Lyric Theatre, 'Molly Sweeney': Seeing the Light

Abigail Graham makes a picturesque production out of Friel's lowly play.

Lyric Theatre, Belfast

Feb 8-Mar 8

My review of Molly Sweeney by Brian Friel coming up just as soon as I remember the high summer of my 32nd year ...

Danú Theatre and ORion Productions, 'Breathless'

John MacKenna's play about disappeared women is impressively revived by two headstrong producers.

Smock Alley Theatre
Feb 3-15


I've written a lot this week and unfortunately I don't have time to do a full review of Breathless.


When John MacKenna's play about four disappeared women premiered in 2005 by Kildare's Mend and Makedo company, he noted how missing persons cases in the area had brought an immediacy to the play's content. 

Now co-presented by Sinead O'Riordan's ORion Productions and Danú - a company founded by Donna Patrice to promote female subjectivity in Irish arts - the play is revived with strong production values. David Butler's architecturally aware set impressively builds on from the existing brick walls of Smock Alley and the performances, from industry veteran Ruth McCabe to newcomer Kate Gilmore, are of a professional standard. 

MacKenna's script is more powerful in sentiment than in composition though. It's honourable to restore reputations of humour and dignity to women who violently perished at the hands of men, and furthermore to have the dead debate how they wish to be remembered. It feels inconsequential though; the characters don't transform and there is no link between the discovered details of their disappearance to the resolution of their crisis. Butler's design tries to suggest a precariousness of place but otherwise the play, when not eliciting laughs, can feel static.

Though overall lacking resolve, the passages which describe their disappearances are haunting and dutifully delivered by all involved.

But I'm really curious to hear what everyone else thought of this? 

Katie O'Kelly, 'Counter Culture': Money Makes the World Go Round

A jaunty solo performance about workers in a fictional Clerys-type department store in Dublin resonates with the 1913 centenary. 

The New Theatre
Feb 10-15


My review of Counter Culture by Katie O'Kelly coming up just as soon as I make a dash to Cosmetics for a blast of Flowerbomb ...

MIRARI Productions, 'In Dog Years I'm Dead': Thirty Old Town

In Kate Heffernan's brilliant comedy two unfulfilled individuals try to take control of their lives as they stand on the threshold of turning 30. 

Bewley's Cafe Theatre
Feb 10-Mar 8


My review of In Dog Years I'm Dead by Kate Heffernan coming up just as soon as I have a flurry of posts delighting in the animated bears from our childhood ...

Dragging and Derealising the World Onstage

Miss Bunny (left) and Panti Bliss (right) in promotional art for The Panti Show. A nation tunes in to watch a drag queen on television but what exactly is drag?

RTÉ's Saturday Night Show began it's live broadcast on January 11th with presenter Brendan O'Connor introducing the drag queen Panti Bliss. A red curtain rose to reveal a dressing room and the occupant wearing a geisha-like gown, a voluminous blonde wig from Dolly Parton's Heartbreaker days and eyelashes so long they could gouge an eye. 

A voice-over introduces the drag device: the lip sync - a faux pas in musical performance (see Ashlee Simpson) but the basis for the corporeal story-telling of the drag queen. "Brendan O'Connor? Goddamn it, I done it again; I thought this was Brendan O'Carroll's show. What the hell am I going to talk to Brendan O'Connor about?"

Siren Productions, 'A Tender Thing': Defying the Stars

Romeo and Juliet are given the gift of time in Ben Power's reimagining of the Shakespeare classic but will their tragic fates remain the same? 

Jan 28-Feb 15
Project Arts Centre


My review of A Tender Thing by Ben Power coming up after the jump ...

Painted Filly and Sugarglass, 'The Brothers Karamazov': Of Vice And Men

An intimate adaptation by actor/director Nicholas Johnson locates the heartbeat of Dostoevsky's epic novel. 

Samuel Beckett Theatre

Jan 23-25, 27-Feb 1

My review of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, adapted by Nicholas Johnson, coming up just as soon as I rescue a certain frozen peasant ...

Druid, 'The Colleen Bawn': Spake It, Don't Spray It

Druid's revival of the Boucicault classic reminds us what is needed to pull out all the stops for the pronounced theatrical form: the Melodrama.

Gaiety Theatre
Jan 21-25

My review of The Colleen Bawn by Dion Boucicault coming up just as soon as I'm as broad in the back as the Gap of Dunloe ....

Bewley's Cafe Theatre, 'Happiness': Studies of Grief in Days of Milk and Honey

Irish writer Mary Lavin (1912-1996), compared to Virginia Woolf and Anton Chekov over her literary life, is adapted for the stage by Deirdre Kinahan.

Bewley's Cafe Theatre

Jan 15-Feb 8

My review of Happiness by Mary Lavin, adapted by Deirdre Kinahan, coming up just as soon as I find an in-between sugar ...

ThereIsBear!, 'Terminus': Devil May Care

Smock Alley Theatre

Jan 6-9

I've written a lot here in the last week so it's left me with a lot of things to catch up on. Unfortunately, this means I can't do a full review of ThereIsBear!'s production of Terminus by Mark O'Rowe. 

ThereIsBear! is a company formed in 2012 by members of NUI Galway's Drama Society. The last play they performed in this venue was the witch drama The Last Burning by Patrick Galvin. It was a good production but it carried the student drama trademark of a cast in their early-20s playing characters who are much older.

This production of Terminus, with a more age-appropriate cast, marks a more mature venture into professional drama.

Director Emmet Byrne's seemingly spare vision of O'Rowe's wicked play about three individuals pulled into Dublin's satanic underworld proves itself intricately detailed in his actor's skilful performances. Of particular note is Jed Murray, who makes the strongest connection with the audience (and who gets to show a more mindful. charming side than the aggressive roles he plays in ANU Productions' work). 

It's amazing how, in lieu of scenic action, O'Rowe's singing, mystical, eye-gouging script can captivate the audience. It's enough to get you excited about his upcoming adaptations of Shakespeare.

But the darkly operatic tales of Terminus are finely measured and conducted here by the ThereIsBear! company. If there's a show to see in town this week, it's this one. 

What did everybody else think?