LIPPY by DEAD CENTRE is perhaps the most polarising and extraordinary production to premiere at the Dublin Fringe Festival, and (at the last minute) I was asked to review it for Irish Theatre Magazine, the result of which you can find here: http://www.irishtheatremagazine.ie/Reviews/Current/Dublin-Fringe-Festival--Lippy
LIPPY is a performance about the suicide pact of four woman in a house in Leixlip, Co. Kildare thirteen years ago.
Writing the review didn't fully get it out of my system. I mean Christ! - it's one of the riskiest things I've seen, and its use of form and content could have backfired horrendously.
But there's nothing exploitative here (except maybe in the patient pacing it subjects to its audience, but even that feels atmospherically appropriate). In fact, no more respect could be shown to the wishes of these four tragic figures.
The postdramatic aesthetic of avant gardes such as Pan Pan (who DEAD CENTRE's Buch Moukarzel has performed with), can sometimes confound but LIPPY is incredibly accessible. Afterwards, another audience member who admitted that she hardly goes to the theatre told me she found it mind-blowing.
Ultimately, the truth of the sacrifice is the thing, as the four figures, heaven faced, took a meaningful decision to leave a meaningless life. A powerful monologue written by Mark O'Halloran (did you notice how he got the horse in?) imagines the words of a wounded woman, and is given an image suggestive of the mouth in Beckett's Not I. The reference isn't key; it still cries for silence.
What did everybody else think?
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