Reviews

The Making of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore by John Ford

Reviewed by Donald Mahoney on 06 December 2011 6-17 December, 2011 in Project Arts Centre

How many people walked into The Making of Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford expecting a behind-the-scenes dramatization of an obscure film by the director of The Quiet Man? I’ll sheepishly raise my own hand. The John Ford that has tantalised the imagination of Siren Productions artistic...

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The Seafarer by Conor McPherson

Reviewed by Donald Mahoney on 01 December 2011 31 Oct - 3 Dec, 2011 (on tour) in Town Hall Theatre

It is hard not to look at the tawdry sitting room that the Harkin brothers inhabit on the Christmas portrayed in Conor McPherson's The Seafarer without recalling Kierkegaard's definition of despair: “the specific character of despair is precisely this: it is unaware of being despair". McPherson's...

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The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol, in a new version by Roddy Doyle

Reviewed by Harvey O'Brien on 01 December 2011 30 Nov 2011 – 28 Jan 2012 in Abbey Theatre

Sometime in the early nineteenth century in a nondescript Russian village the political establishment is thrown into a state of panic when they hear a Government inspector may be on his way, or worse, he’s already arrived incognito. Hearing a young man has been staying at the local inn and won’t...

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The Prophet of Monto by John Paul Murphy

Reviewed by Jesse Weaver on 29 November 2011 29 Nov – 3 Dec, 2011 in Axis Theatre

The Dublin monologue play, thanks to the success of Conor McPherson and Mark O’Rowe (and the persistence of their imitators) has become its own predictable genre. This is said not to dismiss The Prophet of Monto as yet another ho-hum monologue play, but to point out that there seem to be certain...

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1 in 5 by Marina Carr, Rosemary Jenkinson, Nicola McCartney and Morna Regan

Reviewed by Tom Maguire on 26 November 2011 24 Nov - 1 Dec, 2011 in Roe Valley Hospital, site of former Limavady Workhouse

On a day when a major supermarket was asking me to donate some of the food they had just sold me to a local charity for distribution to the poor, a play about poverty seemed particularly urgent. No-one can fault the ambition of director Paula McFetridge to prick the conscience of a society where the...

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The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Reviewed by Terence Blain on 25 November 2011 25 Nov - 18 Feb, 2012 (on tour) in The Lir

As recently as a year ago the death-rattle was sounding in the throat of Opera Theatre Company, whose forced closure, along with that of Opera Ireland, was intended to clear a pathway for the establishment of a single national opera company. A year later OTC is still fighting fit, with funding through...

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Love, Peace and Robbery by Liam Heylin

Reviewed by Rachael Finucane on 24 November 2011 24 - 26 Nov, 2011 in Belltable Arts Centre

That stalwart of many a crime caper, ‘the one last heist’, is used to hilarious effect in a new production of Liam Heylin’s Love, Peace and Robbery. With a distinct Limerick accent as well as setting, two bungling ex-cons and a talking terrier take the audience along for the getaway...

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Big Maggie by John B. Keane

Reviewed by Harvey O'Brien on 24 November 2011 15 Nov - 11 Feb, 2012 (on tour) in Gaiety Theatre

Overheard while leaving the Gaiety theatre in November 2011: “It was a different time then than it is now.” When Garry Hynes directed Big Maggie on the Abbey stage with Marie Mullen in 2001, I recall thinking (and writing) something very similar. Maggie Polpin’s virtually sociopathic...

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Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Reviewed by Donald Mahoney on 16 November 2011 16 - 19 November, 2011 in The Complex, Smithfield

Fair Verona meets Dublin's Fair City in devise+conquer's energetic new production of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. This tragedy of “starcross'd” lovers from warring families has been endlessly adapted in the four centuries since it was written, but this latest version manages to...

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Tyranny in Beckett: 4 plays by Samuel Beckett

Reviewed by Jennifer Lee on 15 November 2011 15 – 20 Nov, 2011 in Smock Alley Theatre, Boys School

Mouth on Fire presents a rare performance of four short works by Beckett, addressing themes of inhumanity, imprisonment, power and torture. Against the asperous stone walls of Smock Alley’s Boys School, the make-shift wooden stage straddling the balcony arches provides the perfect unadorned focal...

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