The Arts Review​

Marty Rea and Eileen Walsh in A Moon for the Misbegotten. Image Ste Murray *** When first produced in 1947, Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten was greeted as an utter disaster. It wasn't till 1973, twenty-five years after its initial production, that director Jose Quintero's revival led to O'Neill's final play being reclaimed as an American classic. Then, as now, not everyone was convinced. Druid's current production, part of their Strange Country: Ireland in Americ

Mary Murray, Sabah Qalo, Hannah von Peinen, Holger-Kraft in Refuge. Image, Andreas-Etter **** There's something disturbingly thrilling about Deirdre Kinahan's politically fused tragedy Refuge. A joint production between Ireland's Fishamble: The New Play Company and Germany's Staatstheater Mainz exploring the bloody feud that arose when 18th-century German Protestant settlers, at the behest of English colonisers, were given land in rural Limerick. Known as The Palatines, they

Cal O'Driscoll, Dearbhla Molloy, Fiona Bell and Niall Buggy in Meredith. Image, Ros Kavanagh *** Today, jobs exist, or at least viable income streams, that didn't exist thirty or forty years ago. Relationships have also been transformed, with modern families more likely to be broken and blended than forever and extended. Erica Murray's scrappy Meredith looking to repaint the family blame-game in current colours. Yet despite contemporary resonance, we still wind up with an ol