Maeve Fitzgerald and Marty Rea in The Dead. Image by Patrick Redmond As another year draws to a close, pour yourself a generous indulgence of your favourite tipple and get comfortable. We’ve an entire year to cover so sit down, exhale, relax. Mindful, as always, of all the shows I didn’t get to see, let’s look at some of the highlights, lowlights, shining stars and black holes that made up the year that was 2024. Beginning with a little context before we get settled. Amy Molloy and Marty Rea in The House. Image, Ros Kavanagh It’s always the way of the thing; theatre is forever in a state of crisis. Funding and its distribution, lack of venues, working conditions, ChatGPT. Often it falls to the critic to highlight concerns. Shaw, Tynan, Billington all gave voice to the concerns of their times. Even so, many revile the critic unless they’re dishing out five star cheerleading scores. Sometimes the resentment is warranted. Often it’s just asinine prejudice passed off as self-evident truth. ‘No one has ever raised a statue to a critic.’ In fairness Sibelius didn’t have Google images where he could find lots of statues to critics. Or Behan’s ‘eunuchs who see how it’s done but don’t know how to do it.’ Shaw knew. Tynan knew. And both did it. Then there’s protecting the experimental sanctity of the artistic process. No one’s interested in undermining the artistic process. Most critics understand the sacrifices involved and that no one puts on a show intentionally to fail or to fall short of its own ambition. But sometimes they do, for a variety of reasons. Finally, and most disingenuous of all, Roosevelt’s ‘it is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles.’ No one would accuse you of undermining the strong if you criticised an undercooked meal you paid for, a new car you bought that sputters at ten miles an hour, or a five star hotel that turned out to be a hovel. Indeed, artists who are genuinely strong appreciate honest and insightful feedback as to where they might have stumbled. Even then, you’re not mandated to agree with the critic. It’s about provoking conversation. So with that in mind, let’s begin our round up with The Gate and The Abbey. Who, in 2024, looked as if they were vying to become Dublin’s newest Arts Centres. Eavan Gaffney in Breaking. Photo Anthony Woods If Roisín McBrinn and Colm O’Callaghan were considered a safe pair of hands following Selina Cartmell’s departure (Cartmell now installed as artistic director at Manchester’s Royal Exchange), safety proved a risk that hasn’t quite paid off. Stealing pages from the Abbey’s playbook, and sliding towards an education and community arts centre model, The Gate front loaded their summer with the old Abbey ruse of a tourist friendly, Irish classic. Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa proving a smart move and a fine production. Meanwhile Charles Way’s adaptation of Mary Norton’s The Borrowers proved underwhelming despite some terrific performances, as did Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation , both directed by McBrinn. Emma Donoghue’s ambitious, if patchy, The Pull of the Stars, directed by Louise Lowe, was an all female revelation that landed some solid blows. A double dollop of political theatre saw Thomas Bernhard’s The President, co-produced with Sydney Theatre Company, not being to everyone’s liking, even as The Lyric’s touring production of The Agreement was to most people’s liking. The end result a mixed bag of mostly modest delights. Claire O'Leary and Aoife Mulholland in The Borrowers. Image, Ros Kavanagh Meanwhile, The Abbey had another difficult year. Whatever Mark O’Brien and Caitriona McLaughlin’s artistic choices, they inherited a poison chalice and have borne it bravely and with dignity. Even so, with funding withheld for a time, along with that ‘report,’ The Abbey made a handbrake turn mid year and went dark, dropped shows and altered its schedule. Lingering suspicions about the timing of the report and reasons for going dark leaving a sour taste. Damage to The Abbey’s reputation immeasurable. Similar to Ireland’s theatrical reputation. Both sounding anachronistic despite spin to the contrary. As a former colleague in New York asked after seeing Luke Casserly’s Distillation in the Irish Arts Centre in June (having played at The Peacock in February), ‘is this what the Abbey invests in exporting these days?’ Personally I liked Distillation’s quirkiness, but, if I’m honest, I take her point. It’s good in its way, but is it a standard bearer? Is it as good as Malaprop’s brilliant Hothouse which rightly drew critical acclaim Stateside? Kate Gilmore in Safe House. Image, Ste Murray Back home, perforated with celebrity and cultural one night stands, The Abbey’s women writers programme The Gregory Project stumbled as the year went on before plummeting face down into Grainne. The road to Gregory lined with good intentions as Marina Carr’s impressive enough Audrey or Sorrow and Na Peirsigh/Persians Le hAeschylus , aistrithe ag Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill got the year off to a solid start. But Elizabeth Kuti’s lacklustre The Sugar Wife , Janet Moran’s similarly staid Aftermath and Hilary Fannin’s underwhelming Children Of The Sun failed to get out of first gear. Fortunately, the handbrake turn which saw Marina Carr lose out on a second Abbey production gave us Enda Walsh’s superb Safe House with a brilliant Kate Gilmore, who also shone in The President. Yet even an impressive Ella Lily Hyland couldn’t save Lady Gregory’s instantly regrettable Grainne . The year rounding off with Kat Hamill’s Gen Z, cartoon fluff that was the fun and frolicking Emma . Alter, by Kamchàtka. Image uncredited. Elsewhere in Dublin, The Project Arts Centre saw a changing of the guard as Sophie Motley took over from the much loved Cian O’Brien as artistic director. The baton also passing at Dublin Theatre Festival as Róise Goan took over as director from a stalwart Willie White. White and O’Brien much admired, as is the Project’s Carmel Mackey, a front of house fixture who retired this year…well, mostly. Meanwhile the Viking, Bewley’s Café Theatre, The New Theatre and Smock Alley kept their respective flags flying, along with The Civic, Axis and Draiocht Art Centres. It was often in such venues that more interesting work was happening. Similarly Glass Mask Theatre who, after a bumpy year, finally secured Arts Council funding and look set for a promising 2024. Sorcha Furlong in Tender Mercies. Image Al Craig. Once again it was outside Dublin that much of what was best was happening, especially during festivals. Indeed, the festival model looked like the preferred way for audiences to consume theatre in 2024. Yet festivals raise concerns about their impact on local theatres as well as the cost of travel, accommodation, and eating out for prospective audiences. Still, festivals did attract the best productions of 2024, including Druid’s fantastic revival of Tom Murphy’s, The House, the first of three Outstanding Productions of 2024 and the crown of Dublin Theatre Festival. Zak Ford-Williams (role rotated with Michael Patrick) in The Tragedy of Richard III. Credit, Melissa Gordon Elsewhere, Belfast International Arts Festival saw the award winning Lyric Theatre again showing how it’s done. The heartfelt The Tragedy of Richard III, starring Michael Patrick and Zak Ford-Williams, pushing at several boundaries. Even so, Cork Midsummer Festival proved to be 2024’s Outstanding Arts Festival for serving up some decidedly brilliant treats. Including Landmark Productions Theatre for One , in which Una Kavanagh in Louise Lowe’s Bait proved simply breathtaking. A promenade through Cork’s Shandon district in the delightful Winter Journey was both clever and smartly executed. Yet the transformative, nighttime forest stroll that was Alter by Kamchàtka, was the star of Midsummer and, unquestionably, The Best International Production of 2024. Meanwhile, Galway again set standards high with Mark O’Rowe’s stupendously brilliant Reunion , the second of 2024’s Outstanding Productions. Dancing at Lughnasa. Image Ros Kavanagh Opera had some strong outings with Kilkenny Arts Festival premiering Irish National Opera’s Trade/Mary Motorhead by Emma O’Halloran, libretti by Mark O’Halloran. INO enjoying a busy year with Rigoletto, L’Olimpiade, Salome and La Traviata, the latter 2024's Outsanding Opera Production. Wexford Festival Opera maintained its unrelenting commitment to excellence with The Critic by Charles Villers Stanford, libretto by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali by Donizetti. Lady Gregory in America , by Alberto Caruso, libretto by Colm Tóibín, was by all accounts, also a terrific production.  Ultan Pringle and Emmanuel Okoye in Boyfriends. Image by Owen Clarke If dance had a quieter year, there was still quality to be had, with Luail, the newly minted Ireland's National Dance Company raising hopes for things to come. Junk Ensemble’s superb Dances Like A Bomb and São Paulo Dance Company  by Dance Consortium served up early year threats. BLKDOG by Botis Sava and 13 Tongues by Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan were highlights in an otherwise underwhelming Dublin Dance Festival. Hip hop artist Jessie Thompson’s hugely impressive Crawler took Edinburgh by storm, Thompson a rising star to watch out for. Hyperphysical, by Irish Modern Dance Theatre, was a wonderful, five star delight. Yet Coisceim’s Dancehall Blues takes Outstanding Dance Production of the Year for its irresistible grace and charm. Irish National Opera's La Traviata. Image, Ros Kavanagh 2024 was a year when independent artists and companies provided much needed freshness and excitement. Glass Mask Theatre, weathering the storm of hard knocks, enjoyed success with Simon Stephen’s Country Musi c and Stephen Jones’s From Eden. Whatever their teething pains Glass Mask addressed one of the most worrying aspects in contemporary Irish theatre: creating opportunities for emerging young talent, of which there is an abundance, most notably female artists. Jordanne Jones in From Eden , Pattie Maguire in Country Music, and Tara Cush in The Dole Wide World were each outstanding, even in instances when the show was not. Indeed, many artists redeemed what were lacklustre productions throughout 2024; Claire O’Leary in The Borrowers , Meghan Tyler in Aurora , Mary Murray in Cosima , Pattie Maguire again in Julius Caesar Variety Show , and Eavan Gaffney in Breaking, Children Of The Sun and A Streetcar Named Desire, each artist outstanding even when the work was not. Venetia Bowe, Cathy Belton, Simone Collins and Robert Sheehan in Reunion by Mark O'Rowe. Image by Kris Askey Just to say if you fancy pouring yourself a little top up, please feel free. We'll wait. Amanda Coogan in Possession. Image by Patricio Cassinoni Experienced performers were not to be outdone. Rebecca O'Mara and Fiona Bell were stunning in Children of The Sun. Catherine Walker and Cathy Belton both fabulous in Reunion , as were Ruth McGinn and Aoife Mulholland in The Borrowers . Maeve Fitzgerald shone in The Dead, Map of Argentina and The Pull Of The Stars, as did Sorcha Furlong in Tender Mercies and Happiness Then . Bríd Ní Neachtain agus Caitríona Ní Mhurchú lit up Na Peirsigh/Persians Le hAeschylus and Deirdre Monaghan was simply mesmerising in Madeira . As was Carmel Stephens in Mother and Child and Amy Molloy in The House . Ericka Roe in It’s Always Your Bleedin’ Own , Marty Breen in Bitch , and Eva O’Connor in Chicken cemented their reputations as formidable rising stars. As did Hannah Mamalais in Emma, Emer Dineen in 0800 Cupid , and Imogen Doel and Hazel Doupe in Circle Mirror Transformation . Still, Eavan Gaffney and Pattie Maguire shone, with both responsible for several Outstanding Performances this year. As did a brilliant Leanne Bickerdike in Jodie Doyle’s Hate F%#k. But if you insist on only one, that would have to be the indomitable Marie Mullen for illuminating The House, The Dead, Endgame and Audrey or Sorrow with a presence and elegance that's unsurpassed. Mullen's effortless effort exuding characteristic joy and conviction, enriching everything she does. Marie Mullen and Bairbre Ní Chaoimh in The Dead. Image by Patrick Redmond. Men, on the other hand, had a far quieter year as gender balance looked like a bad joke. The Abbey’s female focused season and shows like The Pull Of The Stars saw mostly experienced male performers catching the breaks. Hugo Weaving impressive in Thomas Bernhard’s The President , as was Stephen Rea in Krapp’s Last Tape . Louis Lovett delightful in The Maestro and The Mosquita . As was Jack Meade and Peter Gowen in Dancing at Lughnasa. Robert Sheehan, Stephen Brennan and Ian-Lloyd Anderson each terrific in Reunion and the comic stylings of Domhnall Herdmann set Emma alight. Yet Marty Rea stood out, excelling in The Dead , The House, and Circle Mirror Transformation, delivering several Outstanding Performances in 2024 Leanne Bickerdike in Hate F%#k by Jodie Doyle. Image Al Craig Other productions that brought something to the year include Amanda Coogan’s superb Possession with Theatre for the Deaf. Are Ya Dancin’ by Carol Gleeson and Helen Spring was a hugely successful attempt at an Irish musical focused on the showband era, one sure to make a comeback. Tina Noonan’s hard hitting The Island exploring men’s experience of institutional abuse proved a labour of love that brought much love to a sensitive topic. Throughout the year, tech and design were again executed to the highest standard, with Katie Davenport garnering Designer of the Year for Safe Hous e and La Traviata. And while you could argue for any number of seasoned directors who excelled, relative newbie Ois O’Donoghue warrants Director of the Year for the promise shown in Hate F%#k.  Ericka Roe in TKB's It's Always You Bleedin' Own. Image, Ste Murray Regards new plays, companies like Jaxbanded and LemonSoap Productions confirmed their reputations for interesting new work with Jodie Doyle’s Hate F%#k and Ultan Pringle’s Boyfriends respectively. LemonSoap Productions earning Best New Company. The hugely talented Joy Nesbitt, along with the equally talented Pringle striking out with a Gen Alpha vibe that’s irresistibly infectious. Indeed, Pringle’s Boyfriends was a cracking piece of work, as was his directorial work on the hugely impressive Beards . If Boyfriends was a contender for play of the year, that should probably go to Mark O’Rowe’s Checkhovian comedy, Reunion , which was superb on every level. But championing the young, TKB’s It’s Always Your Bleedin’ Own takes Best New Play of 2024 for being smart, sassy, sexy and socially astute. Some will argue Amy Kidd’s Breaking should be in the mix. But forty five moderately interesting minutes that are then played backwards with actors alternating roles leans too heavily into student level gimmickry. Leaving the jury out with fingers crossed that Kidd will deliver on sure signs of promise. Having worked with Fishamble’s illustrious Jim Culleton, she’s sure to have learnt a tonne. Eva O'Connor in Chicken. Image Paul Baker and Hildegard Ryan Approaching the finish line, we canter home with Louise Lowe for her Outstanding Contribution to Irish Theatre . The Dead, Pull of the Stars, Hammam, Theatre for One, Starjazzer , all delivered within a twelve month period and not a dud amongst them. With her partner in crime Owen Boss, Lowe and a dedicated team have made ANU into one of the most important Irish theatre companies of the past decade. Their production of The Dead , in association with the brilliant Landmark Productions, being one of the year’s theatrical highlights and the third Best Production of 2024, seeing Landmark responsible for two of the year’s three best productions. Lowe’s intimate, immersive, no pulled punches productions might not be to everyone's liking, but you can’t discount her brilliance as a writer, historian, or director, or deny how helped shape much of what's best in modern Irish theatre. Dancehall Blues. Image by Ros Kavanagh What can we hope for in the coming year? With The Abbey’s programme still unclear it’s hard to know what to expect from the National Theatre. But with The Gregory Project continuing into 2025 with the political charged Palestinian play MILK مِلْك. , you wonder is the Gregory Project ever going to end? A project attempting to imagine our future through revisioning the past often at the expense of understanding our present. Steeped in overt gender bias wherein everyone is not equally represented. Meanwhile The Gate launches a rinse and repeat season as McBrinn doubles down on safety. A return to Dancing at Lughnasa and a touring revival of Erica Murray’s The Loved Ones dampening enthusiasm. Murray, without doubt, is one of our most exciting new writers. But most want to see what she does next, not what she did last, especially this early in her career. Leaving it to a promising Lear and Abi Morgan’s Lovesong to generate excitement. And to those independent artists, and those we have yet to meet, to set the theatrical world alight. Pattie Maguire and John Cronin in Country Music by Simon Stephens. Image by Wen Driftwood Whatever happens, theatre will remain in a state of crisis. The changing political landscape which ousted The Green Party after a disastrous term  means the departure of Catherine Martin as Minister for the Arts. Whatever her party’s considerable shortcomings, Martin was a true advocate for the Arts who will be sorely missed. Her departure leaving the industry to renegotiate policy, with some parties, like Sinn Fein, allegedly not even having an arts policy worth speaking off. Then there’s the distribution of funding which saw the Irish Theatre Institute clamouring for signatories to redress an imbalance which has seen theatre’s allocation, outside of the big two, remain fundamentally unchanged since 2008 despite soaring costs. That simply has to change. Jason Mcnamara and Jessie Thompson in Crawler. Image uncredited There are other challenges. Attracting an audience in a costly city with pathetic public transport and deserted bicycles lanes engender problems of access which theatre can’t directly address. Then there’s the challenge from live music, with gigs and music festivals providing that communal, cathartic experience theatre claims to deliver but too often fails to provide. Indeed, the Abbey’s PR celebration of its 120 years, Spreading The News , ended the night by ceding the stage to a musician. Ominous? Symbolic? Stretching the point? One thing’s for sure, you wonder what the future of theatre looks like? All you can know for certain is that shows like Alter, The Dead, The House, or Reunion , or emerging artists like Eavan Gaffney, Pattie Maguire, Ultan Pringle and Leanne Bickerdike, or seasoned icons like Catherine Walker, Marty Rea, Fiona Bell and Marie Mullen can still send your pulse racing, only to induce a stillness in which you don’t want to move, speak or breath. Theatre still has the power to take your breath away. It doesn't happen enough, but when it does, nothing compares to it. Bitch by Marty Breen. Imahe Sophie O'Donovan So here’s raising a glass to all those who bravely and insanely tried and inspired in 2024. We thank you. For the record, no one expects everyone to agree with everything said. But a good critic is like a trusted friend. They try inform the audience of what they can expect for investing their time and money and practitioners if the emperor is naked, semi-dressed, overdressed, or rocking the catwalk. You might think with friends like that who needs enemies? But a friend that says what some might not want to hear makes for a better friend and, hopefully, a better critic. Here’s wishing everyone every success in 2025.

