Theatre Festival Season is Over but the Best May Still to Come

Production image of Blue Raincoat's upcoming production of First Cosmonaut by Jocelyn Clarke. The best Irish theatre of 2013 may still be on the way.

As usual, the combined mass of Dublin Fringe Festival and Dublin Theatre Festival may have exhausted many theatre goers. But not as normal is the fact that a certain benchmark feels yet to be achieved by this time of the year. The festival season usually produces some of the most powerful productions of the year. For example, at this point last year we had WillFredd's wonderful FARM, Have I No Mouth by Brokentalkers, ANU's The Boys of Foley Street, and the blistering Druid/Murphy cycle. 2013 feels yet to produce something on the same power levels as these works, though LIPPY, Thirteen, and the Gate's A Streetcar Named Desire are definitely up there.

The truth may be that the best plays of 2013 have yet to deliver. And over the next three months several of the country's most exciting companies put on their latest work. So get over your festival fatigue and mark these dates in your calendar:

Corcadorca, ‘The Winter’s Tale’: Godsend

Cork Opera House

Oct 11-22

I managed to catch Corcadorca’s production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale but I don’t have time to do an in-depth review. I have to say though that this is not only the first production of a Shakespearean text by an Irish company that I enjoyed and would recommend (not including postdramatic phenom The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane) but it was also one of the most mesmerising and engaging pieces of theatre I’ve seen all year.

Director Pat Kiernan’s tribal-infused interpretation, keening with Mel Mercier’s score and steeled by Paul Keogan’s frosty lights, is both a chilling and hopeful experience. When Garrett Lombard’s jealous king Leontes clashes with Derbhle Crotty’s courtly Paulina we have a stage equivalent of when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object. Both actors give supreme performances. The second half of the play is less memorable (Shakespeare did give this one a strange structure, starting off with road-signs towards a tragedy and then taking a comedy detour)  but is held together by an amiable cast including Ronan Leahy, Mal Whyte, and the always charming Raymond Keane. I have more thoughts on The Winter’s Tale but I think I’m going to save them for my end of year write-ups in December.

What did everybody else think?