Irish Theatre to See in 2015

ANU Productions present PALS, an installation based on events surrounding the Irish who fought at Gallipoli in WWI. 

Some plays for your diary ...

More Irish Theatre Highlights of 2014

School was out this summer and some of the first graduates of The Lir lent serious verve to Selina Cartmell's kinetic staging of Punk Rock. 

I already made a list of my top 10 Irish theatre productions of 2014 but here are more highlights that deserve mention ...

Gate Theatre, 'The Mariner': Off a Duck's Back

Can Hugo Hamilton's play plunge the depths of the great silence that Irish men brought home from WWI? 

Gate Theatre, Dublin Theatre Festival 

Sept 30-Oct 25

My review of The Mariner by Hugo Hamilton coming up after the jump ...

Fay Brings Northern Soul to Lyric, Abbey Premieres New Mark O'Rowe Play

The Lyric Theatre's new Executive Producer Jimmy Fay to direct Judith Roddy and Carol Moore in a production of Pentecost.

The Lyric Theatre announced its new season yesterday, the first under the direction of new Executive Producer Jimmy Fay. The Abbey Theatre also revealed a sneak peak of their Autumn/Winter line-up. My thoughts on both after the jump ...

Gate Theatre, 'The Vortex': The Hostess With the Mostess

Noël Coward said that his plays should foremost entertain the audience. Can Annabelle Comyn get The Vortex to sing a more provoking note? 

Gate Theatre

Feb 18-Mar 22

My review of The Vortex by Noël Coward coming up just as soon as I labour eternally over the delusion that I somehow matter ...

More Irish Theatre Highlights of 2013

Wayne Jordan's kinetic production of The Threepenny Opera brought movement that is rarely seen on the Gate stage.

I already made a list of the top 10 Irish theatre productions of 2013 but here are more highlights that deserve mention ...

Irish Theatre Top 10 of 2013

Lloyd Cooney tearing it up in No. 14 Henrietta Street during ANU Productions' marking of the 1913 Lockout centenary.

As per the year end ramble of making lists of the year's best in music, cinema and such, below I give what I think are the highlights of 2013 in Irish theatre.

Before I begin I'll disclaim that while my scope is very Dublin-centred I did travel and provide extensive coverage of both the Cork Midsummer Festival and Galway Arts Festival. My misgivings include failed trips to Limerick, to the Blue Raincoat productions in Sligo, the Beckett Happy Days Festival in Enniskillen, the City of Culture events in Derry, and to any of the theatres in Belfast. These aside, however, I'll argue that this still is a comprehensive list of the year's finest in Irish theatre.

This year I made the decision to drop out of college and begin writing to arts editors looking for a job (if any of you said editors are reading, expect more pesterings in your inbox).

This commitment has meant that I have reviewed 102 performances in 2013 whilst keeping up the day job. These were spread between the reviews here, for Irish Theatre Magazine, and some work that I do for the Arts Council. The most read reviews here on the blog were my reviews of King Lear and Living the Lockout, my counterpoint to Una Mullally's Irish Times article on the most creative people in Ireland, and my opinion piece reacting to the Limerick City of Culture programme. 

Choosing 10 out of 102 wasn't easy but here they are:

Gate Theatre, 'The Threepenny Opera': A Question of Give and Take

Photo: Matthew Thompson

Gate Theatre, Dublin Theatre Festival
Oct 1-Nov 2

My review of The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill coming up just as soon as I sing a ballad in which I beg all men for forgiveness ...

Gate Theatre, 'A Streetcar Named Desire': Don't You Just Love Those Long Rainy Afternoons in Dublin?

Photo: Peter Rowen

Gate Theatre

Jul 18-Sept 21

My review of A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennesse Williams coming up just as soon as I instill a bunch of drugstore Romeos with a reverence for Hawthorne and Whitman and Poe ... 

Theatre Festival Reminds Us of Ireland's International Standing

Estragon, Vladimir, Pozzo, Lucky and the Boy are back.

The Dublin Theatre Festival (Sept 26-Oct 13) line-up was revealed yesterday.

"Come Out to Play" is the header of this year's programme, and from looking at it you'd think that it's a message meant especially for the international community, as if Festival Director Willie White is saying: "Dublin is ready to play"

Last year's programme was heavily dependent on home-grown artists - a circumstance possibly due to the lack of a replacement sponsor after Ulster Bank. Still, it was a strong festival that put the best of Irish theatre into action (it was great to see The Corn Exchange landing the Gaiety stage and The Company graduating onto a bigger platform) as well as hosting acclaimed international acts such as Elevator Repair Service, Forced Entertainment and the Wooster Group.