Eavan Gaffney, Tishé Fatunbi and Sade Malone in A Streetcar Named Desire. Photograph: Olga Kuzmenko *** It’s one of Irish theatre’s cruelest ironies. Despite less theatres and opportunities to work, we’re producing more and more extraordinary young talents looking for work. A growing list of graduates from The Lir, Bow Lane and The Gaiety School delivering dynamite performances in recent years. Exemplified by the stunningly talented Eavan Gaffney. The best thing about the overhyped Breaking , Gaffney again illuminates the stage in an audacious A Streetcar Named Desire , playing the iconic Blanche DuBois. A woman whose age a gentleman never asks, even when he knows she’s lying through her thirty year old vanity. A Southern belle, who, like her Antebellum home, has seen better days. Gaffney concealing a multitude of sins in a production that, if it frequently finds its targets, is forever missing the mark. Narratively, nothing’s changed. The alcoholic Blanche, fleeing to New Orleans in the summer of 1947, crashes with her sister Stella and her unrefined husband, Stanley Kowalski, in their sweltering, two room apartment. As tensions brew, Blanche’s secrets come into focus and the paragon of virtue is revealed as anything but. Leading to a final confrontation and a denouement that is still argued about today. And an ending featuring one of the classic lines in all of theatredom. But that’s just the facts, the truth is far more complicated. Tennessee Williams’s classic play a sumptuous layer cake of competing metaphors and themes. Old America and the post war American dream. Beauty and ugliness. Civilised and animal behaviour. Desire and death. The real and imagined. Add your own. One of the hallmarks of a problematic Streetcar is that it sounds like Blanche delivering an interrupted monologue. In which other characters serve as pauses and beats rather than flesh and blood engagements. As is frequently the case under Cathal Cleary’s direction, generating an overriding sense of a restrained ensemble all on the same side but not always on the same team. Focusing on language and individual character rather than scene and story, micro rather than macro elements come to dominate, feeling like a collection of scenes developed independently. Compounded by poor staging choices, aside from Stephen Wood’s texturally terrific lights. Maree Kearn’s prop heavy, elevated platform pushed away from the back wall falling uncharacteristically short on several counts. Facilitating a stiff, seated intro, with a disgracefully underused Stephanie Dufresne evoking P J Harvey dirging during a Goth phase; the costly pretension echoed in Jack Baxter’s distracting music. Leaving the hardly used seating area pushing the stage area too far front, resulting in poor sight lines and an inordinate amount of back watching. Cleary showing a lack of appreciation for the compositional demands of Smock Alley's three side auditorium. Evoking little sense of the sweltering, cultural melting pot that is New Orleans. Less a sense of a collaborative endeavour, but rather of matched, mismatched, and half matched engagements. In which an invested cast pour everything into their characters, yet too often look as if playing complimentary monologues rather than the same scene. Or of looking into the darkness, but never venturing in. Take Jack Meade’s Stanley. While Meade’s imposing physical presence and man’s man authority captures one side of the coin, Stanley lacks the sexual charisma that drives Stella wild, reduced instead to a menacing, masculine misogynist. Those having seen Meade with Dufresne in Deirdre Kinahan's sparkling Tempesta know the problem isn't Meade who can certainly bring the charm. Yet lust and desire, the heat at the heart of William’s play, is mostly extinguished. Talked about by characters as if they'd heard about it somewhere else. A delightful Sade Malone as Stella, the colour blind casting raising questions about backstory given its Antebellum roots, plays the devoted housewife beautifully, yet is far less convincing as a sister or wild lover, the final scene falling flat as a result. The experience further lopsided as safe scenes trot along nicely between Stanley, Stella and Blanche, but anything requiring digging deeper feels like it's still in the rehearsal room. Meanwhile Gaffney’s Blanche is charged with such energy it feeds everything and everyone onstage; Gaffney not always getting the same energy returned to feed off. Gaffney diving in when connection is found, or retreating each moment they weaken; each syllable, eyebrow raised, or nervous smile excavating Blanche’s soul whilst trying to conceal its wounds. Hair choice far better in the second half as Blanche literally loosens her hair from Tee Baxter’s school marmish constraints and we finally see her desirous soul. Finding real connection with Kristin Phillips’s beautifully judged Mitch. Phillips terrific in the safer scenes, but not credible when Mitch comes to collect his due. Loré Adewusi, Tishé Fatunbi, Darragh Feehely, Morgan C. Jones, and Dean Landau rounding out a strong supporting cast whose accents are spot on. As Gillian Anderson's, and more recently Paul Mescal’s production made clear, A Streetcar Named Desire may seem dated in places, but it never goes out of date. Though clearly a labour of love, under Cleary’s direction A Streetcar Named Desire never quite ignites. Like a nun in a motel room at The Flamingo, a room haunted by ghosts of sins and lovers, it feels staid and puritan. The famous pyjama scene, Stanley’s animal call for Stella and their subsequent embrace lacking that raw, dangerous energy that makes Blanche, Stanley and Stella three of theatre’s most iconic characters. All that remains when desire is tamed is a streetcar. A place for people watching. Passengers in their separate space. Trotting along. A comfortable journey. Safe. Predictable. Nothing to trouble the soul. Still, there’s worse journeys. Indeed, Gaffney always, and Meade, Malone and Phillips often, do enough to make the journey interesting, offering glimpses of something deeper in unguarded moments. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, presented by Smock Alley Theatre and Cathal Cleary Theatre Company, in association with Once Off Productions, runs at Smock Alley Theatre till December 21st. For more information visit Smock Alley Theatre .

Jordanne Jones and Rex Ryan in From Eden. Image Irem Akay **** In the beginning there was Alan and Eva, talking about God in a bathroom in Eden. Not exactly how the Bible story goes, but in Stephen Jones' heart rending From Eden , there’s several similarities. Two forlorn souls find that fate, or God, has thrust them together. Hurting sinners in need of redemption. From Eden offering less a sentimental romance but endeavouring to explore a deeper kind of connectedness. Alan and Eva sharing a welter of accumulating confessions, each hoping that before the clock strikes midnight their Cinderella’s souls might find something truer than true love. Rex Ryan in From Eden. Image Irem Akay If Jones is too clever to play the opposites attract cliche, for a moment you almost wonder. Hiding in a locked bathroom at a New Year’s Eve party, Alan drinks wine from a glass whilst Eva drinks vodka from a plastic water bottle. He looks like an aspiring academic, she resembles the lead dancer in a hip hop troupe. He is recovering from a bereavement and a religious experience, she from a break up and a psychological breakdown. But there's similairites too. Both harbour secrets and share an intesne dislike for the organised in fun and religion. Those familiar with the original production, directed by the much missed Karl Shiels and starring Shauna Kerslake and Jones himself, will recall the utterly charming story that unfolds as these lost souls sail for harbour. Under Jed Murray’s compositionally astute direction, Glass Mask deliver a distinctly different experience. One with a little less charm but a much stronger spine as its two broken souls strive for connection. Jones’ binaries given greater distinction by Murray,. Beginning with Rex Ryan’s Alan, looking like Ned Flanders pudgy, younger brother. Sporting an Asperger expression of unease in social situations, he desires human contact even as he finds it awkward joking or talking. Ryan’s understated performance superbly taking discomfort to a whole other level. Stiff movements and mannerism suggesting someone easily susceptible to being recruited into a cult, or of having survived one. Ryan showing huge smarts and generosity in having Alan play sidekick to the whirlwind that is Jordanne Jones’s Eva. A Cadillac of juicy pink, Eva is a storm raging inside and out, forever on the look out for the next impending fight. The dismissed bridesmaid sitting like a boxer, elbows on knees, leaning forward, preparing for the blows she’s sure are coming. Ready with a sharp tongue and cutting remark to counter. Except Eva’s no fighter. Just a puppy barking loud pretending she’s a guard dog. Eva’s heartbreaking confessions outbursts of self-hating vulnerability. Jones devastating and irresistible as a walking wound channeling pains all too familiar. Jordanne Jones in From Eden. Image Irem Akay It’s a paradox that speed can have the contrary effect of slowing things down. If pace lulls at times, a little reining in of haste in places would elevate From Eden into an even richer experience. In fairness, transfering from the Civic, where the production premiered, to the intimacy of Glass Mask Theatre involves a period of recalibration. Something Glass Mask themselves are going through having finally, and deservedly, received Arts Council support. Promising an exciting season of new work, both homegrown and from abroad for 2025. Like Alan and Eva, Glass Mask have weathered life's storms and are daring to hope what comes next? Like Glass Mask, what elevates From Eden into something that little bit special is what might initially feel unsatisfying; the subverting of obvious expectations. Building to a glorious final image perfect for the season, From Eden serves up a heart warming testament to all that’s best in us. From Eden by Stephen Jones, presented by Glass Mask Theatre, runs at Glass Mask Theatre until December 19. For more information visit Glass Mask Theatre

Ericka Roe, Lloyd Cooney and Cameron Hogan in TKB's It's Always You Bleedin' Own. Image, Ste Murray ***** Dublin 1 and its Northside adjacent residents. Little more than animal gangs pulling wheelies on Parnell Street. Or addicts shooting up openly in O’Connell Street next to children. And let’s not forget 2023’s Dublin Riot. Feckless, racist, thieving drug dealers, and that’s just the grandparents. Wouldn’t see that carry on in Ballybrack. The inner city’s response a socialist manifesto claiming disadvantage, deprivation, generational trauma or gentrification. Or romanticised claims at being the heart of Dublin. Salt of the earth Dubliners enjoying a singalong, a good bop, or a night at the bingo. Just like they did in the good old days. Except it’s not the good old days. It’s 2024. Hotels, like bicycle lanes, are cluttering the inner city and the flats are being torn down. Meanwhile a malignant energy is manifesting on what were once safe streets. In It’s Always Your Bleedin’ Own , the final instalment in The St Mary’s Mansions Trilogy, writer TKB (Thomas Kane Byrne) recognises all of the above yet insists it’s not the whole story. Cameron Hogan in TKB's It's Always You Bleedin' Own. Image, Ste Murray Trilogy fans familiar with Well That’s What I Heard and Say Nothin’ To No One , will find themselves only marginally better informed than those here for the first time. Action capable of standing alone, for the most part, as serial cheater Darren admits he’s having an affair with Amber Leaf Green no less. She of the Juicy Couture tracksuit, soon to be wed to Mick from the RA. A coffin dodger who can provide Amber with the respect and security she needs. But what she needs most is a bespoke wedding dress to stun her WhatsApp detractors. And who better than former neighbour, London based designer Cian Richards, to make it for her. A wannabe fashionista already looking like a has been; Cian is riddled with panic attacks, familial guilt, and third degree imposter syndrome following a failed collection. Reluctantly agreeing to help Amber in the hope of reclaiming his mojo, he returns to a vastly changed Dublin. Whisking up a whirlwind of jealousies, desires, drug fuelled bops and late night swims. Only for all three to arrive back where they started. But maybe now they’ll be able to say a proper hello, or goodbye.  Lloyd Cooney and Ericka Roe in TKB's It's Always You Bleedin' Own. Image, Ste Murray Despite sporting three incredible performances, not everything works as well as it might. Name associations overplay their hand and a machine gun spraying of lines means some humour flies overhead and misses its target. Then there’s an unforgivably lazy twist at the end that’s uncharacteristically poor. Yet while not perfect, it’s still rather brilliant, especially the manner of its telling. More character study than story; language, like fashion, denotes a performance of protest. Rhyming street slang, shared catchphrases, name associations, accents, rhythms and rhymes all facilitate a shared shorthand that refuses to endorse the status quo. Offering a shower of verbal fireworks in which insults rain down like sparks. A refusal mapped onto the body where authenticity and integrity are defined by the vagaries of fashion and pop culture conversations. Each character a physical, social, and artistic body strutting defiantly through life like it’s their personal runaway. Ellen Kirk’s catwalk set and fashion week costumes vibrantly defiant and expressive. Eoin Byrne’s lights and Lara Gallagher’s sound adding warmth, texture and energy. Ronan Phelan’s superb direction queering the pitch without lazily resorting to kitsch. Ensuring Lloyd Cooney’s tracksuit dim Darren, Cameron Hogan’s swaggering Cian, and Ericka Row’s inimitable Amber are each superb setting their collective catwalk alight. Bopping, swimming, shagging behind screens or heaving with anxiety; it hits like an assault on the senses and sensibilities. Meanwhile Kirk’s ever present scaffold silently evokes the once upon a time of the flats, along with their current demise.  Ericka Roe in TKB's It's Always You Bleedin' Own. Image, Ste Murray As stories go, Dublin’s inner city has been here before. Its people trapped between an uncomfortable past and an uncertain future. For Cian, Darren and Amber, that past lives in memories of the Q Bar. For an older generation it was previously known as The Harp. TKB’s dynamic trio might lament the demise of the flats, for his Nan and her generation it would have been the tenements. It’s a new spin on an old story infused with restless energy by Cooney, Hogan and Roe, each playing several characters. Most notably, there’s the divine Ms. Amber Green. With Amber Green TKB has given us a Molly Bloom for Millennials and Gen Z. A fiery, feisty, morally ambiguous Dublin woman with a quick wit, vicious tongue, and wild passions. Amber brought definitively to life by a superlative Ericka Roe in a career defining performance. And if you’ve seen Roe in Say Nothin’ To No One , that’s saying something. Roe has never been better. Nor, for that matter, has TKB.  Demanding to be heard rather than read, boasting three excellent performances, all exquisitely directed in cracking, meta-theatrical fashion, It’s Always Your Bleedin’ Ow n deserves to be in contention for best new play of 2024. Gerrup Helen, whoever you are, and get yourself a ticket. It’s Always Your Bleedin’ Own by TKB, presented by Breadline in association with Project Arts Centre, runs at The Project Arts Centre until December 14. For more information visit Project Arts Centre

Michael Chioldi (Rigoletto) in INO's Rigoletto. Photo Pat Redmond *** Rigoletto was considered groundbreaking when it first premiered in Venice’s Teatro la Fenice in 1851. Verdi’ s pacy melodrama about a lecherous duke, an over protective father and his innocent daughter breaking the mould by portraying royalty as scoundrels and a hunchback jester as an anti-hero. Musically, relying less on arias and more on the orchestra to convey emotional expression, along with a significant number of duets, it went against the popular operatic grain. Which is not to say arias were frowned upon, those included being simply stunning. As is its famous quartet, or double duet, which has aged gloriously well. Singing done fine justice in Irish National Opera’s Rigoletto . Which, alas, like its eponymous star, sounds far better than it looks. Rigoletto proving a vocally breathtaking, musically satisfying, visually hideous production. David Howes (Count Ceprano) and Michael Chioldi (Rigoletto) in INO's Rigoletto. Photo Pat Redmond Problems begin with Jamie Vartan’s set, evoking a Nativity crib minus the figures decorated with headache inducing, mauve flock wallpaper. Jean-Jacques Delmotte’s kitsch chorus costumes seemingly assembled from the discards of matching drapes and sheets. Venetian bird masks with bowler hats hinting of Magritte and Steampunk adding to the visual mess. Only the Duke, his closest cronies, the flirtatious Maddalena and assassin Sparafucile pull off anything credible. The innocent Gilda, meanwhile, presents like a half shorn, hospital patient out on day release. As for the hunchback jester Rigoletto, slouching about with a hobble, his hunch resembling an oversized boil; his inflated shorts and circular collar flesh out a creepy, Pennywise resemblance. We get it, we’re not supposed to like him; emotional resonance lacking subtlety throughout. Meanwhile, Nicole Morel’s movement sequences look like knock off Bridgeton with Rick Fisher’s wall of bulbs and depressive lights not helping matters, including an insecure spot endlessly seeking its performer. Rigoletto making a spectacle of itself in all the wrong ways. Michael Chioldi (Rigoletto) in INO's Rigoletto. Photo Pat Redmond The effect dampening the power of an opera whose libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the 1832 play Le roi s’amuse by Victor Hugo, thrives on high jinx. Betrayals, curses, assassins, revenge, lust and murder plumbing human depths to reach emotional heights. Much of which gets lost with director, Julien Chavez, seemingly unsure whether to play Rigoletto as a comedy, a tragedy, or a tragic-comedy; presenting something that's neither one thing nor the other. Struggling with Verdi’s no nonsense plot transitions that get rushed through. Forgoing character nuance, for the most part, aside from Gilda who looks like she didn’t get the memo or wisely tore it up. Flashes, as when the court surrounds the protesting Rigoletto, or Gilda's playful shooing away of the men in her life holding too many uneven moments to account. Niamh O'Sullivan (Maddalena) and Julian Close (Sparafucile) in INO’s Rigoletto. Photo, Pat Redmond An unevenness reflected in singing. Tenor Bekhzod Davronov’s licentious Duke, superb during arias, lacks power in duets and that famous quartet, struggling to be heard above the music and competing voices. Sounding less robust next to soprano Soraya Mafi's Gilda; Mafi's vocal prowesss showing a rich maturity that has Gilda sounding like the more adult character. Davronov’s duet with mezzo-soprano Niamh O’Sullivan’s mesmerising Maddalena far more successful; O’Sullivan’s singing clearly going from strength to strength. Bass Julian Close’s Sparafucile, and baritone Philip Rhodes’ Count Monterone both prove hugely impressive as, vocally, is Michael Chioldi as Rigoletto. Chioldi’s duets with Mafi stunning and fabulous, due in no small measure to Mafi pushing for emotional connection. Mafi conveying terrific range, emotionally and vocally, whilst providing a lynchpin for Chioldi to push against. Strengthening the case for those who believe the opera should be called Gilda . Soraya Mafi (Gilda) in INO's Rigoletto. Photo Pat Redmond If music, under conductor Fergal Shiel, suffered some uncharacteristic opening night issues, they were the least of Rigoletto’s problems. Music, occasionally inspiring, doing enough to suggest a solvable hiccup and deserveing of a little leniency. A little leniency also required from a modern audience given Verdi's misogynistic men and idiot women swooning at the first bad boy they meet. Looking like cast off Chaplin, with a chorus of Keystone Cops at times, Rigoletto’ s effort at modernised staging look dated. Chaplin knew how to be funny, how to show pathos, and how to transition between both. Little of which is in evidence here. What is in evidence is a vocally impressive Chioldi and a blindingly brilliant Mafi. Rigoletto, by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play Le roi s’amuse by Victor Hugo, presented by Irish National Opera in a co-production with Santa Fe Opera and Opera Zuid in association with Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, runs at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre December 1, 3, 5 and 7. For more information visit Bord Gáis Energy Theatre or Irish National Opera

