The Company, 'The Rest Is Action': Victory With a Twist

Getting inside the Oresteia is hard work. For The Company, the challenge is getting out.

Project Arts Centre 

Sept 6-13

My review of The Rest Is Action coming up just as soon as I have sacrificial victims on the altar bleeding all over my house ...

Stepping Out From Under Destiny

Promotional art for The Rest Is Action. How do you present the world without denying that it is completely manufactured? The Company talk about their reinvention of The Oresteia. 

"Maybe I'm older now and bitter" says Jose Miguel Jiminez, theatre director and co-founder of The Company, "but the idea I had when I was younger was that my theatre practice, to a certain extent, had to do with changing the world".

City Bridge Transforms Into Harp as Fringe Festival Invokes Classical Myths

Dublin Fringe opens with Ulysses Opera Company's HARP | A River Cantata - an outdoor performance about the Harp of Dagda.

Painted up in new stripes, Dublin Fringe Festival (running Sept 5-20) went into their programme launch this week with an image and line-up of events that felt refreshingly new. Ahead of his first festival as director, Kris Nelson - formerly a Montreal-based producer - secured the organisation with a new sponsor in Tiger Beer, instilling his confidence in the role. In terms of vision, you'd wonder if he'd continue in the same strain as previous director Roise Goan, who in the years of economic collapse shaped the festival into an important site of theatrical activism. With an emphasis on exploring the city, turning it into a backdrop for Irish and Canadian histories and revisiting ancient mythologies in hopes of claiming something new, it seems that Nelson's adventurous spirit as a recent-arrival in Dublin is set to be infectious.

Irish Theatre to See in 2014

Some plays for your diary ...

Irish Theatre in 2012: Sacred Duties

In keeping with tradition I decided to do another write-up on the year that was, theatre-wise.

Last year I wrote about how I felt about lists and how un-useful they can be, so I'll be keeping with the approach of a discussion. Feel free to contribute in the comments section below.

On the subject of 2012, you'll probably have noticed that this blog has been inactive for most of it. This has been a result of time commitments to PhD research, work, a foray into making theatre (which is perhaps better left undiscussed), and to writing about theatre elsewhere and being paid to do so.

However, I've been thinking a lot recently about returning to the self-publishing ways. Aside from the insane amount of other things I have to do, I've found myself capable of writing faster, and so I think a weekly blog post is certainly achievable.

So please stick around (any press managers out there please retain my contact information!), and I'd like to wish Happy Holidays to all who have been around these parts, even if they have been quieter than usual.

My thoughts on Irish Theatre in 2012 after the jump ...

The Company, 'Politik': Bank Job

Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin

Oct 3-6

My review of Politik coming up just as soon as I dream of a black Christmas ...

ABSOLUT Fringe and Project Arts Centre give us Turn Around

THEATREclub’s sonorous and rompous The Family finished its run this weekend at Project Arts Centre, thus leaving a void in our lives as we await that rare contemporary theatre piece unbound by convention until our Fringe overdose in September.

Thankfully, both the Fringe and Project will be making the wait easier as they announced last week their Turn Around season. In April we will be reunited with five Fringe shows from the past. The release states fringes, so it’s possible we’ll see productions not just from last year but the 2010 and 2009 festivals as well. The Final selected five haven’t been revealed yet but it’s fun to speculate.

So I pose the question: if you could bring back five Fringe productions – whether to relive something you loved or rewrite the past and see what you had previously missed – what would they be?

Here are mine:

Rough Magic SEEDS Showcase, ‘Jumping Off The Earth’: Sailors Fighting In The Dance Hall

Project Arts Centre, ABSOLUT Fringe 2011

Sept 10-17

I reviewed Jumping Off The Earth for Irish Theatre Magazine, which you can read here.

The show’s good fun and I’ll watch José Miguel Jiménez and Brian Bennett’s work for a long time, but I doubt this will gain the indie stardom that their As You Are Now So Once Were We did. JOTE lacks the charm, technique and companionship that made As You Are so watchable, and when it tried to force its sentimental side we could care less. Really interested in seeing all these performers in more projects though, and the idea of a Jiménez and Aedín Cosgrove collaboration will always excite me.

Really interesting in hearing what everybody else thought.

Fringe Talk: Nyree Yergainharsian

The countdown to ABSOLUT Fringe 2011 is on, and in anticipation of its arrival you can find a new interview with a featured artist posted here each day.

Today it is Nyree Yergainharsian, member of 21^st century theatre pioneers The Company and one of the country’s most charming performers, now running solo in search of her place in the world in Where Do I Start? (I reviewed an earlier incarnation of it –beware of spoilers! – here). I caught Nyree on the lunch hour of her nine-to-nine day where she was eating the most impressive sandwich I had ever seen.  

