The Staging and Boundaries of Sufjan Stevens’ 'Age of Adz'

To change gears a little, I was at Sufjan Stevens’ show in the Olympia this week and was really struck by his use of performance space. A few thoughts on the event coming up just as soon as I tell a volcano I’m insecure ...

Calipo Theatre, ‘Pineapple’: Silver Spoons

Draíocht, Blanchardstown, Dublin

May 5-6

My review of the terrific Pineapple coming up just as soon as these Custard Creams stare me out of it ...

Musings Listings: May 2011

With ceaseless touring productions, three performance festivals, and two renovated venues; May is one very busy month for theatre.

We’ll start with the Abbey. Pygmalion has mustered many good reviews since starting its run. George Bernard Shaw’s comedy is a ‘Taming of the Shrew’-style story about a linguistics professor’s efforts to turn an impoverished flower girl into a lady under the pretence of a bet. The production runs until June 11. It will be accompanied by Perve on the Peacock stage from May 25 – the last instalment of the Abbey’s quartet of new plays this year. Concept-wise, Gregg’s play always sounded to me to be the most intriguing of the four – an overambitious film student and his controversial project that will “question his idealism and turn his life and that of his family upside down”.

Across town, The Beauty Queen of Leeane runs at the Gaiety May 11-June 4. Martin McDonagh’s devilish comedy is about a lonely middle-aged spinster and her manipulative mother. Beauty Queen has been on the go for fifteen years now, and with numerous awards under its belt, I’m sure this production will maintain the play’s acclaim with Rosaleen Linehan and Derbhle Crotty heading the cast.

My pick of the month is Pineapple at Axis Ballymun May 11-14. The play is an occasion in itself, as it unites Irish talents such as writer Philip McMahon (Alice in Funderland, All Over Town), director David Horan (Moment), and great performers such as Janet Moran (Freefall, No Romance), Nick Lee (Delirium, DruidSynge) and Caoilfhionn Dunne (10 Dates With Mad Mary, Christ Deliver Us!). McMahon’s play about the community in the Ballymun Flats is darkly comic and sweetly disarming (my review of it will be up shortly).

Abbey Theatre & Trinity College Dublin, A Reading of Thomas Kilroy’s ‘Blake’

I went to the reading of Blake – the anticipated new play by Thomas Kilroy – in the Samuel Beckett Theatre on Saturday night. I originally intended to write a detailed piece on the play but decided my thoughts would be better left published for if/when the play is staged. This way, I’m not spoiling it for anyone who wasn’t at the reading or would prefer to wait and see a full-scale commissioned production.

What I will say about the play is that it is a Kilroy piece through-and-through: a drama about an individual suffering the brunt of the consequences of their culture’s thoughts and actions. Kilroy’s play is about the English poet, painter, and mystic William Blake, and his confinement in a medical institution for “lunatics”. The play is set at the dawn of the Romantic age, where the fancies of Blake’s visions receive no welcome. England’s concern is solely with fighting off Napoleon in the name of “civilization”, and inventive flights of the imagination such as these are only harmful to the practical inquisitions of the Enlightenment period. William’s wife Catherine pleads desperately for her husband’s release, and the bargains put before her test the extraordinary love between her and her husband.

Kilroy’s writing is as beautiful as ever, bequeathing the ironies of his story with poetic delivery. His hand for humour still tickles the gravity of his characters’ climates. The expressionist style that he always took fancy to in his scene descriptions still beats through his work, though not as prominent as in Talbot’s Box. With Blake, it is a song that peeks through the play’s realist settings. Like Christ Deliver Us!, the outcome of the story does take an expressionist route. I personally found the “We live under the sign of a question mark” climax of Christ Deliver Us! to be the play’s weakest move, so it is with such caution that I treat Blake’s endgame. We will see.

This reading was put together by Irish theatre director supreme Patrick Mason (whose previous collaborations with Kilroy include Talbot’s Box and The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde). His cast of seven is filled with very likeable actors with impressive resumés, among them: Jim Norton (Tony winner for his performance in Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer), Barbara Brennan (of Hugh Leonard’s The Lily Lally Show fame), Cathy Belton and Michael McElhatton (both of whom had supporting roles as Mr. And Mrs. Grainger in Kilroy’s Christ Deliver Us! last year), and Brian Bennett (of 21^st century pioneers The Company). I really hope that as much of this creative team remains if/when the play is commissioned, especially Norton and Brennan, who had brilliant chemistry as Mr and Mrs Blake.

As for a commissioned production of Blake in the near future: nothing has been announced yet. I would say the odds are in our favour. Kilroy is on the board of the Abbey Theatre after all. Here’s hoping that it’s sometime in 2012.

What did everybody else think? 

The Ark & Theatre Lovett, ‘The Girl Who Forgot to Sing Badly’: Are the Kids Alright?

