Dublin Dance Festival Puts Beckett Through His Paces

Dublin Dance Festival heralds the return of Emma Martin, whose new production Tundra opens the festival.

"Dance first. Think later. It's the natural order" said Samuel Beckett. Fittingly, the Dublin Dance Festival puts him through his paces in its 10th instalment (running May 20-31), having programmed work from the dramatist as well as contemporary artists both international and local.

Emma Martin Dance promises something "reminiscent of a David Lynch film" with festival-opener Tundra - a new work that explores the darker side of the self and its yearning for transformation and beauty. Martin has proved herself an acute observer of the rigidity and distances of social life, a politeness that her sensational work Dogs took great joy in eviscerating. Expect live music and elemental movement from the country's most exciting choreographer.

It has become clear that Pan Pan's realisations of Samuel Beckett's lesser known works are not to be missed. Director Gavin Quinn now wraps his mind around Quad - a piece for four players, light and percussion - with movement provided by John Scott's Irish Modern Dance Company. Dublin Dance Festival Director Julia Carruthers reckons that Beckett's mysterious square dance requires more than the scope of an actor. Can Scott's dancers solve this mathematical movement sequence?

In addition, the Irish/North American company Arcane Collective visualise Beckett's world with Return to Absence, inspired by images from the trilogy of novels: Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable.

The charming dance drama Swing debuted at last year's Dublin Fringe Festival, with actors Janet Moran and Steve Blount playing two dance students overcoming their nerves, both inside and outside the classroom. Its inclusion here goes to acknowledge just how skilful the performance is in its movement as well. "I would describe this as a duet rather than a two-hander" says Carruther. This former 'Show in a Bag' moves to the Peacock stage.

Comedy dance troupe Ponydance will be mounting their biggest show to date, Ponies Don't Play Football, having received standing ovations at the MAC in Belfast last October. Also, rising choreographer Philip Connaughton explores new territory with Tardigrade (which is the name for a type of water micro-animal).

Headlining the international contingency is Still Current by Russell Maliphant of the distinguished Sadler's Wells dance house. In Maliphant's fascination with the relationship between movement, light and music, he collaborates with the award-winning lighting designer Michael Hulls. This set of works at the Abbey Theatre includes the Olivier-nominated Afterlight - a portrait of the ballet dancer Vasalav Nijinsky. Carruther is proud that Still Current will also tour to Belfast, Limerick and Cork.

Expect to see dancers on the street with the Vienna-based Cie. Willi Dorner's Bodies in Urban Spaces. This moving trail through Dublin casts 20 local dancers to use the human body to illustrate urban architecture.

Hot-stomping Flamenco dancer Sònia Sánchez deals out her frustrations with the form in El Pliegue. Juggling performance Smashed pays homage to Pina Bausch. And L'après - midi d'un Foehn, a hot ticket from last year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival, artfully makes ballet dancers out of plastic bags (!) while twirling to the beautiful composition of the same name by Claude Debussy.


So what will you be seeing?

Octopus Soup Theatre, 'A Talent for Lying'

Two scribes meet in a cafe in Liam McCarthy's new play at Chancery Lane.

Chancery Lane

Mar 25-29

I caught A Talent for Lying by Liam McCarthy at the end of its run in Chancery Lane.

The play sees two scribes, Aidan and Lucy, meeting in a cafe. She's on the verge of emigrating and he's on the cusp of attempting to convince her to stay. It departs from its naturalist surroundings - perfectly fitted for the wine bar environs of the gorgeous Chancery Lane venue - to imaginings of their lives together. 

McCarthy's scripts zips along to consider the preservation of ideas in art and, more hopefully, how artifice can push reality in certain directions. 

Sarah Bradley's direction has its inconsistencies though. Fussy emphasis on a thudding sound design and ineffective visual projections take priority over attention to her actors. Darren Yorke chews the role for humour and, more importantly, the sweet innocence of an introvert. When he jumps to his feet to chaperone his companion through a fictional imagining, though, the confidence in his character feels like a leap. In addition, Sinead O'Brien's turn feels uncertain, bearing teeth at times and then downplaying elsewhere.

What did everyone else think? 

Sickle Moon Productions, 'Slippers': Mommie Dearest

New play Slippers softly squeaks by but how can it raise the stakes? 

Theatre Upstairs
Mar 25-Apr 5


I mostly enjoyed Slippers by Jeda de Brí and Finbarr Doyle, the first play as part of the Sickle Moon Productions residency at Theatre Upstairs.

The subject of compulsive hoarding, of the inability to discard objects of distress, is dealt with in this drama about two sisters sorting through the cluttered home of their just-deceased mother.

What's immediately striking is the set design, easily the most impressive I've seen in this venue. The wallpaper is peeling off the wall as the small performance area conforms to designer Aoife Fealy's realisation of a storage room chocked full of boxes. 

The form sustains as the constant introduction of props and visuals, combined with strong performances and smart dialogue, keeps us engaged. 

It succeeds in its subtlety, especially in Katie McCann's discreet reveal of a traumatised daughter. It's a shame then that it exaggerates towards the end, throwing at us wild provocations including a big description of the mother as a tyrant. It's too great a leap. 