The Dublin Riot - One Year On. Image uncredited.   Saturday, November 23rd, 2024. The first anniversary of the Dublin Riots. Reviewed in every Irish news and media outlet these past few weeks. An event that transcended its local impact and affected the entire country and our image globally. What makes the silence of Dublin’s two big theatres peculiar is that The Gate was right at the centre of the riot and both The Abbey and The Gate have been very vocal about representing their local, Dublin 1 communities. Yet both appear to have ignored the anniversary of the most significant social unrest in Dublin 1 in years. The question of whose stories are we telling, and who’s telling the stories, magnified by a recent interview given by the Abbey’s Executive Director Mark O’Brien in The Sunday Business Post. Talk of challenging elitism, curating real, authentic relationships with those who never thought the space was for them, about not reflecting the state back on itself but asking who do we really want to be begging the question, who is it that's doing the asking? TKB, Dublin 1’s most prominent playwright, has their new show opening in the Project next month. Which is not to speak poorly of the Project, or deflate enthusiasm for the Abbey’s delightful seasonal treat Emma . But with both The Gate and The Abbey silent in response to the riot, PR is starting to sound like a mission statement absent a vision. In the end it was not the National Theatre but the Axis in Ballymun, O’Brien’s old stomping ground, that attempted to articulate a response. The brainchild of writer Lisa Walsh, developed by writers group I Nua, The Dublin Riot - One Year On saw ten pieces trying to make sense of the senseless. Arts Council funded, the project featured many seasoned professionals, alongside rising stars, but was essentially a work of community theatre. If professional standards didn’t rigorously apply, some pieces far surpassed them. Even so, the approximately two hour show overran by an hour for no good reason. Video footage was so dark it bordered on pointless. And while the Axis’s floor staff were both informative and friendly, a tech operator on their phone seated in the audience in the middle of a performance didn’t make for a good look. By the time the end arrived you might well have been incandescent with rage. Not helped by some of the pieces. Efforts to seemingly justify (an uppercut against the oppressor), explain away (social media moguls from silicon valley), place the hands over the ears and pretend it was just an anomaly, that Irish people are better than that, felt hard to swallow. As was an over use of Northside working class, Southside bourgeoise cliches and an over reliance on socialist jargon. Indeed, some pieces felt more about the writers than the riot. Some never digging any deeper than the burning Luas, an image that recurred with such frequency you began to wonder had anything else happened that night? Yet there were genuine nuggets to be had amidst the silt and soil. The satirical And the winner is… by Susan Lynch, directed by Andy Crook, saw a brilliant Anto Seery eviscerate right wing notions of nationalism for a game show in the future, the recital of The Noble Call a trace of pure genius. Mary and Billy by Brian Walsh, directed by Lesley Conroy, proved wonderfully insightful in its examination of a Loyalist and Republican married couple. Mellisa Nolan and Charlie McGuinness terrific as old lovers remembering when their exception wasn’t the rule. Buzz , written and performed by Linda Teehan revealed a stunning talent in a show where self-centred ignorance proves a kind of bliss. Bright Yellow Letters by Melissa Nolan, performed by Leanne Bickerdike and directed by Kathleen Warner Yeates, making plain that when it comes to rioting, like domestic violence, there’s no excuse can justify it. Women again at the centre of Lisa Walsh’s Fanny Riot , directed by Kathleen Warner Yeates and performed by Kelly Hickey, and Those Flames written and performed by Mai Ishikawa, directed by Eftychia Spryidaki and Ezra Moloney. The latter an exquisite body poem about a woman hiding under a table, the former a pussy riot in which biography meets reflection. If you had to give an award, top prize would have to go to Pricks by Patrick O’Sullivan, performed brilliantly by Eric O’Brien, Jed Murray, Thúy Vine O’Sullivan and O’Sullivan himself. A tale that got right to the heart of the matter with superb simplicity and a beautiful twist, sensitively directed by Andy Crook. Similarly, if you had to give an award for socially relevant theatre that attempts to portray the Northside as more than a hotbed of violence or a working class Shangri-La, though neither are ever too far away, it would have to go to The Dublin Riot - A Year On . Flawed, messy, and unforgivably long, it features several standout pieces that deserve to be developed into stand alone works. Works telling those involved that they can keep their hand-me-down hatreds. We have something far richer than your violence. And we will find a way to make ourselves heard. The Dublin Riot - One Year On ran at The Axis Ballymun, Saturday November 23rd, 2024.

Toni O’Rourke, Hannah Mamalis and Domhnall Herdman in Emma. Photo: Ros Kavanagh . **** How shall we put this? In popular parlance, Emma Woodhouse is what is commonly known as a bitch. A narcissistic egoist meddling in other people’s affairs for her own amusement whilst being indifferent to the cost on others. She'll tell you it's because she's bored, her uniquely clever mind meddling for lack of anything else to apply itself to. Indeed, self proclaimed matchmaker Emma will tell you lots of things. Yet even allowing the story is set at a time when women were raised to be uneducated wives, given that Emma can't see what's plainly obvious to everyone, even those who haven't read Jane Austen's Emma , and that all Emma's plans only make God laugh, her brilliant mind argument starts to feel like a stretch. And even allowing that she is really clever, Emma is still a bitch who thinks she's a celebrity influencer. A spoiled, entitled, self-centred, vivacious, utterly delightful and irresistible bitch. Who’s about to have an epiphany. Adapted from Austen's novel, American playwright Kate Hamill serves up an Emma for Gen Z. Hamill’s cinema styled, magpie script a hybrid of Bridgeton revisionism, Fleabag’s meta-theatrical direct address, and Barbie’s up front feminism. Tempered by a smidgen o f Bridget Jones’ Diary and a Calum Scott moment, a la Robyn, serving as the cherry on top. Patrick Martins in Emma. Photo: Ros Kavanagh. If director Claire O’Reilly elicits eight top drawer performances, they can suffer from Emma trying too hard to be funny. The first half relying on so much camp and kitsch it starts to look like a Royal Variety Performance sketch from the 1970s. O'Reilly failing to tap into the underlying pathos, going for the easy laugh. Emma’s relationship with Mr Knightley showing hints of The Taming of the Shrew , but none of its tension or passion. Her efforts to find a better class of husband for the lovestruck Harriet hinting, but never exploiting, issues of class, power and position. Austen’s comedy of class and manners seeing its class reduced to little more than a reference and its manners downplayed. O’Rielly trying to fill the vacuum with comedy when often it needed heart so we could feel deeper and laugh louder. The situation resolved somewhat in the second half where pace quickens and a reversal at a party introduces much needed pathos. There’s also a door into somewhere truly interesting during a pillow fight that swings open only to slam immediately shut. Leaving us with a predictable, happy ever after that falls more than a little flat, especially in light of the road not taken. Ciara Berkeley in Emma. Photo: Ros Kavanagh. In between there’s lots of fun of varying quality wrapped in a heightened sense of the cartoonish. Molly O’Cathain’s set juxtaposing Victorian curtains with images of lovers against a garish colour scheme like an exploded box of crayons. Coupled with a bridge and bedroom to facilitate Hamill’s endless, cinematic scene changes. Colour again gone wild in Catherine’s Fays cartoon costumes, majestic in Sinéad McKenna’s clever wash of lights. Performances also lean into the cartoonish with Liz Fitzgibbon and Clare Barrett stealing scenes whatever their roles without even trying. Similarly Damian Kearney whether being a gruel obsessed curmudgeon or super smooth dancer. Patrick Martin’s also excellent as the old, old, friend zoned Mr. Knightley. Along with Toni O’Rourke as the eponymous, squealing, self-serving Emma. It’s a testament to O’Rourke’s talent that a character often reduced to one dimension is made utterly present and engaging. Yet it is three Abbey debutants who really stand out. Ciara Berkeley mesmerising as Emma’s nemesis Jane Fairfax, along with playing other roles. A brilliant Domhnall Herdman as the camp Mr Elton and kitsch Mr Churchill shows exquisite comic flair. As does Hannah Mamalis as the love hungry Harriet, an awkward, biscuit loving, obsessive dog of a soul given vivid expression by Mamalis. So brilliant is Mamalis the play might well have been called Harriet. Toni O’Rourke and Emma Mamalis in Emma. Photo: Ros Kavanagh. If its engine sputters for much of the first half, once it kicks into life Emma proves a lively, joyous affair with a little song and dance thrown in for the sheer heck of it. Some might argue it reduces Austen’s classic novel to the level of a cartoon, but Emma aspires to genuine girl power, to bringing laughter to the Christmas season, and to always moving forward, onward and upward. Emma by Jane Austen, adapted by Kate Hamill, runs at The Abbey Theatre until January 25, 2025 For more information visit The Abbey Theatre

Maeve Fitzgerald and Marty Rea in The Dead. Image by Patrick Redmond ***** You are cordially invited to a select gathering at the residence of The Three Graces of the Dublin Musical Society. An annual evening of song, dance, music and merriment to celebrate the festive season. Your hosts advise that their permanent residence at Ushers Quay has fallen into disrepair (a result of successive governments neglecting to preserve it for posterity), compelling them to relocate this year’s celebration to lavish rooms in the Museum of Literature Ireland, number 85 St Stephens Green. Hansoms and cabs are available for those inconvenienced. It will be a themed evening. Inspired by Mr James Joyce’s 1914 short story The Dead , from his esteemed collection Dubliners . Adapted for stage and capably directed by local impresario, Ms Louise Lowe . No RSVP required. This immersive, site specific, promenade event sold out weeks before its opening. However, you might try obtain returns, join the waiting list, or urge the kind people at ANU, Landmark and MoLI to extend the run. I would urge you to do so. For The Dead is one of those singular productions you cannot afford to miss during this, or any other season. Marie Mullen and Bairbre Ní Chaoimh in The Dead. Image by Patrick Redmond. For those unfamiliar with Joyce’s most popular, and longest short story, or the excellent 1987 film version by John Houston, The Dead follows Gabriel and Gretta Conroy as a revelation following a song heard at a respectable, if rather tedious Christmas party challenges the very fabric of their lives. The party’s hosts, socialite spinster Aunts Julia and Kate, the beautifully paired Marie Mullen and Bairbre Ní Chaoimh, and their excitable niece, Roseanna Purcell’s adorable Mary Jane, dodder in anticipation of Gabriel and Gretta’s arrival. The audience greeted in the hallway by the excellent Pattie Maguire whose flustered and flushed Lily is on the look out for the couples arrival. Maeve Fitzgerald utterly divine as the charming and vivacious Gretta, a stylish Galway woman about Dublin town waltzing in like a breath of fresh air. Warmly whisking the audience upstairs, followed by the man of the hour Gabriel; Marty Rea wonderful at saying it all when saying nothing, or hiding in plain sight when speaking. Ushered into a large room, the ever brilliant Michael Glenn Murphy’s ebullient Mr Browne regales all present with verve and gusto. The recital the first in a series of leitmotifs about ghostly old loves. This being the world of the sing song, the singalong, the formal dance, the party piece. John Cronin in The Dead. Image by Patrick Redmond. What follows is a whirling dervish of delight as stories are told, songs sung, dances danced and characters reveal their personalities and peculiarities, their peeves and passions. Billie Traynor’s superb Mrs Malins dreading the arrival of her son Freddie, a harmless drunk tolerated by the paragons of social virtue brilliantly realised by John Cronin. A superb Oliver Flitcroft as intolerant Bartell Darcy, a renowned singer with a sore throat and an easily bruised ego, and Matthew Williamson as the unflappable Kerrigan, there to ensure the party is always in full swing. Beneath which tensions brew between a married couple, a mother and son, political rivals, and all manner of egoists and eccentrics. Sat at a sumptuous dinner table for a post dinner toast, it all flips in an instant. A song overheard off stage, like a ghost singing across the distance of time, sees Gretta frozen at the door before fleeing back to their hotel room at The Gresham with Gabriel in pursuit. But a little more entertainment before we join them. The bad tempered Darcy singing badly, the party animal Kerrigan dancing like a vaudevillian entertainer, Williamson again stunning with his signature stylings. Even as the moment belongs to Mrs Malins embarrassed rendition of Love’s Old Sweet Song , the leitmotif repeated once more before the party ends in exhausted reverie. Action shifting from a public to a private space, the audience retreating behind the veil of spectators as we enter the twilight bedroom. Almost scandalised to see Gretta in her undergarments; it is the early twentieth century after all. Made witness to a quiet revelation leading to a profound realisation. The couple, backs to each other on the marriage bed, snow falling on the living and the dead, a final image of despair, loss, or perhaps, just perhaps, hope. Rea’s monologue asking if he, and us perhaps, is too afraid to really live or die, being little more than one of the living dead? Roseanna Purcell, Bairbre Ní Chaoimh and Marie Mullen in The Dead. Image by Patrick Redmond. Throughout, the juxtaposition of opposites, such as private moments glimpsed in public, evoke the shallowness of social obligation and the largesse of the heart. A heart  often wounded and bleeding. The audience oscillating between spectator and participant. Good natured guests enjoying a toast or a recital, then silent witnesses, like Scrooge accompanied by the Ghost of Christmas past, overhearing Una Kavanagh’s superb nationalist, Molly Ivors, challenge Gabriel over being a West-Brit as they dance. The other dancers reduced to unnatural slow motion, the effect almost cinematic. The sheer scale of Lowe’s vision and direction astonishing given the insane number of moving parts. A flawless ensemble matched by an equally flawless tech. Owen Boss’s understated set, Joan O’Cleary’s extraordinary costumes, Ciarán Bagnall’s mood defining lights ensuring we never enter a museum piece but a living, breathing reality; the past made present. Carl Kennedy’s sound design wonderful, even as his contemporary compositional flourish in the final scene might not be to everyone’s taste for seeming out of place. Marty Rea and Maeve Fitzgerald in The Dead. Image by Patrick Redmond. Whilst its timing and setting make it an obvious seasonal attraction, it's easy to forget that what’s being offered is a strikingly brilliant adaptation of Joyce’s The Dead . A story where little happens, where people are petty, where social mores suggest an exhausting game, and where even the best dinner parties have an element of tedium. Something Lowe is unafraid to embrace, knowing it’s an essential part of the audience experience, and of what propels Gabriel to ask what life is for. If the production creaks at the seams in places, it never bursts even if it might come close. The haunting song played off set might see the pivotal scene lose something of its import as Gretta stands with her back turned to the audience and blurred by lights, but it makes the ghostly distance palpable and focuses on Gretta and not the singer. Again, Fitzgerald might tilt towards the histrionic in the bedroom scene risking easy emotionalism or Dickensian exaggeration, but it’s saved by Fitzgerald’s animal howl of grief. With a production of this scale, there will always be issues of balance, of preference, of what might have worked better, Gretta’s exit being a case in point. But to see such comprehensive welding of such disparate ingredients into such a magical whole is simply astonishing. Like your mother’s Christmas Pudding made to her own secret recipe, The Dead is a succulent, scrumptious, multi-layered production of inexpressible delight. One which achieves the miraculous in that it brings The Dead to life. The Dead by James Joyce, adapted and directed by Louise Lowe, presented by ANU and Landmark Productions in association with MoLI, runs at MoLI until January 12, 2025. For more information visit The Dead

Leaning on Gates by Seamus O'Rourke **** It’s been a day since I last wrote a book review. But it’s not everyday you receive not one, but two books written by one of the country’s best loved theatre makers. The re-release of Seamus O’Rourke’s debut autobiography Standing in Gaps , and his latest publication, its follow up, Leaning on Gates. The first two instalments in what appears to be an ongoing memoir. The inimitable O’Rourke taking a stroll down memory Leitrim in the 1970s and 80s. In which a gormless giant with aspirations of Gaelic immortality negotiates family, school, work, and growing up in a county full of the maddest, wildest, most endearing characters. The maddest, wildest, and most endearing being O’Rourke himself. With Standing in Gap s, O’Rourke lays the foundation, beginning with his auspicious birth and carrying on through schooldays as an inside outsider and his passion for Gaelic football, and culminating in his late teens. Offering an episodic daisy chain of connected events and characters held together by chronology. O’Rourke’s understated tone, humour-filled observations and deceptive opaqueness proving irresistible as he talks about family, friends and local misfits. Indeed, O’Rourke doesn’t like the spotlight, more often glimpsed as he shimmies past in unguarded moments like an embarrassed shadow. Hidden behind a rich, colloquial language and a cast of wild, exuberant characters. Like his delightful grandmother. O’Rourke happy to direct your attention to the community so you won’t look too closely at him. His awkwardness, shyness, his wanting to fit but not sure if he does. His taciturn Father, from whom the absence of criticism passes as praise. Their love unspoken, as likely to wound as to help. Their relationship a through line threading everything together, with O’Rourke’s mother knowing and seeing all. Leaning on Gates and Standing in Gaps by Seamus O'Rourke Narratively there’s no great events or plot twists. The life of a Leitrim farming family having few great upheavals. But upheavals eventually arrive in the form of the 1980s. Booze, work, women and New York peppering Leaning on Gates with something akin to unrest. Traversing through his early twenties and his beginnings in theatre, O’Rourke’s sequel is a much more robust affair. The writing stronger, the observations more layered and nuanced, its humour and anecdotes richer than ever. The conversational tone slipping into confessional as he describes his relationship with drink, with women, with being utterly lost be it in a bedsit in Dublin, a construction site in New York, or back home with his family. Truths hidden behind laughter becoming clearer, more heartfelt, more visceral, even as sentimentality is never overly indulged. Emotion a luxury neither he nor his Father subscribe to, even as it wants its pound of flesh. O'Rourke's mask slipping, but never coming off. No surprise when you think about it. What comic hasn’t used comedy to hide behind? Like the exaggerated characters in his superlative shows, O’Rourke fashions himself into a larger than life character. A relatable, no nonsense, bemused and bewildered wise man without brains, or so he’d have you believe. One who loves Gaelic football, working with his hands, and who tells a great story and tells it well. Like fellow Leitrim local, Michael Harding, behind the veil of bemusement there’s something honest, vulnerable, wild and longing that fuels it all. If McGahern’s reputation as Leitrim’s finest writer won’t suffer too much in comparison, similarities aren’t as far fetched as you might think. A love of Leitrim, its people, places and peculiarities are richly rendered with some impressive turns of phrase. The colloquial rich language ensuring readers are elected, whether remembering oft forgotten phrases or marvelling at the poetic and supple way language was once used; O’Rourke’s mastery and memory impressive. But you need a community for that kind of language, the fragmenting of which underscores O’Rourke’s bitter sweet sense of encroaching modernisation, even if it does mean a bigger house.  Seamus O'Rourke Like Tarry Flynn, written by that neighbour up the road, Standing in Gaps and Leaning on Gates capture a fading world and a young man’s changing relationship with himself as he faces into a dreaded, exciting and uncertain future. If you belong to that community you’ll find much to enjoy here. If not, you’ll still find much to delight. Especially, but not exclusively, if you’re from Leitrim. Showing hints of the richness of McGahern, the probing of Kavanagh, and the insights of Harding, all wrapped up in O’Rourke’s seanchaí stylings, you’d have to be mad to miss out. Treat yourself, or a loved one, and buy both Roll on the third instalment. Leaning on Gates and Standing in Gaps by Seamus O'Rourke published by Gill are available from all good booksellers.