The Peacock, Dublin

April 12-30

My review of The Girl Who Forgot to Sing Badly coming up just as soon as some of my greatest sadnesses are alleviated by goats ... 

Shaun Dunne and Talking Shop Ensemble, ‘I Am A Home Bird (It’s Very Hard)’: Hometown Glory

Project Arts centre, Dublin

Apr 6-16

My review of I’m A Home Bird (It’s Very Hard) coming up just as soon as I use pearl rice in my risotto ...

Musings Listings: April 2011

Where to start, where to start? The theme of April 2011 seems to be contemporary writing.

First off: there are four nationwide-touring productions written by acclaimed contemporary voices at the go at the moment. Fishamble bring Sebastian Barry’s award-winning The Pride of Parnell Street – “a series of intercutting monologues [in which] Janet and Joe chart the intimacies of their love and the rupturing of their relationship. An intimate, heroic tale of ordinary and extraordinary life on the streets of Dublin” – to Siamsa Tíre, Tralee (Apr 27-28); and Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoise (Apr 30) before more dates next month. Fresh from a successful run in the Bush Theatre in London, Tall Tales Theatre bring Deirdre Kinahan’s Moment – a play about an Irish man’s homecoming to his family after serving a prison sentence – will be in Draíocht, Blanchardstown (Apr 6); Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray (Apr 8-9); Civic Theatre, Tallaght (Apr 12-16); Solstice Arts Centre, Navan (Apr 20-21); and Town Hall Theatre, Galway (Apr 26-30). Dermot Bolger’s new play The Parting Glass is a sequel to his 1990 play In High Germany, which told the story of three young Irish men and their decisions to emigrate. Bolger brings one of those men back in The Parting Glass, returning home to a post-boom Ireland. The play runs at the Project Arts Centre until Apr 16, and then heads to the Riverbank for Apr 21. Lastly, Decadent Theatre’s production of The Quare Land – “a hilarious Celtic Tiger parable” in which a man negotiates from his bathtub with a NAMA developer to sell his field – will be at the Riverbank Apr 17.

My pick of the month is the play reading of Thomas Kilroy’s Blake – a new play about romanticist William Blake – at the Samuel Beckett Theatre Apr 30. Personally, I think Kilroy is the best playwright in the country, capable of capturing the cultural consciousness of a given moment in history with sweet and brutal poetic sensitivity, as seen in the likes of Talbot’s Box and Christ Deliver Us!. Furthermore, his depictions of real life individuals such as wartime apostles Brendan Bracken and William Joyce (Double Cross), Oscar Wilde’s wife Constance (The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde) and his lover and poet Lord Alfred Douglas (My Scandalous Life) have been rather brilliant, and thus it is with great assurance that Blake should be something special. The reading takes place as part of a two day ‘Across the Boundaries: Talking about Thomas Kilroy’ event in Trinity College Dublin, Apr 29-30, where you can go to a few talks free admission. Irish veteran director Patrick Mason, who has brought to stage the greatest Irish plays of the last half a century, and who previously staged Kilroy’s Talbot’s Box and The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde, is helming the reading. Tickets are available from the Abbey box office for a super reasonable 6 euro!  

 Lynne Parker of Rough Magic gusto brings Finegan Kruckemeyer’s acclaimed The Girl Who Forgot to Sing Badly (Apr 12-30, pictured above) to the Abbey’s Peacock stage (which has been home to some exciting productions as of late). Louis Lovett sings as the gloriously off-key Peggy O’Hegarty, who takes off on an imaginatively inventive adventure to save the day. Child-friendly and tickets available at the Abbey-cheap price of 15 euro (10 concession).

Meanwhile in the West, Galway ensemble Mephisto bring Tara McKevitt’s P.J. O’Connor winner Grenades (Apr 12-16) to the Town Hall as part of this year’s Cuirt Festival of Literature. McKevitt’s play about a young girl’s experiences living in Northern Ireland is not only incredibly funny and bittersweet, but also ascends political or retrospective pit-traps. Definitely worth a look.

Drogheda’s Calipo Theatre Company bring Philip McMahon’s (one half of the fantastic THISISPOPBABY) new play Pineapple to the Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda, Apr 29-May 1. The story about two Ballymun youths is described as a “tough and tender drama about love and survival” and is performed by an impressive cast including Janet Moran (Freefall, No Romance) and Nick Lee (Delirium, The Passing).

Talking Shop Ensemble present I Am a Homebird (It’s Very Hard) at the Project Arts Centre until Apr 16. The play’s focus is on the current rate of young Irish people having no choice but to emigrate. Along with The Parting Glass, the Project Arts Centre is currently a site of disposition about the trends of emigration going on in the present.