There are many more performances being flown in this time around. Richard Maxwell's New York City Players come from the height of NYC's experimental downtown scene with Neutral Hero. Listed as one of the top ten shows of 2012 in the New York Times, this tells the story of a man searching for his father in the wide open landscape of the American Midwest using the company's unique neutral style.

We also have the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of the narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece performed by the sensational Camille O'Sullivan. Pushing the boundaries of contemporary circus, Australian company Circa deliver their "exquisite cabaret of the senses": Wunderkammer. From Portugal comes Mundo Perfeito's Three fingers below the knee - a performance informed by the archives of the censorship commission established during Salazar's dictatorship which exposes the oppression of artistic and political freedom felt during that time. While The Events - the most recent play by Scotland's acclaimed dramatist David Greig - comes to the Abbey's Peacock Stage.

Speaking of which, the Abbey will be the site of the first original Frank McGuinness play there (or anywhere else?) in fourteen years. The Hanging Gardens promises to be a  familiar portrait of the Irish family, centering on a writer and the tensions in his family(*). The original play comes after a lengthy string of adaptations at the Abbey such as John Gabriel Borkman and The Dead, and is directed by Irish director supreme Patrick Mason. While over at the Gate, director Wayne Jordan tackle's Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera - the "epic masterpiece of 20th century musical theatre". Brecht never seems to be performed in Ireland, and it's nice to see the Gate re-introducing him to an Irish audience (considering its historic role as being the Irish hub for the hits of European modernism back in the day) injected with Jordan's fresh and chic vision (Alice in Funderland anyone?). You might also want to drool over the cast lists for both shows


(*) Calling it now: the son character described as "struggling for his father's acceptance" is homosexual. It seems to be McGuinness's go-to insecurity in a male character, as seen in 'The Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme' and 'Dolly West's Kitchen'.


Of course, in a time when Brecht was pushing the form and Ireland's dramatists seemed concerned only with insular matters and basic modes of realism, we could claim Samuel Beckett as our proud contribution to the world of European modernism. Waiting for Godot comes to the Gaiety Theatre from acclaimed Beckett interpreters: the Gare St Lazare Players. Continuing to represent Irish theatre's ability to innovate, with their own unique incorporation of international styles, The Corn Exchange turn to Eugene O'Neill's early American masterpiece Desire Under the Elms. Whenever I see that The Corn Exchange are doing an adaptation part of me hopes that they push their commedia dell'arte masks to the max, as they did in their adaptation of Chekov's The Seagull way back when. Commedia's stock characters are locked in specific and extreme emotional states, and so are antithetic to the dominant mode of psychological realism where characters undergo behavioral change. The clash between both performance traditions has wielded fantastic results in the past.

Both members of Operating Theatre (Ireland's seminal avant garde company) are also in here, with Olwen Fouéré's riverrun celebrating the elemental journey of Anna Livia Plurabelle in James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, and an in development showing of Roger Doyle's opera about the Renaissance genius Giordano Bruno.

Unfortunately, Irish Theatre Institute's ReViewed series seems to be missing. This initiative brought back strong productions which were felt deserving of a wider audience.

Also: the ghost of Maeve Brennan returns as Eamon Morrissey reveals how the Irish-born writer for the New Yorker caught up with him in his one-man show Maeve's House; Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 18th century satire The Critic receives a new production by Rough Magic; and Theatre Lovett take on the Brothers Grimm with A Feast of Bones.

Ultimately, this year's Dublin Theatre Festival aims to prove Ireland's abilities to host the cutting edge of international theatre, while simultaneously demonstrating that Irish theatre has a significant part to play.

Towards More Landmark Plays

Cillian Murphy in Misterman fighting against the trend of 'fundraiser plays'

One of the oldest rules in the book to guarantee a theatre company's survival has been to build a repertoire of plays, preferably ones that have earned a buck at the box office. The strategy is to draw on past hits, specific to the company or to the commercial theatre in general, and use funds to stay afloat. These fundraiser plays are safe and they may feel like nothing new but sometimes they're used to fund a later production that is compellingly new, rich with risk and innovation, something that will stay in your memory for years to come: the landmark play. What merit we can award a company depends on how that balance is struck between the fundraiser play, with its necessities of survival, and the landmark play, which can truly advance the artistry of the company.

Gate Theatre, ‘Boston Marriage’: Speaking Mamet

Seeing that I’m currently working on a production of David Mamet’s Oleanna for Galway Theatre Festival (PLUG), I went to see Boston Marriage in The Gate. A brief review just as soon as I achieve enlightenment …