Claire O'Leary and Aoife Mulholland in The Borrowers. Image, Ros Kavanagh **** Fun fuelled feel-good forgives a flurry of failings in the Gate Theatre’s ham-fisted musical, The Borrowers . A seasonal offering to delight the kiddies even as Scrooges, Grinches, and more demanding musical aficionados might be less impressed. Róisín McBrinn’s clunky direction, Fionn Foley’s gauche tunes, Charles Way’s screenplay structured adaptation struggling for footing beneath a technical avalanche. A reminder that even in the midst of a visual maelstrom what matters most is the presence of the performer. The Borrowers a stunning success in terms of its superlative cast, with Claire O’Leary looking every inch a musical theatre megastar. For those unfamiliar with Mary Norton’ s tales from the 1950s, it’s all about the little people. Tiny, cautious outsiders who live beneath floorboards, behind fireplaces, in badger setts, or under a grandfather clock. Surviving by borrowing items from human "beans" which are then repurposed for their own needs. Like the Clock family, whose adventurous daughter Arrietty dreams wide eyed and big, longing for the outside world. Pushing her luck, she’s discovered by an ailing human boy, Tom, leading to a mad dash for the wilds as their home is destroyed. Alone, with nowhere to live, the immigrant family endure many dangers as they search for other Borrowers, hoping they’re not the last of their kind. Ruth McGill in The Borrowers. Image, Ros Kavanagh While May switching the setting from England to Ireland delivers some playful gags, structurally it all plods along like a multi-scene novel badly adapted for the screen. Something McBrinn’s direction never successfully negotiates, with tension hampered by ho hum pacing and clunky staging. From digital ingenuity to Bosco level basics, a barrage of tech delivers a visual food fight of uneven quality, employing everything from projections to puppetry. Paul Wills’ overworked set proving hard work whilst working hard to achieve cinema level standards, with its earthy colours evoking a depressive dullness. If the point was to offset a colourless banality with Wills’ clever and colourful costumes it’s a hollow victory, even as TK and Tayto outfits, along with crayoned hair, prove a wonderful touch. Sarah Jane Shiels lighting far more successful in establishing mood and tone. As is Dick Straker’s hit and miss video design leaning into low budget cinematic as often as it proves theatrically inventive. Róisín Whelan’s movement sequences might be full of playground antics, but dances never excite. Nor do Fionn Foley’s songs, which show huge promise, most notably the feel-good finale. The bulk sounding as if written in the style of musical theatre for a sketch on Whose Line Is It Anyway , against which singing sometimes struggles to be heard. If its kitchen sink approach to visuals feels as cluttered as a Borrowers backpack, the experience is made infectiously enjoyable by an infectiously entertaining cast. David Rawle showing impressive range as the feeble Tom and wild boy Spiller. As is Marty Beanz Warde in a variety of contrasting roles. Ruth McGill proves utterly terrific as the pantomime villain, Mrs Driver, along with Aoife Mulholland as the snobbish Homily. The Mrs Bucket of The Borrowers world, Mulholland frequently mesmerises just as she did in the forgettable Piaf. Ben Morris as the paternal Pod is excellent doing what paternal Pods do. But the night belongs to Claire O’Leary, a little miss dynamite of talent, presence, exuberance and energy. O’Leary’s adorable Arrittey the fulcrum holding it all together. Standing out in a superb ensemble, her star in the ascendant and sure to keep on rising. Ben Morris, Claire O'Leary, Aoife Mulholland and David Rawle in The Borrowers. Image, Ros Kavanagh Like Arrietty, and probably O'Leary, The Borrowers is a feisty little thing that dreams big. Unlike Arrietty, it’s never as big as its dreams. Its pantomime theatrics suggesting less a musical so much as an early morning, pre-school TV programme at times. One that trots to a standing ovation whilst looking like it belongs in The Ark rather than the West End. If guaranteed to evoke joy on young children's faces, like seeing presents Christmas morning, for some musical theatre lovers The Borrowers might feel like receiving socks. Fancy, funny, colourful socks, but nothing too exciting. Still, young children everywhere are sure to enjoy the fun and the mayhem. The Borrowers by Mary Norton, adapted for the stage by Charles Way, runs at the Gate Theatre until January 12, 2025. For more information visit the Gate Theatre .

Charlie Hogan and Lauren Larkin in Everything Falls. Image, Ste Murray **** Everything Falls, written and created by Feidlim Cannon and Gary Keegan of Brokentalkers, along with Shaun Dunne, relies on a tried but not always to be trusted formula. Dunne’s Ted Talk, Survey Monkey format yielding a slanted tale. One garnered from real life interviews with those having lived experience of family care. The ever likeable and eternally boyish Dunne directly addressing his audience. Clever wordplay on the word care muddying the waters, suggesting a lot more going on than is actually going on. For what Dunne’s really thinking about is the carer, often at the expense of the cared. Dunne’s narrative alter ego, a sensitive Creative Writing facilitator, endlessly asking questions as if questions were answers. His questionnaire curiously narrow in its scope. Sean Millar’s superlative soundtrack played live onstage by the excellent Dan Fitzpatrick, Maud Lee, Bryan O’Connell and Kim Porcelli providing warmth, depth and texture not always present in facts substituting for truths. The whole elevated into something deeply moving by a stunning Lauren Larkin and dancer Charlie Hogan. Centring around a middle aged couple, beautifully rendered by Larkin and Hogan, a husband approaching sixty succumbs to some unnamed illness leaving his wife to care for him and, more importantly, unable to manage her own self care. But as soon the point is made, the case begins to unravel. What illness? No idea, but one making it seemingly impossible for Larkin to take one hour a week for an Online Creative Writing course she signed up for. Why can’t she attend? We’re never entirely sure, or rather, convinced. There’s grown up children along with talk of available professional support, but the children don’t appear to have been asked and her husband is too proud to take help. All suggesting not so much an unsupported carer as a woman for whom marriage is a Stockholm Syndrome of obligated habit since she was fourteen. Carer allowances, medical expenses, dignity, hygiene, job loss; none of these are adequately addressed. The devastation of caring and the outrage at the estimated 20 billion euro a year saved by the government via unpaid family care reduced to a cry for an hour of “me” time. Yet if  Everything Falls risks devaluing the case for the carer, it practically eclipses the cared. The carer rendered as victim; the cared for, or dying, resembling inconvenient flies in the carer’s self-care ointment. The cared for’s lived experience muted. Their fears, their shame, their concerns and worries at the impact on their loved one's lives given little voice A deafening silence that haunts the heart of Everything Falls. Charlie Hogan and Lauren Larkin in Everything Falls. Image, Ste Murray If thematically troubled, theatricall y Everything Falls proves far more successful. Even so, whilst repetition evokes the unending loop of an unchanging everyday, and questions reveal the constant need to be reminded of what’s been forgotten, the over reliance on such entry level techniques deadens the claustrophobic isolation being aimed for. It takes Millar’s wonderfully evocative music serving as a near constant companion to reveal the invisible heart pulsing with emotion. Echoed in some simple choreographic moments and a handful of excellent songs. Music and movement merging beautifully in a slow duet in which remembering and forgetting, and the handling of exposition, are marvellously managed. Hogan and Larkin swaying like late night lovers in a honky tonk after closing time, dancing seductively to a half drunk guitar. Larkin tremendous as the harried, matter of fact carer with a sense of obligation, enlivening what are primarily answers to limiting questions when not repeating the same lines endlessly. Hogan, an accomplished dancer, saying so much with so little. Movement director Eddie Kay’s short, choreographed passages of putting on a coat, emerging from a fridge, rearranging cups and plates or shuddering as Larkin confesses she’s considered leaving see Hogan stirringly reveal glimpses of what remains hidden. Ger Clancy’s superb two level set adorned with the accoutrements of care - washing lines, beds, shopping bags - cleverly lit by Dara Hoban’s lights. Sarah Foley’s costumes adding the finishing touches to a visual representation rich in reference and suggestion. Often, it’s when it breaks from sounding like a social workers evaluation form that Everything Falls catches your breath. Larkin’s shouted answer in her duet with Hogan elevating the experience to a living reality. Likewise, drummer Bryan O’Connell’s public address about caring for a child and an elderly father. Like a series of creative writing exercises Everything Falls feels like prep work but never the full story. Focusing on one character even though two are onstage. Yet the chemistry between Larkin and Hogan is palpable, as is the alchemy of movement and music. All framed by Brokentalkers’ theatrical ingenuity. Elevating this flawed meditation into something genuinely moving and heartfelt. Everything Falls by Brokentalkers and Shaun Dunne, written and created by Feidlim Cannon, Gary Keegan and Shaun Dunne, runs at The Project Arts Centre until November 23. For more information visit Project Arts Centre.

Tara Cush and Neill Fleming in The Dole Wide World. Image uncredited. *** Something’s clearly not right. An upturned chair in a cubicle in Parnell Street’s Intreo Office should have security clamouring through the door. Instead, the diminutive Relieving Officer behind the glass continues to converse calmly with the frustrated man sweating in his ill fitting jacket. So begins an hour plus conversation in which the unreasonable argues with the irrational. Rex Ryan’s latest play, The Dole Wide World , like his two characters, suffering a plethora of problems. Ian Toner’s direction compounding matters, even as it disguises a multitude of sins behind some energised and enjoyable moments. Why a dole office is anybody’s guess? All that matters is Vivienne, a smoker with a secret, is confronted by Justin, another smoker with a secret. Justin’s impassioned pleas falling on curious ears as Vivienne engages despite the risk of physical threat. Tension minimal as we realise Vivienne isn’t playing with half a deck so much as too many decks. Not that Justine is holding Aces either. A diatribe that’s essentially a vaccination conspiracy theory takes up an inordinate amount of time as Justin, a negotiator who can’t negotiate, pleads with the unprofessional desperation of an addict needing a fix. And this before sampling Vivienne's laced cigarettes. Justin less a character so much as a straight man setting up Vivienne’s deluded rantings. And Vivienne loves to talk, even as Justin can barely string a sentence together; this man out of his depth whose only concern is his reputation. The introduction of a knife, a hostage, and an ineffectual bottle of Brasso, each substituting for a plot, yields less thrills so much as incredulity when we finally learn what’s really at stake. That events would have been allowed drag on under such circumstances defying belief in any world. By the time its non explosive ending arrives, Ryan’s irredeemable characters have failed to make you care whether they live or die, whatever their mental health issues. For whom children are their real victims, pawns in their sorry justifications of self-worth. Tara Cush and Neill Fleming in The Dole Wide World. Image uncredited. Visually, civil service lighting, despite the occasional psychological flicker, adheres to naturalism even as Ryan’s text proves a mishmash of stylings. The result similar to a ham, salmon and cornflake pizza in which competing flavours cancel each other out. The naturalist set also proving something of a pyrrhic victory. Sight lines comprised depending on position, ensuring the televisual glass as mirror is hit and miss as a stage effect. The office reassembled for the final image looking odd rather than captivating. The physical divide between characters as much a psychological divide, even if the divide being frequently traversed undermines its metaphorical and literal significance. Leaving dialogue to do the heavy lifting and not being up to the task. In sustained dialogue between two people nuance is crucial to depicting the complexity of a character’s inner states and attitudes. Little of which is evident as both Tara Cush and Neill Fleming pitch their tents on a one dimensional landscape under Toner’s direction. Toner treating the whole like a single, energised scene rather than a complex play. Cush’s smarmy Dublinese delivered with unchanging pace even as Vivienne’s self-awareness grows. Fleming’s desperation a one trick panic attack. Vivienne and Justin less characters so much as mouthpieces for the author's musings. The silver lining being Cush, a criminally strong talent weaving so much out of so little. Fleming, having a lot less to work with and being restricted to the one tone of desperation, makes the best with what he has. Both performers showing they’ve much more in the tank. Especially Cush, whose presence, detail and energy predict great things to come. High in energy, but lacking tension, suspense, or real thrills, The Dole Wide World’s cleverest thing is arguably its title. Lately, Glass Mask have been involved in lots of promotional spin and myth making. While no one can blame them promoting themselves, not everyone is buying the PR they’re selling. PR for The Dole Wide World also suffering from curious spin. Neither character is trying to save the other’s life, only their own. The play doesn’t explore motherhood, meaning, violence and the state's handling of individuals on the edges of society so much as exploit them. With little real thrills, calling this a thriller seems moot. Also, talk of Tarantino creates a comparison which The Dole Wide World doesn't remotely live up to. In the end, The Dole Wide World never squares with the terms it sets for itself and gets impaled on its own ambitions. Here’s hoping Glass Mask don’t do the same. With The Dole Wide World Glass Mask again deserve applause for producing new work and introducing exciting young talents like the hugely promising Cush. No one else has had the vision, the guts or the lunacy. But this isn't their first rodeo, and with the honeymoon period over expectations are rising. Can they deliver? Can they rise above being a dressed up, A Play, A Pie and A Pint venue? I, for one, still believe they can. The Dole Wide World by Rex Ryan runs at Glass Mask Theatre until November 23 For more information visit Glass Mask Theatre

Brendan Dunlea in Áine Ryan's Paddy Goes To Petra. Image by Steve Gregson *** Wherever you go, there you are. Whether holidaying in Ballybunion, enjoying threesomes in Marrakech, or finding yourself in a cave in Petra, there’s no escaping what you’re running away from. Paddy and Eilish, together by habit, find themselves separated by grief. Couch surfing the world to get away from the farm, the memories, and to salvage what remains of their threadbare marriage following the death of a son. Aine Ryan’s lopsided, one man meditation, Paddy Goes To Petra , landing somewhere between a cozy afternoon TV programme for those of an older persuasion, and a thrilling interrogation of an older man with nothing left to lose except himself. One steeped in the belief, unconsciously at least, that behind every moderately interesting man there's a far more interesting woman. Inspired by Ryan’s solo visit in 2018 to the jewel of Jordan, there’s an overwhelming sense of a younger sensibility being imposed on an older model. The cuckolded Paddy living a lifestyle alien to many of his age and rural background being a curious juxtaposition. If Brendan Dunlea’s Paddy talks the talk of a sexually tolerant, international couch surfer, he walks the walk of an innocent who couldn’t find porn on the internet. But we play along, due in no small part to Dunlea’s soft spoken ease, more Grandad than great adventurer. Dunlea’s Paddy an honest, decent farmer you’d happily share a pint with. But just the one, before he bores you to death with his meandering, ‘sure would you credit it” tone whether talking of affairs, suicide, or wise Bedouin tour guides. Paddy regaling about his wife's sexual adventures like a man realising a bottle of milk cost more than a euro, stretching credibility even as it heightens his emotional numbness and risks Eilish being the more interesting character. The payoff Paddy's soft despair, which slips beneath the guard like an assassin’s blade. Ryan's simple “what ifs” proving powerful, even if she doesn’t do them justice. What if I stopped wandering and stayed here, alone, in Petra, facing my demons? What if I stopped letting Eilish call the shots? Ryan's smart meditations on the male psyche in pain building towards a denouement of terror only to cop out with a claptrap ending. One opting for a status quo, bow and ribbon wrap up, like a warm buttered scone. Making Paddy Goes To Petra another nicely, nicely, afternoon TV programme to be forgotten as soon as you switch channels. If thematically adventurous, theatrically Paddy Goes To Petra proves far less so. Ryan’s direction competent, even as other characters are reduced to signature gestures. Yet she never really develops Paddy and lets him, and herself, off scot free by the end. Constance Comparot’s sheeted set cleverly evoking Petra’s dusted facade and carpets, with Colm Maher’s lights, originally designed by Alex Corey, adding tone, texture and temperature. Even if some overly long musical interludes by Cáit Ní Riain & Eyal Arad overplay lights for trying to over emphasise atmosphere. Yet again Pamela McQueen raises questions about the role of the dramaturg. As storytelling theatre, Paddy Goes To Petra plays like an abridged novel being read aloud, its weak ending dissolving like an emotional slow puncture with too many things, structurally, allowed go unchallenged, like Eilish eclipsing Paddy as the more interesting character. Things that might have elevated this from a cozy afternoon by the fireside into a singularly interesting work, leaving us with a nice play rather than the great one it might have been. The Jordanian tourist board might be a little disappointed given you leave with fractionally more information about Petra and its people than when you came in. And with no great desire to visit. Yet Ryan’s sketched details prove hugely successful in conveying Petra as Paddy’s emotional Shangri-La. Quaint, charming, its hard questions might get smoothed down, or walked away from, but Paddy Goes To Petra has moments of genuine insight as it explores an older man's struggle with emotional pain. The generous would say middle aged. Like most of its target audience. A darling of the London pub scene, Paddy Goes To Petra marries an understated performance with a refreshingly ambitious character study to make for a delightful afternoon of theatre. It might not deliver on all its promises, but it signals Ryan as a writer to watch. Paddy Goes To Petra by Áine Ryan, presented by Bewley’s Café Theatre with Studio Perform, runs at Bewley’s Café Theatre until Nov 23. For more information visit Bewley’s Café Theatre

