin, until 3 April.

Romeo and Juliet

26 February 2010

Opera Ireland is all loved up this spring season, pairing Gounod's lush opera from 1867 with Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi (in concert performance). French soprano Nathalie Manfrino (left) is Juliette to US tenor Michael Sprye's Romeo, and the production is given a well-upholstered Victorian setting by Annilese Miskimmon, on loan from Opera Theatre Company, where she is artistic director. Matchmakers in the opera world will be watching this courtship keenly. With the RTÉ Concert Orchestra at The Gaiety, Dublin, until 7 March. www.operaireland.ie

The Party

08 February 2010

Anu Productions are on a roll: straight from their site-specific glimpse into transient lives in hotel rooms, Memory Deleted, at Limerick's UnFringed Festival, comes a new lunchtime show at Bewley's Café Theatre, Dublin. Caitríona Ní Mhurchú plays an unfulfilled married woman in the long nineteenth century, out of sync and sympathy with the mood around her, uneasy in her own skin. Directed by Sophie Motley, adapted from Chekhov's short story of the same title, this is a treat for Chekhov fans – or even for those who thought they weren't. See Sara Keating's review. Runs until February 20th,  www.bewleyscafetheatre.com

Theatre Upstairs @ the Plough

23 January 2010

We don't get to see many 'tea-time' shows outside of festival periods, and they're all the more welcome in a recessionary January. Upstairs above Lanigan's Plough bar on Dublin's Lower Abbey Street, audiences are being offered an early evening show (€10 for ticket and drink) and a lunchtime show (€10 for ticket plus soup). This great new initiative from Karl Shiels, Paul Walker and Andy Cummins got off to a strong start until water shortages intervened. Performances have been resumed this week (from January 27th), with Decked, written and directed by Paul Walker, and Missing Football by Peter McKenna, directed by John Cronin. 

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