As for older texts: productions of Lorca’s Blood Wedding (Apr 18-20) and Peter Pan(s) (Apr 19-21) also take to the Project Arts Centre. Four of Beckett’s short plays (Beckett x4) come to the Focus Theatre, Dublin (Apr 11-23). An impressively-cast production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof celebrates the centenary of Tennessee Williams in the Gate all month. And finally, the Abbey present their first ever rendition of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (Apr 27-Jun 11). Is it strange that the Abbey have not done Pypmalion before now (they do describe it as Shaw’s “most popular play)? This comedy is a ‘Taming of the Shrew’-style story about a linguistics professors efforts to turn an impoverished flower girl into a lady under the pretence of a bet.

Also: if you are interested in donating to the Arts, toddle on to fundit.ie and give a couple of bob towards Brokentalkers’ The Blue Boy and THISISPOPBABY’s The Year of Magical Wanking.

What are you thinking of seeing this month?

Second Age, ‘Hamlet’: The Tale of the Two Princes

Town Hall Theatre, Galway

Mar 29-Apr 1

My review of Hamlet coming up just as soon as I beseech you instantly to visit my too much changed son ...

Brokentalkers, ‘The Blue Boy’

Dublin duo Feidlim Cannon and Gary Keegan got off to a rough start. Their dedication to finding new theatrical forms started with a radical restaging of Philadelphia, Here I Come!, which landed them in a spot of trouble with Friel’s lawyers. The experience obviously didn’t discourage the Brokentalkers as they went on to make some of the most imaginative and emotionally resonant work in the past few years. Their back catalogue includes Track – an audio-guided tour of Dublin from an immigrant’s perspective; the Dublin Youth Theatre collaboration This Is Still Life, which implored the melodramatics of youth with sweet sentiment; the long-distance two-hander In Real Life – a moving portrait of human connection that was delicately intimate despite one of the leads skyping from Belgium; and the gorgeous Silver Stars, which featured a male choir that told of the real-life experiences of gay men in Ireland. Cannon and Keegan have honed a stagecraft that fantastically dances not only with our conventional expectations of ‘theatre’ but also with the experiences inherent in contemporary life. With The Blue Boy, the group are looking at the societal imprint of children’s experiences whilst incarcerated at Catholic residential care institutions.

Despite their portfolio, funding bodies are criminally negligent of supporting Brokentalkers, leaving the fate of The Blue Boy uncertain. Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival seem to want it as part of their programme in October, and thus both have launched an initiative with www.fundit.ie  appealing to the public for donations, where they hope to accomplish their 3,000euro target in five weeks. If the target isn’t reached, Brokentalkers cannot produce the show.

I do believe that The Blue Boy is a very important project. If you are wanting to support the arts in some capacity I would recommend starting here.

For more details –

http://www.fundit.ie/project/the-blue-boy-in-development

 Trailer for The Blue Boy –

http://vimeo.com/15835250

Excuses, excuses ... [Redux] and Musings Listings: March 2011

As happened in November, my self-disciplined ways suffered a bit of a setback this month. However, we’re back up and running and expect some regular postings here in the next few weeks as there are a few shows I am planning on going to. This month’s listings are astronomically late, but better late than never right?

There is a lot to admire in March 2011 as the month mainly pays its dues to original and new theatre. This is seen on the utmost funded level with the Abbey’s presentation of three new plays by two contemporary voices. The institution’s diluted commitment to original work is one of its sorest subjects, and rarely do we have the opportunity to see new Irish writing on its stage (Thomas Kilroy’s Christ Deliver Us!, Michael West’s Freefall, and Carmel Winters’ B for Baby are the only examples in 2010 I can think of). Nancy Harris’ Bad Romance (until Apr 2) is described as a “tender and funny tale about our secret selves [that] observes the search for connection in a fractured world”. Female authors and writing that is distinctively ‘female’ is extremely under-developed in this country, with Marina Carr the most notable author of recent times. The very circumstance of having Harris’ work on stage may be cause for celebration but let’s hope that she’s capable of a discourse that is engaging and insightful that will want us to keep her around. Also: Wayne Jordon (Ellamenope Jones) and Janet Moran (Freefall) are attached so it could be a nice show.

The other two plays in the Abbey come from scribe Paul Mercier. I am curious as to why Mac Chongail is investing this heavily in Mercier to supply the goods. His past writing for the company must have brought home the gold. First we have The Passing (Mar 11-Apr 16) which is a story about a woman revisiting her relationship with where she grew up when her parents’ house goes for sale. The East Pier (Mar 18-Apr 16) then is a two-hander with Andrea Irvine and Don Wycherley described as “a chance encounter between two stray souls who discover they are still as deeply connected as they are strangers to one another”.

I’d probably be more inclined to go to THEATREclub’s ‘Spirit of the Fringe’ winner Heroin (Mar 24-26, pictured above) at the Axis Theatre in Ballymun. The show is the product of co-founder Grace Dyas’ research into the social history of heroin-use in Dublin and society’s wilful ignorance of it.