Beards. Image Owen Clarke **** The Decameron meets Book of Mormon in LemonSoap’s hugely impressive musical revue, Beards. An improbable tale set in the Middle Ages about two gay couples and one immaculate conception. Cracking songs, stirring performances and some first rate singing see music by HK Ní Shioradáin , with book by director Ultan Pringle , gallop along in this hugely entertaining and irreverent production. One which, when it takes its fun seriously proves seriously funny. But once it starts taking itself seriously looses a little of the fun. As if The Life of Brian suddenly turned into a tragic opera with Spartacus level gravitas. For those unfamiliar with the term, a beard is someone of the opposite sex that a gay person marries, or has a relationship with, so they can pass as straight. A popular pastime during oppressive times. Of course, if a beard didn’t know they were being used as a beard it could prove problematic. No problems here though as siblings Daryl and Erica each marry the other’s lover with all living happily ever after under the one roof. Forgetting that if you want to make God laugh tell Her your plans. God clearly having other plans when Erica’s lover and Daryl’s wife, Nelly, suddenly becomes pregnant and God tells them their unborn, Janet Christ, is the Second Coming. A hard ask for atheists to swallow. So begins the search for another reason as to how Nelly became pregnant. Meanwhile Nelly and Erica have begun preaching the Queer faith to the pitchfork wielding masses. Throw in a hard to believe betrayal, a contrived fleeing, and more deaths than a rat infested plague and hope is made manifest against all odds. Well, sort of. None of which captures the infections hilarity and wild irreverence of Beards . Ní Shioradáin’s harpsichord heavy score divided into six scenes, each showing impressive levels of musical sophistication. Ní Shioradáin’s red haired storyteller, playing live onstage, unifying the whole. Tapping into Gregorian Chant, Gospel, along with Ní Shioradáin’s unique twist on musical theatre song structures. Pringle's book a sterling piece of lyrical writing, matching rhyme, rhythm and pace to Ní Shioradáin superb score. Pringle again proving hugely impressive as director. Deftly negotiating Jack Scullion’s clever, if restrictive set; one evocative of Shakespeare’s Globe. The era echoed in Scullion’s delightfully playful costumes (I knew Crocs had been around forever) and Owen Clarke’s light design. Pringle showing brilliant compositional awareness and elicting four strong performances. Ensuring the night belongs to Sean Landau, Shane McCormick, Tierra Porter, and Orla Scally as four queers pretending to be straight, whose singing and comic timing frequently raises the roof. Like Oliver Cromwell Is Really Very Sorry , Beards is an irreverent look at the past through the lens of the present. But it would be unfair to call it a full fledged musical given that its shift into more sobering scenes undermines its cohesion. Needing An Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life ending, one marrying humour to pathos, it descends into tragic opera and ends as a different play. Leaving Beards looking less like a musical (though there is a musical here looking to mature) but rather a musical revue. One similar to Cambridge Footlights or The Oxford Revue that launched the careers of many wacky, daring risk takers who have since become household names. As will many in LemonSoap. For most, queering a show means being camp and kitsch. So much so that everything starts to look like another episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race . In contrast, Beards ' brilliant and irreverent queering shows a surprising level of dramatic and theatrical inventiveness from so young a company. One whose towering talents far surpass the learning curve they're currently on. LemonSoap, one of the most exciting young companies in Ireland today, delivering a show of such hilarious, unholy irreverence it's practically spiritual. Beards , music by HK Ní Shioradáin with book by Ultan Pringle, presented by LemonSoap Productions, runs at The New Theatre until Nov 6. For more information visit The New Theatre

Meghan Tyler in Aurora. Photo, Ciaran Bagnall ** Cass feels connected to the lonely tree. Both the book she read with her mother as a child and the actual tree her mother claimed inspired the story. When gold is discovered in Ireland Cass senses the tree might well be in danger. Chaining herself to its trunk she sets up a livestream as a challenge to the money grubbing company Golden Shire who are looking to mine the area. The company her brother Conn now works for. Aided by their childhood friend, Drew, and a talking Anarcho-communist badger, Cass dishes out more spin than an attack of vertigo. Dominic Montague’s Aurora trying to sell you a three legged theatrical horse, making claims that almost sound credible. Like it can run faster for being lighter without the extra leg. Or that Aurora is a modern myth. Or that working in conjunction with the University of Ulster’s School of Art it looks to marry the world of gaming and animation with theatre. None of which is remotely true, even as, theatrically, there's moments to admire. Take myth. A cursory glance at John Moriarty, Joseph Campbell, Irish, Greek or Norse legends sees all speak of patterns, of journeys, of trials and transformations. Cass, tied to the tree, goes nowhere, does nothing transformative only talk incessantly from her superior, self aware heights. No mythic journey here, not even a fairy tale’s worth, just a half baked children’s story hidden behind some grown up curses. One in which endlessly dull diatribes on the artificial value we place on gold is punctured by lame jokes and the bare bones of a story, one easing towards a Hallmark ever after full of self-vindication. Meghan Tyler and Thomas Finnegan in Aurora. Photo Ciaran Bagnall As for the interface of gaming, animation and theatre, you wonder if anyone involved had ever played a game? Been on a simulation ride? Seen visual projections at theme parks and at festivals? What’s offered, graphically, looking passable at best, as in the final image. More often, like the foul mouthed badger, it’s cringingly embarrassing. Enough to make a Punch and Judy puppet look like a technical advancement. Graphics and animation so far below pre-alpha levels they make retro look modern. Meanwhile story, built on an interrogation device, lectures us on the environment and how we’re all made of stardust. The beauty of science connecting us all. Then there’s magical trees. How science equates with magical trees is anyone’s guess. Fortunately Emma Jordan keeps pace peppering along and Ciaran Bagnall’s set, unlike graphics, is visually impressive. Jordan also makes some brilliant casting decisions. Meghan Tyler proving herself a gifted storyteller; her gutsy Pippi Longstocking styled character just adorable as she regales. Tyler could recite a phone directory and make it invigorating. Thomas Finnegan’s wild man Drew and Conor O’Donnell’s corporate Conn also turn in sterling performances. But Tyler has that star quality that magnetise and seduces. In the end, live visceral bodies and physical staging hold the centre. Graphics adding too little whilst claiming too much. Thomas Finnegan and Meghan Tyler in Aurora. Photo Ciaran Bagnall There’s no doubt Montague is sincere and his concerns genuine, but I have to call emperors new clothes here. Sincerity is an empty virtue. The audience were promised a new myth, yet Aurora barely rises to the level of fable. Promised explorations at the interface of theatre, gaming and animation, yet visually it looks thirty years out of date for eighty nine of its ninety minutes. Falling painfully short of its own ambitions, Aurora doesn’t deliver on its promises. Indeed, if saving the environment means listening to more of Cass’s juvenile ruminations, you might well wish they’d hurry on the Apocalypse. Only that would mean the end of Tyler. And that’s not good. When it comes to unforced talent and presence, Tyler’s in a league of her own. Aurora by Dominic Montague, presented by Prime Cut Productions, runs at The MAC as part of Belfast International Arts Festival 2024 until November 2. For more information visit Belfast International Arts Festival 2024 or The MAC

Zak Ford-Williams in The Tragedy of Richard III. Credit, Melissa Gordon **** The play’s the thing. So sayeth Hamlet in, eh, Hamlet . Yet as Hamlet rightly knew, sometimes the players are also the thing. As is the case with Lyric Theatre’s unique production of The Tragedy of Richard III . Inspired by a throwaway comment by Michael Patrick when first going public earlier this year with his diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease. A comment about playing Richard III that saw the always up for it Jimmy Fay at The Lyric contact Patrick saying, ‘let’s see if we can make that work?’ So began a process resulting in The Tragedy of Richard III , adapted by Patrick and his brother in arms Oisín Kearney , in which Patrick plays Richard and Kearney directs. A production that risks being as complete a car crash as you can possibly get without actually crashing a car. Yet like a car crash, it leaves you stunned and reeling. Placing death and disability front and centre in this brave, bold, heartfelt interrogation. Let’s first address the elephants in the room, because there’s a herd of them. Michael Patrick doesn’t have a manageable or survivable disability, he has a fatal disability. Kearney and Patrick openly state this but neither attempts to sentimentalise or emotionally manipulate for easy sympathy. To them, Richard III isn’t a gimmick and Patrick is not his condition. He’s raging against the dying of the light so that the light might shine more brightly and challenge expectations of what’s theatrically and socially possible. This informs everything from the creation to the framing to the staging to the plays reception. There’s no point pretending otherwise, or judging it by any standards other than those it sets for itself. For this is an attempt to break new ground, and such attempts are often messy, often the usual rules don’t always apply even as standards of excellence do. Also, the role of Richard III is rotated between Patrick and disabled actor Zak Ford-Williams who has Cerebral Palsy so, like an ANU production, whatever you see might be vastly different to what someone else got to see. I saw Ford-Williams’ performance, but Patrick’s shadow loomed over everything, especially the final, devastating coup de théâtre. Still, Ford-Williams has a manageable disability so how death and dying are being beautifully addressed throughout will likely play different to Patrick’s performance. Yet if Patrick brings something Ford-Williams does not, including, by all accounts, an older, drier Northern Irish sense of humour, it’s equally true that Ford-Williams reveals things Patrick does not. Also, it doesn’t take much to make an imaginative connection between Ford-Williams and Patrick. The Tragedy of Richard III. Credit Melissa Gordon That out of the way, Richard III sees Kearney beginning as he means to continue. Putting disability front and centre with deaf performer Paula Clarke, hugely captivating as the assassin Tyrell, signing to the audience and realising they haven’t a clue. The distance between the able bodied and disabled lived experience simply and effectively acknowledged in this shared space. Clarke asks for an announcement outlining some basics about the story, setting up the Lancaster and York families vying for the throne of England so we're all on the same page. Getting us on the same page returned to many times from performers speaking from the auditorium, direct address breaking the fourth wall, to a clever rallying call for Richard to take the throne. Arriving onstage in a wheelchair, now begins the winter of Richard’s discontent. The operative word being winter. For Kearney and Patrick’s adaptation foregrounds that life is not the only journey. Death, or dying, is also a journey. Richard, entering into his final season, feeling he has unfinished business. Feeling his life half lived, his destiny unfulfilled, robbed of what could and should have been. Some resign themselves to it, some look to go out swinging. Some do so by becoming heroes. Richard decides to become the villain. As familiar monologues and scenes are made unfamiliar, tone and interpretations become transmuted. Shakespeare repositioned and made new yet again. In contrast with Niall McKeever’s set and costumes which might look new, but they’re not. McKeever’s backstage set and hybrid outfits creating less an imaginative or modern space so much as a space for the imagination to engage with. Ably supported by Jonathan M. Daly’s superb light design, exploding with sheets of colour in key moments, yet otherwise unobtrusive. Austin Gallagher’s percussive rhythms, with a variety of drums used throughout, looking like band rehearsals but sounding like battle cries, a military march, a raging heartbeat. The whole collectively looking like a student production of Our Town done on the cheap right after a frat party. Michael Patrick in The Tragedy of Richard III. Credit, Melissa Gordon Against which Ford-Williams, looking like the boy who would be king, initially makes for a tough ask; the young actor’s youth playing against him. Reinforced by Allison Harding’s defiant Duchess of York looking like she just stepped out of Alice’s Wonderland, and an excellent Charlotte McCurry as Queen Elizabeth, dressed like a Goth bride on the way to Blitz in ’79. Both characters strong, powerful women looking like they’re bossing the man-child around. Compounded by Patrick McBearty’s opportunistic Buckingham, whose machinations suggest Richard as a weak willed puppet king. And so it goes until intermission when, finally having attained the throne, absolute power begins to corrupt Richard absolutely. So begins the end. With a second corruption starting with something as insignificant and innocuous as a cough. The last journey commencing just as life is being finally lived. You might well forget Patrick and Ford-Williams rotating roles post-intermission for wondering if Ford-Williams has an evil twin. A gloriously transformed Richard post-intermission sees Ford-Williams give a monstrously strong performance as the man made monster, rising in viciousness even as his body is hurriedly declining. No longer do you doubt the power or the danger. Nor do Michael Curran-Dorsano’s Hastings, Chris McCurry’s Stanley or Ciaran O’Brien’s Clarence. The cast, collectively, under Kearney’s direction, less a cohesive Shakespearian ensemble so much as shattered fragments of styles when it comes to delivering the bards lines. Some, like Charlotte McCurry, tearing up the stage with diva like dominance, setting the words alight. Others, like Ghaliah Conroy as Lady Anne and later Richmond, not always looking comfortable despite having a strong stage presence. Ford-Williams landing somewhere in between. Raging war on the tyrant time, facing ghosts of murders past, Richard’s inner strength and fading energy is palpably felt. The final, breathtaking moments allowing poetry replace play in one final address to the audience. Ford-Williams’ soft spoken tenderness catching you with a gut punch. This young man. This boy. Speaking to our fleeting, glorious, journeys. Rarely will you experience a moment of such poignant and profound immediacy. The Tragedy of Richard III. Credit, Melissa Gordon While Kearney and Patrick’s adaption remains true to Shakespeare’s play, you could make the case that a little more abridging wouldn’t have gone amiss, along with a little more playing at the boundaries of poetry to further explore their chosen emphasis. Still, this is unquestionably a creditable Richard III on the terms with which we usually recognise him. Like Deirdre Kinahan’s An Old Song, Half Forgotten , the performer (Bryan Murray) and their disability might seem to be the focus, but there’s bigger fish being fried. We are all alive and dying. We are all disabled. It’s just a question of time and degree. None of us get out alive and none of us know how much or how little time we have. Best use that time to the fullest. With The Tragedy of Richard III Patrick, Kearney and all involved most certainly do. Theatrically, it’s still a car crash at times; messy, awkward, both a little too much and not enough. But like the Tibetan Book of The Dead , The Tragedy of Richard III speaks to unsettling things in a settling way, ensuring you come away enriched. The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare, adapted by Oisín Kearney and Michael Patrick, presented by Lyric Theatre, NI, runs at Lyric Theatre as part of Belfast International Arts Festival 2024 until November 10. For more information visit  Belfast International Arts Festival 2024 or Lyric Theatre, Belfast

Paolo Bordogna, Giuseppe Toia in Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali. Image by Patricio Cassinoni **** David Bowie was famously keen on cut-up technique. In which an existing text, or a selection of texts, are cut up and rearranged to create a new text. One senses Geatano Donizetti would have approved. His patchwork dramma giocoso (a drama with jokes) Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali from 1831 a composite of musical, narrative and operatic ideas cobbled together and rearranged over time. Leaving a glaring hole where a definitive version should be. A difficulty resolved by director Orpha Phelan in Wexford Festival Opera’s chaotic production by an “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach. Phelan leaning into the chaos by tossing a veritable kitchen sink of busyness onto Donizetti’s comic opera creating a visual wildfire. Less a spectacle so much as a whirling dervish of visual distraction that often competes for the audience’s attention. Yet when aria and movement are selectively married, like music videos, rather than unfocused and hectic Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali proves wondrously entertaining. Donizetti’s tale of duelling divas displaying some first rate singing, and several stand out performances, in Wexford Festival Opera's joyous revival. Miryam Tomé, Luisa Baldinetti, Andrea Carlotta Pelaia, Sharleen Joynt, Charles Riddiford, Ivan Striuk, Andrea Carozzi in Le convenienze ed inconvenienze  Image by Patricio Cassinoni. Someone wisely said you want your audience to think about your production not wonder what it was about. When it comes to the rehearsal in Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali, the cast, never mind the audience, are always wondering what it’s about. One singer believes he’s in The Sound of Music . All anyone can say with certainty is that an opera is being rehearsed in which Prima Donna Daria is facing a challenge to her authority from Agata, the helicopter mother of Seconda Donna Luigia, ready to set the world to wrong for the sake of her daughter’s career. As the battle commences chaos ensues once Agata decides that if you want a job done properly, do it yourself. The self-declared Prima Donna, also a self-declared Prima Ballerina, taking on a singing role when a singer pulls out. As does Daria’s husband Procolo, leading to a catastrophic end in which an impresario’s deepest fears and greatest fantasy are finally realised. Miryam Tomé, Andrea Carozzi, Paolo Bordogna, Charles Riddiford, Andrea Carlotta Pelaia in Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali. Image by Patricio Cassinoni If trouser roles saw men playing women throughout the centuries, in the 21st century drag has become mainstream kitsch, which Phelan leans into with gusto. Ru Paul stylings making for a camp take offering easy pickings of low hanging fruit. Even as baritone Paolo Bordogna’s Agata is sensational as a drag brunch styled pantomime dame exhibiting the loudness of a Dr Frank-N-Furter. Equally sensational is Sharleen Joynt as the divine diva Daria. Joynt executing vocal pyrotechnics of such power and beauty they’re a joy to the ear. Daria’s posturing might scream “look at me” but, like Bordogna, you can’t tear your eyes or ears off Joynt even if you wanted to. Tenor Alberto Robert as guitarist Guglielmo Antolstoinoff, the singer in the wrong show, announces himself as a talent to watch. What he currently lacks in power he richly compensates with the most mesmerising tone, capable of soothing demons during his aria immediately following the interval. Singers Giuseppe Toia, Matteo Loi, Paola Leoci, Hannah Bennett, William Kyle, Philip Kalmanovitch and Henry Grant Kerswell rounding out a terrific ensemble. Though dancers Miryam Tomé, Luisa Baldinetti, Andrea Carlotta Pelaia, Charles Riddiford, Ivan Striuk and Andrea Carozzi risk stealing their visual thunder with some eye catching routines. Alberto Robert in Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali. Image by Patricio Cassinoni Like Donizetti’s two act opera, Phelan opts for a pick and mix approach when it comes to staging. Madeleine Boyd’s set a standard enough stage and backstage area, even as her costumes evoke an 1980s Fellini movie. Amy Share-Kissiov’s playful choreography suggesting a Magic Mike moment, even as Joynt’s delicious aria evokes traces of Marilyn Monroe’s dance sequence from Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend . Both making a strong case for dance to be forever included in comic opera. Even Casta Diva makes a momentary appearance, but given the comic stylings of Domenico Gilardoni’s quirky libretto you could be forgiven for wanting to hear its hilarious high points instead. Throughout, Danila Grassi conducts with spirit and verve, knowing when to hold back to let the line, laugh or moment land. Grassi always in complete control of the music and, by extension, of everything onstage. Andrea Carozzi, Ivan Striuk, Charles Riddiford holding Sharleen Joynt in Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali. Image by Patricio Cassinoni Translated as conventions and inconveniences of the stage, Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali walks a thin line between opera buffa and just plain silly. Like The Critic , it also parodies opera. But where The Critic satirised opera’s conventions here cast and creatives are held up for ridicule. Reiterating a self evident truth, that it’s the company who are always at fault, never the much maligned critic. It's true. Go see Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali if you don’t believe me. Its superb singing, drag brunch comedy style and memorable dance routines ensure you'll be richly entertained. Wexford Festival Opera yet again setting the bar high. Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali (Conventions and Inconveniences of the Stage) by Gaetano Donizetti, with libretto by Domenico Gilardoni, runs at O'Reilly Theatre, National Opera House, Wexford as part of Wexford Festival Opera 2024 on October 25 and 28, and November 2. For more information visit Wexford Festival Opera 2024