When Slippers trod softly it engaged but once it felt heightened I didn't buy it. It felt like it needed more restraint in raising the stakes.

What did everybody else think?

Jessica Carri, 'Adventures in Failure'

Concept crushes content in Jessica Carri's physical theatre production.

Smock Alley Theatre

Mar 24-29

I don't have much to say about Adventures in Failure. 

Jessica Carri's production sees three mute individuals in the store room of a lamp shop scrap and scuffle. 

It's unclear what the consequences are of such actions. The problem is in its physicality. Carri has envisioned a wordless romp but the movement is so fuzzy and incoherent that it's hard to derive anything from it. When meaning does reach us, it feels like nothing is at stake.

In terms of design, a guileless guitar track loses its swagger trying to lead us through. The luminosity of Aaron Kelly's set and lighting, however, has a spark to it.

Adventures has the feel of a theatre graduate's production, teeming with theories about form and non-traditional theatre (and before we roll our eyes, let's admit that those of us who studied theatre in college have done the same). I hold out for the day that Carri does bring me on an adventure that is successful in experiencing theatre differently.

What did everybody else think?

Abbey Theatre, 'Me, Mollser': Yous Are All Nicely Shanghai'd Now!

The Abbey primes the canon for young audiences. As Ali White's Me, Mollser expands the universe of The Plough of the Stars, it also makes O'Casey feel politically resonant.

I attended an industry showing of Me, Mollser by Ali White and have a few thoughts below ...

Abbey Theatre, 'Sive': Home Is Where the Hearth Is

Sive was first rejected at the Abbey for being "too melodramatic". Director Conall Morrison seems set on restraining such devices but can John B. Keane's play be held down?

Abbey Theatre

Feb 19-Apr 12

I don't have time to do a full review of Sive. 

Conall Morrison directs John B.Keane's play about a matchmaking scheme to sell an orphaned schoolgirl to an elderly farmer. The production is mired by a lack of melodrama though (Blythe rejected its first submission to the Abbey for being "too melodramatic"), as if the vision is to allocate more seriousness to events. The psychological fixation on Derbhle Crotty's bitter antagonist, for example, holds back a lot of the comedy and punctuation that should make the play roll. It also ignores the obscenity of Daniel Reardon's villain. 

There is an attempt to unscrew something new, as Sabine Dargent's set design twists a cottage into the surly crevices of a mountain, suggesting something mystical. But only when it embraces the melodramatic devices of heightened deliveries does the staging succeed, as seen in the final act with the whistling exchange between Barry Barnes and Simon O'Gorman. And while Morrison's direction takes the edge off, thankfully there is Ian Lloyd Anderson to dutifully bring the play to its solemn close. 

But what did everyone else think?

CoisCéim, 'AGNES': Hey Pete, Play That Music

Choreographer David Bolger gives gesture to the ballads of Agnes Bernelle in a dazzling tribute. 

Project Arts Centre
Mar 16-22


My review of AGNES by David Bolger coming up just as soon as I give a damn that I can't reach top C ...

McKeague and O'Brien, 'The Rising, and by way of interludes World War I': The Jig's Up

The first play in the lead-up to the 1916 centenary has arrived ...

Powerscourt Theatre
Mar 11-21


My review of The Rising, and by way of interludes World War I by Joe O'Byrne coming up after the jump ...

Abbey Theatre, 'Conservatory': Schrödinger's Cat

In Michael West's study of affectation can an elderly couple possess the truth that allows their family to move on from a dark past? Photo by Ros Kavanagh.

Abbey Theatre

Mar 12-Apr 12

My review of Conservatory by Michael West coming up just as soon as I am the poet laureate of derelict houses ...

Gúna Nua, 'Faith': We're All On the Edge

Paul Meade's new play asks where to place our faith after Irish institutions were discredited in the economic bust. 

Civic Theatre

Mar 4-8

I saw Faith by Paul Meade last week. While watching, it occurred to me how in the past year new plays about Recession Ireland and the demoralising realities of the economic crash have become more frequent. Carmel Winters' Best Man, though more interested in sensationalist plotting, at least brought recent shifts in materiality and sexuality into play, while Colin Murphy's excellent docudrama Guaranteed! showed how the collapse of a tiny bank brought an entire financial system to the brink of destruction. 

Other writers saw how economic shifts are systematically linked to shifts in mental health. Stefanie Preissner's Solpadeine is my Boyfriend was already a shinning pillar of this, a verse about the dissolution of a nation through emigration. Elizabeth Moynihan's dimmed Marvel tried to shed some light on the mental decline of the scathed banker figure, while a monologue by Paul Kennedy for Smashing Times' Witness brought us into a marriage strained by a bad investment and the arrival of the bailiffs. Ultimately, David Fennelly's Fishes, currently running at Bewley's Cafe Theatre, feels the most exact in tracing the alienation felt in the country. 

Into this category comes Meade's play about a laid off salesman and depressive played by Don Wycherley who's struggling to keep up the social obligations of he and his wife at the golf club.