Reviews

Mouth to Mouth by Kevin Elyot

Reviewed by Patrick Brennan on 28 September 2010 24 Aug - 4 Sept, 2010 in Project Cube

Crooked House Theatre Company are developing a reputation for staging difficult and narratively layered and complex modern drama. Following last year’s very successful Breathing Corpses, they have now put their skilful hands to Kevin Elyot’s funny and tragic drama Mouth to Mouth, a play about...

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The Silver Tassie by Sean O'Casey

Reviewed by Donald Mahoney on 28 August 2010 28 Aug - 24 Oct, 2010 (on tour) in The Town Hall Theatre, Galway

One of the more memorable moments in Druid’s epic production of Sean O’Casey’s first World War lament The Silver Tassie, has nothing to do with battle. In the beginning of the final act, Sylvester Heegan (Eamon Morrissey) and Simon Norton (John Olohan) are enjoying some banter at a...

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Happy Days by Samuel Beckett

Reviewed by Derek West on 26 August 2010 23 August – 4 September, 2010 in Players Studio, Samuel Beckett Theatre

AC Productions brings commitment and dedication to Happy Days, even if it is a somewhat thankless task (there were eleven at the performance being reviewed). Happy Days can be a challenging work but, to echo Miller’s line in Death of a Salesman at the Gate, “attention must be paid.”...

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A Dream Play by August Strindberg in a version by Caryl Churchill

Reviewed by Fintan Walsh on 25 August 2010 25-28 August, 2010 in Peaock Theatre

A few furry spectators mark their territory as the audience file in to watch the National Youth Theatre’s production in the Peacock theatre. The humanoid bunnies that fill a few seats, and eventually kick off the performance by eyeballing us from the gallery, are an obvious nod to Wonderland, or...

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The Gingerbread House by John Chambers

Reviewed by Breda Shannon on 20 August 2010 17-21 August, 2010 in Nuns Island Theatre, Galway

If you’ve ever wondered how the parents of Hansel and Gretel coped after abandoning their children in the woods, before the wicked step-mother died and the children returned for the happy-ever after, John Chambers’ The Gingerbread House, takes you into their den of domestic hell and tries...

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Baglady by Frank McGuinness

Reviewed by Jesse Weaver on 09 August 2010 9 - 21 August, 2010 in Focus Theatre

The most remarkable aspect of Frank McGuinness’s monologue play is its ability to implicate an entire society while focusing on a lone soul torn asunder by an act of familial violation. While the centerpiece of Baglady’s fragmented narrative is the eponymous character’s rape at the...

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Where Did It All Go Right? by Ponydance

Reviewed by Patrick Brennan on 08 August 2010 6- 8 August, 2010 in The Left Bank, Kilkenny

Where Did It All Go Right? is a highly engaging and charming adrenaline rush of a contemporary dance piece, where the emphasis is most definitely on contemporary. With no little skill, Ponydance manage to recreate an intense clubbing-cum-pop sensibility and style of dance that yet is underpinned and...

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Tarry Flynn by Patrick Kavanagh, adapted for stage by Conall Morrison

Reviewed by Siobhán O'Gorman on 07 August 2010 3 – 8 August, 2010 in Town Hall Theatre, Galway

Patrick Kavanagh’s semi-autobiographical character Tarry Flynn reveres literature and, like a Romantic poet, fancies himself as a specially-inspired mediator between nature and man. He believes that all ordinary objects and acts can carry within them “the energy of the imagination”....

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Disco Pigs by Enda Walsh

Reviewed by Siobhán O'Gorman on 06 August 2010 3 – 7 August, 2010 in Town Hall Studio

Permeated by a sense of entrapment, the theatre of Enda Walsh is at its best when performed in intimate spaces. While real freedom seems just beyond the grasp of many of his characters, his romantic two-hander Disco Pigs is more hopeful than much of his later work. As the adventures of Pig and Runt descend...

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The Colleen Bawn by Dion Boucicault

Reviewed by Christina Hunt Mahony on 05 August 2010 26 July - 04 September, 2010 in Project Arts Centre

Dion Boucicault’s melodrama is enjoying a resurgence of popularity, but in truth it has rarely been out of fashion for long in more than a century. The convincing staging of such melodrama requires a consistently calibrated approach in which acting, costuming, staging and direction convey a single...

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Review Archive

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