The Critic by Charles Villers Stanford, libretto by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Photo Patricio Cassinoni. **** Long before The Producers, A Night at the Opera, or The Show That Went Wrong, there was Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The Critic . A parody from 1779 poking fun at the vagaries, vanities and foibles involved in putting on a theatre production. Adapted in 1915 into a comic opera of sorts by Dublin born Charles V. Stanford, with Sheridan's text arranged for the opera by L. Cairns James, The Critic pokes fun at the practices, pretensions and exaggerations of operatic convention. Especially the sumptuous ostentations of Grand Opera. The dramatic, musical and vocal conventions; the unstable hierarchy between music, singing and libretti; the formulaic contrivances of mad scenes, death scenes, dramatic asides and grand finales all playfully satirised. An opera perfectly in keeping with Wexford Festival Opera’s theme of Theatre within Theatre featuring, as it does, a play within a play and a stage within a stage. Rory Dunne, Gabriel Seawright, Meilir Jones, Henry Strutt, Cathal McCabe, Gyula Nagy, Christian Loizou, Arthur Riordan, Michael Ferguson, Oliver Johnston, Lawrence Gillians in The Critic. Photo Patricio Cassinoni Or rather an opera within a play, leading to the alternative title An Opera Rehearsed . One set against the historical backdrop of the Spanish Armada’s invasion of England called, imaginatively, The Spanish Armada. The improbable tale of a Governor’s daughter Tiburina, a superb Ava Dodd, and her doomed love for Spaniard Don Ferolo Wiskerandos, an equally terrific Dane Suarez, portraying a passion so…passionate it’s worth dying twice for. Throw in the historical Sir Walter Raleigh (Ben McAteer) and Sir Christopher Hatton (Oliver Johnston), the Governor (Rory Dunne), a love lorn beefeater (Gyula Nagy doubling up as Earl of Leicester) and some amorous nieces (Hannah O’Brien and Carolyn Holt) and all the ingredients are set in play for the grandest of grand operas, minus the ballet. Including an underplot about a fainting family reunion and a sumptuous mise-en-scène of the Thames to ensure all’s well that ends well. Except for the lovers of course, who both die. And that’s just the opera. Though the play proves a lighter affair. In which a critic, the composer and the librettist director sit in on a dress rehearsal and comedically comment as it all unfolds. Tony Brennan, Mark Lambert, Arthur Riordan and Jonathan White in The Critic. Photo Patricio Cassinoni Under Conor Hanratty’s masterful direction, The Critic receives a brave and rather brilliant revival that’s hilariously funny, walking a tightrope between comic subversion and operatic excellence. Yet it suffers from it being impossible to take a joke seriously if it’s milked for too long. Or to care about the characters a joke satirises. Especially when its primary focus is parodying operatic conventions. Pompous libretti, deadly divas or the inclusion of spoken dialogue all fair game. To those who say opera should only employ singing or recitative, that spoken word doesn’t belong here, Stanford suggests music alone might be all we need as an old man moves silently with the expressive gravitas of Methuselah to a score redolent of a silent movie. Yet spoken dialogue makes its appearance. Arthur Riordan’s critic Stern, Mark Lambert’s librettist Puff and Jonathan White’s composer Dangle all spoken roles. The opening scene evoking a music hall sketch that initially feels odd. But Riordan, Lambert and White, along with Olga Conway, lure you in. Even if, once music arrives, it becomes an uphill battle to make speech heard. Ava Dodd and Hannah O’Brien in The Critic. Photo Patricio Cassinoni Music exercises a curious spell, being a sequence of musical tropes purposely designed to highlight and mimic an effect. Stanford, a respected music teacher, knew conventions and how to replicate them. Yet Stanford inadvertently hits on some vibrant passages, with music composed to the highest standards even if mainly for comic effect. Singing is also treated seriously, even as spectacle borders on the slapstick. It’s a smart move, leading to some glorious moments musically and vocally that might have been completely undermined by broad comedy, tempting as that might have been. A male chorus singing to Mighty Mars hilariously deflates conventions even as singing and choral arrangement is sublime. The divinely diva-ish Dodd deliciously lampoons the pastoral, Disney innocence of a young woman whilst also being vocally mesmerising. A spellbinding lovers duet again sees singing undercut by humour, but never undermined. Ciarán McAuley’s superb conducting releasing the romance and comedy in Stanford’s technically impressive score, evocative of the emotional excesses of the Hollywood silent era. By intermission you are helplessly won over. And might have remained so had it ended there. But post interval it’s rinse and repeat. This time to the obligatory mad scene, death scene and grand finale. All beautifully and cleverly done. John Comiskey’s layered set, Massimo Carlotta’s lush costumes and Daniele Naldi’s defining lights providing for a sumptuous mise-en-scène. Yet it’s hard to stay emotionally invested in a serious of sketches wherein the same joke is essentially replayed. Funny, and gorgeously entertaining as that is. Gyula Nagy and Dane Suarez  in The Critic. Photo Patricio Cassinoni Marking the centenary of Stanford’s death, The Critic gives pause for thought about this oft forgotten composer. Given Stanford’s reputation for being behind the times, The Critic shows a subversion wildly ahead of its time and a meta-theatrical awareness that borders on the postmodern. Though you never take The Critic seriously you can’t but seriously love its singing, music and performances. Indeed, you have to be seriously good to write an opera this bad. The legendary comedian Foster Brooks, renowned for playing drunks, once said he never played a man trying to be drunk but a man trying to be sober. In a similar vein Stanford, and Hanratty, never play The Critic for easy laughs but as a highly serious affair. A comedy about a tragedy, The Critic might overplay its hand, but it makes for terrific entertainment executed to the highest standards. The Critic by Charles Villers Stanford, libretto by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, arranged for the opera by L. Cairns James, runs at Wexford Festival Opera 2024 on October 24, October 27, and November 1. For more information, visit Wexford Festival Opera 2024

Ray Yeates, Fionnuala Gagyx and Donna Anita Nikolaisen in Home, Boys Home. Image by Ste Murray. ** On the evidence of Dermot Bolger’s Home, Boys Home , the 80s and 90’s didn’t age so well. A fact embodied by Shane, a sixty three year old Bohemians supporter who thinks he’s still got it when it comes to the ladies. When all he’s really got is a failed marriage, a career cut short and a life in Holland that went down the toilet. Shane doing what he always does, running away to where he hopes things will be better. Why he runs to high rent, gangland Dublin beggars belief, but back he comes looking for home only to find a new normal. The third in Bolger’s trilogy about the Irish diaspora and Irish international football, Home, Boys Home’s meditations on a changing Ireland sees Bolger’s trilogy end on a whimper. In which Ireland remains as it was, in the beginning, is now, and, with little to suggest otherwise, most likely ever shall be. Showing hints of the vastly superior Looking for Eric , there’s a half decent story here trying to find its feet. One whose irregular injections of tension and humour sustains interest. Shane, discovering a daughter and a black grandson he never knew he had, the latter with the prospect of an international football career, finds himself facing down an old acquaintance, now a gangland figure, to strike a deal that will free his grandson of a debt. Underdeveloped, relying on working class cliches and making for contrived narrative asks, story buckles beneath an excess of exposition, unnecessary backstory and wordy details. Information an actor might use to create a character but which the audience doesn’t need to know. Slowing everything down to facilitate a plethora of Reeling In The Years styled soundbites whilst also ensuring the only voice we ever truly hear is Bolger’s. Indeed, even when Shane is speaking dialogue, it still feels like Bolger delivering a monologue. Under Raymond Keane’s direction several moments achieve visual poetry, as when Shane’s daughter stalks him like a femme fatale in a film noir movie. But it’s hard to make longwinded, belated backstory interesting, and humorous interludes aren’t enough. At its best, Home, Boys Home establishes a link between gay bashing in the 80s and racism today. Mostly, its trips down memory lane prove too old for nostalgia and too young for history. Like a derelict building somewhere between still habitable and ready to be torn down. Reflected in performances which, if bright on occasion, look generally uneasy. Ray Yeates’s one tone Shane being so laid back he’s practically horizontal. Which plays well at times, but not in significant moments. Fionnuala Gygax looking stiff and strained as Lisa plays to the Handbook For Generic Abandoned Daughters. Only Donna Anita Nikolaisen shines consistently as Lisa's caring friend. Looking less convincing, along with Gygax, as a gangland menace. Both providing cringemaking, cartoon caricatures that crossover into embarrassing. In Home, Boys Home, Ireland aspired to great things, flourished for a time then became multicultural. Only to end up a lonely, old has been who never really was; out of touch and out of time. Home, Boys Home another version of the almost great Irish success story. Regurgitating the Obama delusion that our best days are still ahead of us, like they supposedly were for Shane in the 80s. Espousing family is still everything, even though it never was, with more and more young people not wanting to have families. That thriving, gangland criminals are old friends who can be reasoned with. That a shared sense of Irishness lies in memories of football and hopes for its future, even as rugby is where contemporary collective connectedness converges these days. The country’s way forward to replay the same old tune remixed, hoping of a different outcome. Fool me once, as they say. As the embodiment of the past forty years, Shane arguably hits the nail on the head. Speaking to the next forty, his hopes might be sincere, but it looks like wishful thinking. Irish art owes Dermot Bolger a huge debt of gratitude for his immeasurable contribution over many decades. Yet in this instance, when compared to the works of Tom Murphy on the Irish diaspora, or Bolger’s own earlier plays, Home, Boys Home speaks to a sentimental sugar rush rather than the challenges facing a modern Ireland. Home, Boys Home by Dermot Bolger, runs at The Viking Theatre until October 26. For more information visit The Viking Theatre

The Acting. Image uncredited *** Hi diddle de dee, the actor’s life for me. Yet following your star is no easy path. In Jarlath Tivnan ’s madcap comedy, The Acting , you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t when it comes to pursuing life in the T-ate-her. The ignominy of Dramasoc. The shame of having to come out to your parents. The sneers from those who followed the sensible road. The humiliation of your only line being taken away in a Nativity play, along with your teacloth, and bestowed upon a lesser talent. It’s too much for any anxiety ridden ack-tor to bear. Especially Charlie, Roscommon’s newest success just waiting to happen. Even if, at thirty four, he has neither an acting gig nor a driving licence. Yet Charlie has talent. Commitment. He’s made sacrifices for his art. Just ask him, he’ll tell you. What he doesn't have is anything resembling an acting career. So what do you do when nothing you do is good enough? Herein lies the terminal flaw in Tivnan’s car crash tale. A hotchpotch of comic scenes ranging from weak to terrific in which Charlie pleads his innocence but the evidence finds him guilty. ‘I wasn’t good enough’, his defence. ‘You never properly tried’, the jury’s verdict. A parody bordering on pantomime The Acting is full of hilarity. It’s just not hilarious enough of the time and, when it is, it doesn’t always do its comedy justice, relying too often on broad strokes when a delicate touch was needed. Director Rex Ryan never adequately addressing the issues in Tivnan’s script, compounding matters with comedy not looking like his strongest directorial suit. Set-up, pace, timing are all unevenly handled, leaving a broad range of gags to stumble rather than land. Relying too much on Tivnan’s explosive performance, all frenetic, unfocused, upstaging energy; Tivnan needing to work smarter rather than harder. His two tone performance of exuberant highs and exuberant lows contrasting with scene stealing support from Shane O’Regan and Eva Jane Gaffney in a multitude of roles, each showing balance, range and timing. Especially Gaffney who delights as Ve-wonica, she of the unpronounceable R’s, or a sultry, stern librarian, or a kind hearted Mom. Perfectly matched by O’Regan’s loving father or as Charlie’s insecure frenemy. The image of O’Regan in a fetching little stetson and Daisy Duke shorts likely to give you nightmares. Or not. Visually, with everyone in black attire, a sense of an acting class is ever present. Further undermining The Acting’s suspension of disbelief. The belief that Charlie’s training options were exhausted and that sitting around, writing failed plays and waiting for work constitutes work. No one is buying that. Nor can you buy Charlie’s wild eyed naivety about the nature of the profession, even if he is from Boyle. In the end, given how ripe this field is for humour and insight, The Acting falls short for offering low hanging fruit. Looking as if Tivnan had a dramatic scene he wants to play rather than a funny story to tell. It’s a grand scene, a come to Jesus moment when a tear strewn Charlie, beautifully wrought by Tivnan, accepts he isn’t good enough. But it’s a truth based on a lie. The delusion that Charlie gave it his best shot. Self acceptance looking like more self sabotage, or self pity, even as it all ends with deja vu, history repeating itself, or another chance? Charlie, like Tivnan, clearly showing talent, even if it is in its raw, unprocessed state. Ensuring there’s some serious soul in The Acting, and some priceless comic moments. Moments that hold the rest to account. Like Paul Mescal, receiving yet another award. Is he really that good? Tivnan certainly could be. The Acting, by Jarlath Tivnan, runs at Glass Mask Theatre until October 19. For more information visit  Glass Mask Theatre

A Knock on the Roof by Khawla Ibraheem. Image by Wael Abu Jabal **** Act normal. So Mariam says repeatedly. Living in Gaza at the outbreak of yet another war, Mariam is preparing for the knock on the roof. A warning bomb Israeli’s drop on the roof of buildings giving inhabitants five to fifteen minutes warning that missiles are coming. Living on the seventh floor of a building with an unfit mother, a son who sleeps heavily and no elevator Mariam undertakes training to improve how fast they can escape. She’s a little forgetful to say the least, and her husband calling from his studies abroad only interrupts. Yet the injustices of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not the story Khawla Ibraheem sets out to tell in her daring, one woman show A Knock On The Roof , even as they provide context of Kafkaesque proportions. Its primary tale concerns a wife and mother for whom the horrors of war have become normalised, yet for whom normal, as a woman, is an unbearable act. A Knock On The Roof a subversive tale told with devastating honesty. Crushed to within an inch of its life beneath a rubble of endless repetition. Normal makes for a curious state of affairs in Gaza. Mariam funny, charming and engaging when talking of her son, her marriage, the details of her day to day life speaks of rationing electricity and water, or her son’s day at a sewage strewn beach, as if popping out to the shops. Devastating as she shelters in a demolished building and speaks of her son, her marriage, the details of her day to day life. Acknowledging the abnormality of an enforced normal. Mariam’s visceral honesty occupying too little time amidst a series of five minute relays from her apartment at night, carrying a pillow filled with her favourite things to conjure carrying her sleeping son. What follows being mostly rinse and repeat showing Beckett levels of humour and absurdity. Forgetting to set her alarm, to wear her prayer robe when she showers providing excuses to do it all over again. By the time the inevitable knock arrives you’ve been through the procedure so many time times the terror is normalised for the audience. A victory, true, but a pyrrhic one. Yet Ibraheem has a Freudian twist in the tale of such devastating power you almost forgive her. If Oliver Butler’s direction allows Ibraheem freedom to express, some judicious slowing of pace would help moments of poor diction and the bullet-like barrage of droning text especially near the end. Throughout, Muaz Aljubeh’s lights work overtime to create mood, with Hana S Kim’s shadowed projections proving hugely affecting. But calling Frank J Oliva’s single chair a set is a little rich. By the end you might feel angry. Not just at the current, real time conflict which informs everything ontsage, but at Ibraheem for not doing sufficient justice to Mariam. For Mariam has the potential to be one of the most significant characters of recent times. This woman who is a Palestinian and not just a Palestinian woman. A woman who, in the words of Hengameh Hoveyda; They have exiled me in myself. Instead, we get Run Lola Run . Even so, A Knock on the Roof will knock you off your feet. A testament to its strength lying in the fact that even if the horrors of the current conflict were not informing it, A Knock on the Roof  would still make for a devastating piece of theatre. A Knock on the Roof by Khawla Ibraheem, presented by Piece By Piece Productions (USA), runs at Smock Alley Theatre as part of Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until October 12. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024  or Smock Alley Theatre

The Jesus Trilogy. Image credit, A Worthy Cause *** As avid festival goers know, by mid October there’s a serious risk of burnout. Warning signs include thinking that the last production you saw was The House by Enda Walsh, directed by Louise Lowe at The Project Arts Centre. That you might have a significant partner somewhere. At least that's who the person you’re living with keeps insisting they are. That you go straight to the running time when looking at information about the next show. Dear God, no. The Jesus Trilogy by J.M. Coetzee. Adapted for the stage by Eoghan Quinn and Annabelle Comyn . Three hours, fifteen minutes. Is anything worth sitting through for three hours, fifteen minutes short of an opera? Now, now; deep breaths. Of course there are shows worth sitting through for three hours, fifteen minutes. Not many, but some. Unfortunately, The Jesus Trilogy isn’t one of them, even though it has several standout moments. Those familiar with the trio of novels by J.M. Coetzee ( The Childhood of Jesus, The Schooldays of Jesus and The Death of Jesus ) which allegorically explore the ultimate questions of life fall into two categories; those who believe he was sincerely onto something but can’t prove it, and those who know he wasn’t and can prove it. You don’t have to look further than Coetzee himself; Disgrace, Elizabeth Costello, to name but two, being far more cohesive and insightful. Coetzee’s story of a precocious boy, David, raised by surrogate parents, Simon and Ines, echoing aspects of Christian myth whilst also advocating for reincarnation falling neatly into three sections. The first, Simon and David’s arrival at Novilla and their search for David’s mother. The second, David’s time at a special dance school where he meets the demented Dimitri. The third, David’s interminable death that drags on so long you’d happily administer the coup de grâce just to put yourself out of his misery. A twee, on the nose epilogue and you’re very much ready for bed. And that's after the matinee. Whatever his credentials as an original playwright, one suspects Quinn must have missed the Adaption For The Stage module at NYU. And Comyn didn’t get the notes. Dialogue proving a trudging affair. The show-not-tell essence of storytelling theatre letting too much of the good stuff fall through the cracks, even as visual support is often excellent. Practicising economy with the wrong things or, as with the cinematic soundbite ending, in the wrong way at the wrong time. The whole feeling like having to listen in on another person’s laboured parent and teacher meeting when you really want them to move it along. Incidentally, you will be required to listen to a parent and teacher meeting. As director, The Jesus Trilogy is arguably Comyn’s greatest triumph. Taking a dramatic and thematic mess and making it theatrically engaging way past the point it should be. Characters, for the most part, are totally disagreeable. David a spoiled, petulant brat who, five minutes in his company, would have you voting to bring back corporal punishment. Comyn’s choice of David as an absence mimed to when there are young cast members onstage, or when Colin Campbell ostensibly plays him via his voice, looking like a forced, meta-theatrical choice of convenience. Even as Tom Piper’s set and costumes are top drawer. Sliding wooden doors evoking everything from a train carriage to a stage within a stage, allowing for endless reframing. Megan Kennedy’s cramped choreography with scene stealing young dancers also enlivening. Performances working hard to perform miracles and make unlikable characters likeable. Malcolm Adams unnervingly unsettling Dimitri; Alexandra Conlon’s cool, matter of factness in a trio of roles; Tierra Porter’s sensitively insensitive Rita; Raymond Scannell’s gormless Alvaro; Fergal McElherron’s half tramp, half lost soul, talking down to everyone Simon, all terrifically realised. With Elaine O’Dwyer on a whole other level as the complex Ines, turning in a terrific performance. I am the Truth, David says, but that sounds like a lie. Without our stories we are doomed to forget. If these are the stories that might not be a bad thing. In the end The Jesus Trilogy doesn’t live up to its justifications for itself. Life is too short for bad theatre. On the evidence of The Jesus Trilogy , it might be too short for long theatre. Not that The Jesus Trilogy is bad per se, but it in no way justifies its interminable running time. Like the much referenced Don Quixote, The Jesus Trilogy tilts at thematic and dramatic windmills telling us they’re monsters. But all we see is an old man talking to an invisible boy who isn’t there. For three hours, fifteen minutes. Thankfully, Comyn's direction whisks things along. The Jesus Trilogy by J.M. Coetzee, adapted for the stage by Eoghan Quinn in collaboration with Annabelle Comyn, presented by Hatch Theatre Company, Once Off Productions and Mermaid Arts Centre, runs at Project Arts Centre as part of Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until October 19. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024   or Project Arts Centre