A Guide to ABSOLUT Fringe 2011, ‘Brave New World’

Last week the line-up for this year’s ABSOLUT Fringe was revealed, which will take place in Dublin September 10-25. Sailing under the banner ‘Brave New World’ – this year’s festival intends to chart “a new course through a very changed Irish society”. Below are a few thoughts on the programme and a provisional strategy of what shows I’m going to attend.

Wish I had seen ‘Medea’: Irish Times Theatre Awards Nominations

It’s been over a week since the Irish Times Theatre Awards nominations were announced, and I was too busy working on a show at the time to write my thoughts on them.

First: I’m glad to see Pan Pan’s The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane (*) is a contender for ‘Best Production’. I was curious to see how the judging panel would grade the show considering its postmodern nature and the indefinite variables in its live performance (I wonder how our three Hamlets were considered in the ‘Best Actor’ category?). No show had more confident a harness of theatricality this past year than Playing the Dane, and while Gavin Quinn has carelessly been excluded from the category for ‘Best Direction’ it’s great to see fellow Pan Pan genius Aedín Cosgrove get recognition for her set design. By also throwing Anu Productions’s World’s End Lane into the dogfight, the judges have admirably chosen to acknowledge theatrical ingenuity not only in performance that is strictly traditional but also in the increasing output of postmodern work as well.

(*) The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane review:

http://musingsinintermissions.blogspot.com/2010/10/pan-pan-rehearsal-playing-dane-bins.html#more

Most prominently felt in this shortlist is Siren Productions for their performance of Medea (pictured above) in the Fringe, which has bagged five nominations including ‘Best Production’, ‘Best Director’, and ‘Best Actress’. I didn’t see the show but I have heard good things, and would be interested to hear from those who saw it if they think it deserves such attention.

The Company, ‘As You Are Now So Once Were We’

Peacock Stage, Abbey Theatre, Dublin

Jan 25 – Feb 5

I sang high praise of The Company’s excellent As You Are Now So Once Were We in my ‘Best of Irish Theatre 2010’ over Christmas (a link to that review is at the bottom of this post), and the show comes back tonight on the Peacock Stage for a run until Feb 5. I’m going to use the comments section below as a platform for discussing the show.

The Company invited me to their dress rehearsal today and the show is as fantastic as I remembered. As You Are … is an artifice composed of friendship, cardboard boxes, meticulous performances, charm, and an undercurrent of philosophical hues that are gorgeously imagined.

Go.

Seriously.

 Original Review for ‘As You Are …’:

http://musingsinintermissions.blogspot.com/2010/12/best-of-irish-theatre-2010-5-company-as.html#more

Trailer for ‘As You Are …’:

http://vimeo.com/18954382

Musings Listings: January 2011

Happy 2011! One of my resolutions this year is to make this blog brilliant. One of the areas I feel that need improvement is promotion. Indeed, most of the shows I write about have finished their run by the time I get my pieces about them up. Thus, welcome to a new feature of Musings: a monthly listing of the shows that are on during the given month.

I’m happy to see that January 2011 is notable for other than the panto procession which usually dominates this time of year (though if you do fancy seeing Jafar, Abu, Iago, and company then the Gaiety is the place to go). Personally, my pick of the month is Forced Entertainment’s Void Story (pictured above) (Project Arts Centre, 13-14). Not often do these theatrical daredevils touch down on Irish soil, and those who know them know that they have an uncanny ability to warp theatrical form to marvellously demented results. The play tells the story of two survivors of a decimated civilization in a sort of ‘visual-radio play’ style.

 Also worth going to (even if have already) is The Company’s As You Are No So Once Were We(*), which has its well-earned run on Peacock stage, 25^th-Feb 5^th . Brilliant show.

 * Original review:

http://musingsinintermissions.blogspot.com/2010/12/best-of-irish-theatre-2010-5-company-as.html#more

Also over in Dublin …

Best of Irish Theatre 2010 #5: The Company, 'As You Are Now So Once Were We'

Project Arts Centre, Dublin

Sept 9-15 

 “Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing” - G.M. Trevelyan

“All these here once walked around Dublin. Faithful departed. As you are now so once were we” - James Joyce, 'Ulysses'

                                                                                                  

I am part of a scene. It consists of those of the artistic sort, mostly in their twenties and thirties, not on the receiving end of any annual funding that could make Hamlet’s father fly, and are, undeservedly for some, overlooked.

Dublin ensemble The Company may just be the exception to the rule …

Excuses, excuses …

I have been away from the blogosphere for a while now, mostly because I’ve been busy working on shows. My Oedipus Loves You review will be posted in the next 24 hours, meaning it will be done so ten days after having seen it. From now on I’ll be committing myself to writing and posting materials while they are still relevant and recent. 

Now, in non-economic/political related news …