Kate Gilmore in Safe House. Image, Ste Murray **** Even Enda Walsh, writer and director of Safe House , co-created with composer Anna Mullarkey , admits he has no real idea as to what it is. It’s not theatre in the conventional sense, nor is it a concert. All you can say with a high degree of certainty is that it’s a one woman musical. The story of a girl called Grace and a handball alley. Then there’s her childhood growing up in Barna in Galway, a trip to Dublin, a menacing boyfriend, sex, Snow White and chasing dragons. You can also say that it’s bold, brave, a tad longer than it needed to be, and a technical tour de force. Delivering a visual and musical journey through a personal hell Dante would have envied. All built around a crowning performance from an illuminating Kate Gilmore . Kate Gilmore in Safe House. Image, Ste Murray Musically, Safe House is a song cycle; Mallarkey’s one tone, dark hymns making for a durational ask on account of overplaying their hand. Visually, Walsh’s direction suggests a graphic novel. An Alan Moore mash of music, madness and mayhem. Images breaking out of the frame; Gilmore, with her child cassette recorder and microphone, utterly haunting as she sings in the aisles. Or frames within frames; TV monitors, a safe room, or Snow White’s coffin where Gilmore stretches out, replete with rose. Grace’s life a puzzle unfolding as an endless performance. A fallen princess singing her heart out to escape her past and present into fantasies of a future. Maybe, someday, her prince will come and take her away from the booze and drugs and sex for money. Except Barna boys aren’t princes. More hyenas surrounding a wounded animal. Kate Gilmore in Safe House. Image, Ste Murray A story told through song and images, Safe House makes for a dark tale not likely to appeal to anyone in search of a happy ending. Innocence crashing in an unsafe world and shattering into a million pieces. Grace’s Princess gown traded for a streetwise tracksuit as she tries hold on to the last shard of hope. The tender ending bittersweet; heartbreaking, speaking to what should be, perhaps too late for Grace, but not for others. Set and costumes by Katie Davenport a masterclass in brilliance creating a rabbit hole you fall helplessly into. Echoed in Adam Silverman’s superlative lights, Jack Phelan’s excellent video design, and Helen Atkinson’s superb sound design. Together creating a wonderland of hell with many moving parts, each executed with on point precision. Kate Gilmore in Safe House. Image, Ste Murray Mostly, it’s Gilmore. Her natural expressiveness restrained to reflect a painter's model as much as a living performer. Her performance more a Coppélia come to life. Relying not on text, or lyrics, but on body language, eyes and facial expression to craft images more akin to poetry than prose. Walking a tightrope between realism and abstraction. Gilmore’s singing showing an undercurrent of power that has you wanting it to break free from Mullarkey’s sometimes restrictive register. Her heartfelt Grace, quirky, unsettling, a doll child trapped in a woman's body striving to live amongst the stars. Haunting, vulnerable, wildly passionate. Just like Gilmore’s outstanding performance. Safe House, by Enda Walsh and Anna Mullarkey, runs at The Peacock Stage of The Abbey Theatre as part of  Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until October 12. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024  or The Abbey Theatre

Exit, Pursued By A Bear. Image by Ros Kacanagh *** Ask people what s prings to mind at the mention of A Winter's Tale , and you'll likely get David Essex’s ballad from 1982. Followed by Shakespeare's problem play of the same name. Which is perhaps why Pan Pan's boundary pushing  Exit, Pursued By A Bear, a humorous, meta-theatrical interrogation of Shakespeare’s play, opens with a bear choir singing an unabridged version of Essex’s Christmas classic. Pan Pan’s abridged version of Shakespeare’s tale of jealousy and redemption, with textual additions, paying exaggerated attention to a stage direction that lends its name to the production. Why? I’m not sure even Pan Pan knows. There’s lots of reasons given, but it all starts to sound like that lady protesting too much. Trying too hard to convince and persuade when the truth appears rather different. Such as Exit, Pursued By A Bear being a performance. Gavin Quinn's direction suggests it’s really a rehearsal. Outcomes outlined by Salma Ataya’s small bear with a small voice addressing the audience via megaphone. Humorously providing background and everything you need to know about Shakespeare's story, aided by a note given to the audience. Some last-minute casting decisions and drive-by auditions see John Scott remind the world of his powerful tenor voice. As the play begins, Bruno Schwengl’s bear costumes are shed for something more Shakespearian, and with them goes most of the fun. What follows looking like a rehearsal where a newly minted cast are just about off book, ready to take it to the floor and put it on its feet. Showing no real shape or semblance of a whole, echoed in Aedín Cosgrove workshop set. Performers frequently standing motionless facing the audience, delivering lines at a level a shade above a read through. Meanwhile, a bear ambles by, or Faith Jones plays with an electronic, skull shoving spider. The visuals funny, the acting passable. Manuel Zschunke as Leontes, trying his best to portray his character, looks like he's overacting when contrasted with the others. And so it goes until intermission; a lot of heavy handed delivery interspersed with the odd visual gag. If the first half suggests a tragedy with its imagined betrayals, operatic deaths and an abandoned orphan, the second-half embraces comedy. A sense of fun reintroduced as every conceivable, half baked, hare brained theatrical possibility is indulged in to see what might spark or what might stick. Scott hidden behind a bouquet of flowers, Anne Gridley’s carb fest baguette, a dance interpretation of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time. Mollyanna Ennis’s Perdita dancing to a dance floor banger adding grace to the mayhem. A rendition of Dire Straits Romeo and Juliet introduces yet another 80’s classic, with one more to come. Showing more contrivances than a Trump affidavit, it all slides towards a meandering monologue by a resurrected statue, so mind-bogglingly, numb inducing you hope the statue will return to stone. Proceedings ending with a whimper rather than a bang. More of an apologetic cough. Like trying to strike up friendly conversation with a frostbitten, cold shouldered glare, Exit, Pursued By A Bear tries to make friendly connection but it never quite works out. Even so, Exit, Pursued By A Bear is a vivid reminder that Pan Pan are true theatrical innovators always seeking to surprise and experiment. Of course, not all experiments work, but they open pathways for new discoveries. Such is the case with Exit, Pursued By A Bear . An admirable effort with its fair share of laughs, Exit, Pursued By A Bear is less a rehearsal so bad it’s good as one genuinely striving to be all right on opening night. Which only adds to the humour and the charm. You have to applaud the effort but…yeah. About that opening night. One final caveat. The pop up bar charges an exorbitant three euro for a two gulp glass of water. Six for wine you can live with. But in our current, high cost of living climate, you might want to bring your own bottle of water. Exit, Pursued By A Bear, by William Shakespeare and Pan Pan, presented by Pan Pan, runs at The Royal Irish Academy as part of  Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until October 13. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024

Breaking by Amy Kidd. Image by Publicis Dublin *** If asked to suggest the source materials for Amy Kidd’s debut play Breaking , your likely answer would be the movies Gaslight and Groundhog Day , and Harold Pinter's play Betrayal . Kidd's twenty something couple in an abusive relationship also evoking a myriad of TV relationships. TV reflected in Kidd’s scene structure and Alyson Cummins set design. A living room where half sketched characters play out scenes of control and abuse to a predictable outcome, even as the outcome isn’t always convincing. Sam and Charlie negotiating violence, manipulation, gaslighting all made manifest as the story goes nowhere. Fizzling out midway. Leaving the feeling that, theatrically at least, those most likely being gaslit are the audience. Eavan Gaffney, Curtis-Lee Ashqar, Matthew Malone and Jeanne Nicole Ní Áinle in Fishamble's Breaking. Image Anthony Woods. A study of control and abuse, Breaking offers a series of shallow scenes with some strong emotional punches wedged between two theatrical gimmicks. The first, a flip midway to facilitate a mirrored retelling with events told backwards, adding little of worth and making for a gruelling second half. The second, two characters played by four cast members alternating roles. The latter proving more successful; Kidd cleverly highlighting that control and abuse recognise neither race, gender, nor sexuality. Yet the visual distractions are not enough to compensate for endless bouts of verbal tennis. As the flip occurs midway and the relationship is relived, what follows looks like student scene studies or audition call backs. In which a competent cast hold their own, particularly playing the villainous Charlie. Villains always having the best lines, and Charlie has a lot of them; relentlessly bombarding Sam to the point of surrender. The victim Sam looking less fleshed out. Curtis-Lee Ashqar, Matthew Malone and Jeanne Nicole Ní Áinle all turning in invested performances, especially as Charlie. Only Eavan Gaffney manages to make both characters fully credible, relying on detailed subtextual analysis for articulating her abuse victim’s response. Something Kidd’s energetic script never really gets to grips with. Eavan Gaffney in Breaking. Photo Anthony Woods In the hands of a lesser director, Kidd's characters could well be reduced to generalised abstractions. Jim Culleton ensuring pace ticks along nicely and performances yield up powerful moments, even as not all pairings are equally successful. Marxists would have a field day exploring the parasitic poor abuser feeding off the successful, middle class worker, even as we never really get to understand why either is as they are. Kidd’s labour of love revealing its truths only in glimpses. And mostly through Gaffney. A star in the making turning in a superlative performance. Breaking by Amy Kidd, directed by Jim Culleton and presented by Fishamble: The New Play Company, runs at Draíocht Blanchardstown as part of Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until October 5. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024  or Draíocht Blanchardstown

Aoife O'Sullivan and Ruth Berkeley in Dream Factory. Image by Olga Kuzmenko ** What do a parent-and-toddler story and a Lords of Strut sketch have in common? They're both best when kept short. Why is this relevant to Lords of Strut’s musical Dream Factory ? Because Dream Factory is a parent-and-toddler story stretched to a two hour pantomime. Even with the best will in the world wanting it to work, it makes for hard work at times. Redeemed by a big finish, some bigger musical numbers, and the biggest musical superstar of them all. A scintillating Ruth Berkeley as a pantomime Mum and a psychotic sheep who steals every scene and holds everything else to account. In Cian Kinsella’s corporate kitsch tale, a money making corporation, Dream Factory, is sucking Paradise’s resources dry. Creating useless stuff to sell to people. The sheep Moo, intent on world destruction, brainwashing people into being mindless consumers. Leading to a disproportionate amount of time telling us how bad the world is and how we need to save it rather than telling a worthwhile story. Aoife O’Sullivan, like a gutsy, pre-teen Brittney Spears, uncovering Moo's plan having sneaked into the Dream Factory to find her father. Throw in a talking bee, some modest aerial, trampoline and floor routines, and an endless barrage of on the nose messages and by intermission you might well be eyeing the exit. Post intermission, music cranks up as songs move front and centre, by far the best thing about this production. Garry McCarthy’s foot tapping compositions injecting verve and gusto into proceedings. Enlivened by Deirdre Griffin’s energised if sloppy choreography, with cheerleading lifts risking near misses. Compensating for Ellen Kirk’s low budget, two stairs and a trampoline set, Sarah Foley’s Crayola costumes, and director Jennifer Jennings eliciting Jackanory level performances. Ultimately, the story goes where you expect the story to go, the final part of the journey made fun and memorable as we all stand up to get down. Still, Dream Factory over does overkill, overstays its welcome and overplays its weak hand. It has its moments, and a divine Ruth Berkeley, but as its feel good, send off quickly wears off you’re left wishing it had aspired to Berkley’s standards and kept itself short rather than selling itself short. Dream Factory making for a modestly good outing for the undiscerning young, but not near as good as Lords of Strut are capable of. Dream Factory , by Cian Kinsella, additional writing by Jennifer Jennings, presented by Lords of Strut, runs at The Civic Theatre as part of Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until October 5. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 or The Civic Theatre

Agreement by Owen McCafferty. Image Carrie Davenport ***** Give My Head Peace meets The West Wing in Owen Mc Cafferty’s playful political parody Agreement . An historical account, with a generous dose of satire, interrogating the days leading up to the Good Friday Agreement in April, 1998. The personalities, the politics, the pettiness as key players strove to negotiate peace without giving anything up. Charlotte Westenra’s superb direction releasing a maelstrom of mayhem as tables, chairs, urinals and unshakeable convictions are whisked endlessly about. The hand of history urging men with huge mandates to try fashion a future free of the past. A stunning cast of Ruairi Conaghan (David Trimble), Sean Kearns (George Mitchell), Dan Gordon (John Hume), Martin Hutson (Tony Blair), Andrea Irvine (Mo Mowlam), Ronan Leahy (Bertie Ahern) and Aaron McCusker (Gerry Adams) playing a stunning cast of historical figures lauded as much as lampooned in Mc Cafferty’s hilarious tale. If we know how it played out, it's scary to see how it nearly didn't happen. Conor Murphy’s Civil Service set with its rectangle of night sky a cauldron where British and Irish counterparts look to put an end to decades of violence. Under pressure Unionist, David Trimble, the primary obstacle. Like the kid who owns the football sitting on it so others can’t play, Trimble has his heels dug in so far he seems to start at the knees. Gerry Adams watching as the game plays out might commit, might not. Shining light Tony Blair, believing his own messianic press, arrives to add guidance and wisdom, proving about as effective as an umbrella in a hurricane. Even as his steely side is eventually brought to the table. A grieving Bertie Ahern the light of reason and compromise, as is an impassioned John Hume. Overseer George Mitchell, as bewildered as a teacher on their first day at St. Trinian’s, nudges and steers from the wings. As does a demoted Mo Mowlam. The tragedy of her terminal illness compounded by the impression that had she been left at the helm the deal would have been struck in half the time. Agreement , like the Jack Charlton era, pays a price for the last twenty six years. What once kept a nation on the edge of its seat and signalled unparalleled change can seem like a soundbite moment from Reeling in the Years . The euphoria, the thrill, the choices relived by those who were there lost on those who weren’t. The nostalgia of the older making for a younger generation’s history. Yet Agreement is a brilliant piece of political theatre, succeeding on the terms it sets out for itself. Mc Cafferty’s comedy sweetening the political pill by puncturing notions of self-seriousness. Showing sworn enemies finding a way to live together in the same, shared space. A lesson that never gets old. Agreement by Owen McCafferty, presented by Lyric Theatre, NI and Gate Theatre, Dublin runs at The Gate Theatre as part of  Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until October 13. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024   or The Gate Theatre

Julie Sharkey in An Ant Called Amy. Image by Emma Brennan **** The upshot of simplicity is that it gives shoddy work nowhere to hide. The downside is that great work can seem almost effortless. Even as simplicity requires a phenomenal amount of effort. Like Julie Sharkey’s touchingly clever An Ant Called Amy . The story of an award winning ant who constantly busies themselves so they don’t have to think about…, well, let’s not think about that right now. Sharkey’s sharp tale showing little in terms of surface extravagance. But scratch that surface and there’s a whole world underneath. One asking its young audience about slowing down and self-care. About scary brown spiders. About fame almost going to your head. About sad things too. A woman, a ladder, and a story. Mostly it’s the woman. Olyn Wrynn’s set design and Sarah Jane Shiels’ mood shifting lights ensuring Amy, looking ready for a hard days work in Deirdre Dwyer’s overalls, is always the focus. The ladder an anthill climbed endlessly as Amy delivers leafs and wins her employee of the month award. The audience participants at the award presentation ceremony. Amy’s life an endless rush until one fateful night she meets the brown spider. Sharkey’s puppetry simply superb, as is her performance. Leading her young audience into imaginative engagement. By the time their special message is sent out at the end, they are totally won over. If some of its themes are likely to pass over the heads of the very young, Sharkey’s tale serves as a launching pad into post show discussions on the way home. Even as the show itself is a thing of joy. Sharkey, an impressive children’s performer, is made even more so by the impeccable direction of Raymond Keane. A master of physical theatre, Keane’s influence is clearly evident. Sharpening everything from pace, to composition, to expression. An Ant Called Amy stepped in Keane’s unhurried calm. The end result a simple tale simply told making for a joyfully delightful, A plus experience. An Ant Called Amy by Julie Sharkey runs at The Ark as part of  Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until September 29. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 or The Ark

0800 Cupid. Image by Eoin Greally with Niall Sweeney **** Misery loves company, but company’s decided it’s time they broke-up. In fairness, you wonder what took them so long? It’s not that Emer Dineen’s drag persona, Cupid, isn’t fun. It’s that Dineen’s self-absorption could set Olympic records. Her girlfriend breaking up with her mid-set at the dive that is Pinky’s is, admittedly, a genuine complaint. As is her struggle with Tourettes, her father’s growing dementia, and the bees squatting in her wall. But if that constitutes a post pandemic, pre apocalypse existential crisis, we’re all fucked. Still, if we have to go out, let Dineen throw the party. She may moan at a world class level, but with 0800 Cupid she shows she knows how to have fun. Joy, not so much, but she’s certainly a fun host. And let director Phillip McMahon set up the party. Anyone who can transform Dineen’s monologue of moan into a feel good, foot tapping musical deserves to be organising every party. Though let’s not have the party at Pinky’s. A drag bar that gives dive bars a bad name. Where Dineen and her fabulous backing singers and all round paragons of fabulousness Carl Harrison and Isabel Adomakoh Young strut their stuff. Performing live with musicians Osazee Aiguokhian, Tom Beech and Michael McCarthy, Dineen’s Cupid persona - one part Elvis, one part Liberace, and one part Magnum moustache - sets the stage alight with their song and dance routines. Until the breakup sends Cupid crashing and Dineen spinning off to find herself. An encounter with some bees, her cowboy Dad, the universe, and a man dealing with bereavement might shift her focus off herself. But will it be enough to save her? Despite being a musical, structurally 0800 Cupid is a ready made play. A one person, woe is my life monologue finding redemption by facing hard truths courtesy of a quirky outsider. Under McMahon’s astute direction, a multitude of narrative sins are concealed behind a shoestring of cabaret kitsch that’s gorgeously good fun. Most importantly, Dineen’s songs and singing are genuinely great. Co-composed with Beech, Dineen's ballads tug the heart strings, talk to God, or become foot tappers that get you dancing. In the end, Cupid proves to be a mask hiding a genuine treasure. For Dineen is an unparalleled talent. Forget Cillian Murphy, Cork’s real superstar is Dineen. And the world is going to know it. A talent this big can’t possibly be contained. Dineen is simply phenomenal. 0800 Cupid by Emer Dineen, presented by THISISPOPBABY, runs at The Project Arts Centre as part of  Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until October 5. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 or Project Arts Centre

Liv O'Donoghue in Starjazzer. Image by Patricio Cassinoni **** Midnight. An old Georgian building. A woman points at the brightest star in the night sky. Her mother once told her angels rested their feet on stars. Depending which way you promenade through ANU’s profoundly moving Starjazzer you may also encounter the bells of St George or a dance floor banger. Starjazzer’s mirroring of two abused women as they once were meeting themselves as they are now asking if the past has been bettered or has the song remained the same? Its diptych of stories by two of Ireland’s most important dramatists, Louise Lowe and Sean O’Casey , exploring inherited trauma and domestic abuse. O’Casey’s short story serving as a jumping off point for Lowe into a searing exploration of heartbreak and resilience. Ciara Byrne in Starjazzer. Image by Patricio Cassinoni Under Lowe’s loving direction, it ultimately doesn’t matter which way you promenade. Chronologically, it begins in the yard of a tenement as an exhausted woman waits at night for water to trickle into a bucket. Climbing hundreds of steps every Tuesday for water and washing. Liv O’Donoghue, frayed in body and soul, on the verge of physical and mental collapse. Remembering that on Christmas Eve the stars supposedly danced. She used to dance. Used to be attractive, this girl trapped in a woman’s body trying to protect her childlike self, six other children and survive eight years of abuse called marriage. Sex on demand, saying no not an option morally or legally. Momentarily, she dances beneath the stars in an exhausted frenzy, as if too ashamed to dream, too terrified not to. Pummelling her chest as if trying to reawaken her soul. The intimate audience made complicit witnesses, standing bare inches away, hoping this stunning glimpse of a vibrant, beautiful, powerful woman will…but there’s the washing to be done. Inside the building, faltering on the candlelit stairway, she leads us to her room. Owen Bosses' white washed walls evoking a time closer to today. Liv O'Donoghue in Starjazzer. Image by Patricio Cassinoni For a brief time a powerful duet plays out as O’Donoghue’s world is mirrored by a contemporary, single mother. A familial victim of abuse housed in low budget accommodation of some impersonal State service. A fireball of defiance and tears vividly realised by Ciara Byrne. She too speaks of angels and gets the willies having to go down darkened stairs for water. She too likes to dance beneath the stars. But where O’Donoghue dances to remember, Byrne dances to forget. Where O’Donoghue’s voice cracks under the strain of hopelessness, Byrne’s swaggers with defiant confidence born of an expectation that she deserves better. The legacy of the bed as a prison sees O’Donoghue trying to sleep, her arm pressed against her back as if held there against her will, the inevitable taking place. Trauma normalised, even as its consequences prove horrific. O’Donoghue battered in body and soul, Byrne no longer able to speak. As always with ANU, tech doesn’t simply frame the action, its informs it. Ciaran Bagnall’s lights adding emotional depth, along with Rob Moloney’s sound and Saileóg O’Hallorahan’s costumes. O’Hallorahan’s superb attention to detail evident in O’Donoghue’s threadbare blouse with a hole in the back. O’Donoghue’s excellent performance evoking a time when women could only scream helplessly. Byrne superb as a defiant woman in a child’s body forced to grow up to soon. Ciara Byrne in Starjazzer. Image by Patricio Cassinoni As a theatre maker, Lowe is one of a kind. Crafting works where details and narrative are fingers pointing towards an experiential moon. Occasionally, though, the fingers don’t point clearly, or clouds get in the way. Creating a lack of clarity exacerbated by Starjazzer’s confined, claustrophobic intimacy. One that risks a rushed incoherence early on. As if being challenged by a wild, oversharing stranger not quite making sense. Yet, as always with Lowe, Starjazzer operates on two levels; social and personal. The thwarted needs of the individual offering a keyhole view onto the larger society. Reminding us that politics should always be about people. It either saves them or does nothing. But Lowe won’t argue the toss. She allows her powerful women to speak for themselves. To howl and roar. Starjazzer offering a compelling, powerful and deeply moving interrogation of normalised abuse. It’s run justifiably extended. Grab a ticket if you can. Starjazze r, by ANU Productions, runs at The Royal Society of Antiquaries, Merrion Square, as part of Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until October 19. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024

Amy Molloy and Marty Rea in The House. Image, Ros Kavanagh ***** Tom Murphy's enduring classic from 2000, The House, is not an easy play to stage. Like Rachmaninoff's piano concertos there's layers of complexity and endless moving parts beneath its straightforward melodies. Hit the wrong note and Murphy’s classic tale about the immigrant diaspora of the 1950s returning home for the holidays rings dull and dated. It’s clash of memory and reality, of belonging and rootlessness making near impossible demands. It’s not enough to possess a sterling cast and first rate tech, nor a company sensitive to the Murphy oeuvre such as Druid. It requires a central vision of unadulterated genius to marshal its complex components into a unified and effecting whole. A genius of the calibre of Garry Hynes. Evident in Druid's superlative production currently gracing Dublin Theatre Festival. Liam Heslin, Colm Lennon and Marty Rea in The House. Image, Ros Kavanagh If Murphy’s story is paramount, the manner in which his story is told is equally important. With a painters eye and a musicians understanding of emotional complexity, Hynes proves a master storyteller. Before a word is spoken Hynes’ genius is conspicuous in the opening image. Francis O’Connor’s astonishing set, his costume designs with Clíodhna Hallissey, James F. Ingalls extraordinary lights and Sinéad Diskin’s sound design collaborating to produce a painterly image of extraordinary power. O’Connor’s expressionist set a hybrid of pub and house, as was often the case in the 1950s. It’s floating glass shards, like shattered memories, and its broken mirror like a jigsaw with key pieces missing evoking bad luck, faulty perceptions and a subtle undercurrent of violence. Marty Rea and Marie Mullen in The House. Image, Ros Kavanagh Against which a story of a returning, immigrant diaspora in the 1950s during their builder’s holidays serves as a commentary on a time and a place and a people. Like Marty Rea’s Christy Cavanagh, a man in awe of the family in the big house who cared for him as a child when his mother died. A man lost in memories of yesteryear. Devoted to the matriarchal Mrs de Burca, a commanding Marie Mullen. Rae and Mullen providing the emotional lynchpin around which everything revolves. Mullen representing a sense of home, of mothering, of place and belonging. Something Christy is desperately in search of. Hynes showing compositional brilliance as Christy sits on stairs at the top of the landing, or peering around corners, a child and man at one and the same time trapped in the present and the past. Donncha O'Dea, Darragh Feehely, Amy Molloy, Andrew Macklin in The House. Image, Ros Kavanagh Like Liam Heslin’s superb Peter, and Colm Lennon’s brilliantly articulated Goldfish, Christy possesses a mongrel soul that renders him a breed apart. Too English or American to be Irish, too Irish to be anything else, separated from soil and rootless abroad, money, sex and same old stories become their blow hard currency. Men who took to the building sites, or, like Christy, or Amy Molloy’s delightfully seductive Susanne, undertook questionable ways to survive and make money. Traces of A Whistle in the Dark reverberating in the criminal darkness that follows Christy about. Learning the de Burca’s house is up for sale, Christy decides to buy it at a fair price. Marty Rae extraordinary as a character whose emotional complexity sees him shift from young boy to calculating criminal, from womaniser to violently dangerous with ease. Rae transitioning seamlessly in an utterly compelling performance. Cathal Ryan, Donncha O'Dea, Liam Heslin, Colm Lennon, Marty Rea in The House. Image, Ros Kavanagh Indeed, performances across the board prove simply superlative, each achieving three dimensional characters possessed by a singular, driving impulse. Jessica Dunne Perkins as the brutalised Louisa, Darragh Feehely’s Kerrigan a solicitor with a conscience, Cathal Ryan as the local loudmouth, Donncha O’Dea as the scene stealing pub owner Bunty, Andrew Macklin as police office Harley and a divine Rachel O’Byrne as Marie are each extraordinary. As is the treasure that is Marie Mullen. Immaculate as Mrs de Burca, whose joyous luminosity visibly shrinks under the burden Christy places on her as the end approaches. It’s indicative of Hynes’ genius, and Rae’s impeccable performance, that as the final scene plays out Christy is both indecent villain and a man trying to do the decent thing. Left with a house, but not a home. Hynes’ interpretation of Murphy’s The House one the best and most important revivals of the year, yielding endless interpretive riches. A production not to be missed by anyone serious about great Irish theatre. The House by Tom Murphy, directed by Garry Hynes and presented by Druid, runs at The Gaiety Theatre as part of  Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until October 6. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 or The Gaiety Theatre

Lorcan Cranitch and Ella Lily Hyland in Grania. Image: Ros Kavanagh *** There’s a famous statue by Giambologna in The Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence. The Abduction, or Rape, of a Sabine Woman. The 16th sculpture depicting three nudes; a cowering old man, a virile young man, and a distressed young woman being whisked away from the old man by the younger. A statue that references a particular story whilst also being symbolic of other things; old age and youth, power and desire, and women as property in the world of men. Themes echoed in Lady Augusta Gregory’s Grania from 1912, receiving its first professional production. Gregory’s tale also referencing a far older tale, one featuring an aging man, a virile youth and a young woman. The legend of Grania and Diarmuid given a sly twist that makes for too many big asks. Leaving director Caitríona McLaughlin struggling to address the tensions in Gregory’s unwieldily and unconvincing script. One in which binaries such as realism and fairytale, women and boys, desire and duty are left unresolved. If visually pleasing, Colin Richmond’s wheat and lily set, Sinéad Wallace’s amber lights, and Catherine’s Fay’s time neutral costumes evoke a liminal nowhere steeped in Celtic twilight; neither now nor long ago whilst aspiring to both. Grania’s bumbling start referencing contemporary Dublin’s immigration crisis as Seán Boylan and Laura Sheehan sing around a makeshift fire like a Greek chorus. Not for the last time will Carl Kennedy’s compositions wear on the ear, serving up unnecessary distractions. Into these fields of gold Grania, the King’s daughter, arrives to meet Finn, Ireland’s greatest warrior. Meeting for the first time the day before their wedding. Ella Lily Hyland’s self-assured Grania, a girl with (sugar) daddy issues and a thing for dangerous boys, is happy to wed Lorcan Cranitch’s much older Finn, resurrecting love in his rusted heart. Though whether love for Grania as woman or possession is up for debate. Niall Wright and Ella Lily Hyland in Grania. Image: Ros Kavanagh Until Niall Wright's Diarmuid arrives; a man women find easy to love, allegedly. The bloodstained hero and the bride to be realising they’re wild about each other. Only he prefers celibacy to betraying Finn’s trust. A late night incident with an uncooperative candle finds Grania confiding her love to Diarmuid believing him to be the man with his back turned to her. Bedlam ensues, demanding a double measure of suspension of disbelief as her love is found out. Diarmuid’s oath of celibacy and his promise to keep Grania safe from Finn’s wrath finding us drifting from legend into fairytale into farce, laughing as tragedy becomes comedy. An annoying, two song intermezzo by Kennedy drags on as a rain swept, snowstorm landscape sees figures constantly moving across it. If the point was to convey the passing of seven years in the wilderness, it succeeds in that it feels like seven years when the action recommences with a simple, powerful stage image. One doing more in ten seconds than all the music torn thundering that preceded it. Making it clear that Grania and Diarmuid were never a star crossed Romeo and Juliet. They were Adam and Eve hiding in the garden from a jealous God at the beginning of the world. Or the beginning of Ireland. Grania swimming naked as a naked Diarmuid spears fish capturing the beauty, the vulnerability, the tenderness and passion that Gregory points to but rarely harnesses. Grania, having finally slept with Diarmuid, already planning to rearrange their lives to one more in keeping with her tastes. A see through disguise sets Diarmuid off to seek vengeance on a lusty king following a ruse by Finn, leading to recriminations, a complicated death scene, and a compromised future that, if it speaks to a new vision of Ireland, might well leave you feeling we were doomed from the start. Lorcan Cranitch , Niall Wright and Ella Lily Hyland in Grania. Image: Ros Kavanagh If many of Grania’s political and moral concerns sound hollow to modern ears, efforts to modernise the work only make matters worse. Connecting the wanderings of Diarmuid and Grania unable to return home with the plight of refugees via recurring images shoehorned in looks forced and weak. Then there’s Grania. Portrayed as a confident, sexually assured young woman playing off weak men with the sexual assurance of schoolboys undermines tension. Their confrontations less arguments so much as boys being bossed to bed by their bullish older sister. Duty, found in notions of male codes of honour, sounds like childish, comic book heroics. Leaving Grania's patience, given she looks like she wouldn’t deny herself for seven minutes let alone seven years, making for a hard sell. Even as she feels like the only flesh and blood creature amongst a pair of male anachronisms. Finn and Diarmuid’s father-son relationship unsettled by what might be considered a homoerotic kiss. Their connection never properly explored but rather serving as fuel for an unconvincing reversal. Grania is a historically significant play, making its first professional production historically signifiant. Lending the occasion a degree of gravitas as many delight in picking through its historical references. Arguing about Gregory’s own life and her relationship with an older husband and younger lover, about how this production corrects a wrong many feel should have been addressed long ago. But another argument as to why Grania has never been produced is that, as a three act play, it doesn’t satisfactorily come together whatever its offstage curios. What lingers is not Gregory’s outdated tale cobbled to meet her ideological views, but Lorcan Cranitch’s impressive performance and Ella Lily Hyland’s no nonsense, self assured Grania; strong, brave, commanding and mesmerising. Like Hyland herself. Owning the stage and making this historic, inaugural Grania her very own. Grania , by Lady Augusta Gregory, runs at The Abbey Theatre as part of  Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until Oct 12, continuing its run until October 26. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 or The Abbey Theatre

Nobodaddy by Teać Damsa. Image by Fiona Morgan. **** Less a set so much as a convenience. Like a warehouse, or a backstage area. A figure stretched across three chairs sleeps like a fallen angel, her white wings tarnished. Looking like rejects from Reservoir Dogs , two men enter and engage in a little spit and polish. A dull tale ensues as the angel falls to the floor and both men refuse to pick her up. A bad back, a cheese sandwich, she’s got the wrong health insurance. Meanwhile, grey suited musicians sit in line near the wings looking like The Rubberbandits auditioning for the next Kneecap movie. So begins Teać Damsa’s latest production Nobodaddy , the name referencing a repulsive character by William Blake. A metaphor to speak to the horror of modern times and to hope for the future. An energised production that, well, you’ll likely like it, but you might not like-like it. And if you came for dance you probably won’t love it. It’s opening plainly foreshadowing that dance isn’t the primary art form of this interdisciplinary hybrid. When dance finally arrives, it’s already on the back foot. Some repackaged routines playing with forms suggest ballet and line dancing. There being more variety in music than dancing. Onstage musicians, along with dancers at times, delivering a wide range of songs and styles. Ballads, bluegrass, trad and folk dominating, with folk singer, Sam Amidon, playing front and foremost most of the time. So much so Nobodaddy frequently resembles a Sam Amidon concert with choreographic support. Fine if you’re a fan, otherwise it can feel like an Amidon curated song cycle. Or a bubble chain of music videos linked by notions of death. Echoed in Doey Lüthi’s showband costumes evoking the 1970s. The murder of The Miami Show Band in 1975 and the recent passing of director Michael Keegan-Dolan’s mother underscoring Nobodaddy's jukebox of musical delights. Visually, images prove at their best when seeming to come from left field; unique and individual dance movements, leaps from a ladder to a mattress a la Amanda Coogan, endless climbing on top of a large box, or a routine giving the phrase “butter him up” a whole new meaning. As always with Teać Damsa, dancing is the thing. An ageless, androgynous, endlessly energised Rachel Poirier once again sublime in every instance. Even as others look a little predictable in a company where the unpredictable works best. Some spectacular group work contrasts with patchy flashes that tempt and tease as often as they deliver. A superb duet between Ryan O’Neill and Jovana Zelenović, in which the distraught O’Neill screams whilst Zelenović manipulates his resistant body being a joy to behold. Reminding you of what Nobodaddy didn’t have enough of. As the end nears, following some controlled, punk chaos, a number of plaintive tunes about bargaining with death, the prodigal son, and the horror of the world precede a pleading recital from Blake's Auguries of Innocence which tries too hard to tug the emotional heart strings. As if sensing the job has been left undone and trying to overcompensate. Sending us home in a sea of bubbles. All fine and feel good, unless you were hoping for a little more substance and a little less kitsch than bubbles. Still, if less wild and more disorderly, less about dance and more about music, Nobodaddy , at its best, reminds you that Teać Damsa create moments that can take your breath away. Nobodaddy by Teać Damsa, an An Droichead for Belfast 2024, Dublin Theatre Festival, Abbey Theatre, and Sadlers Wells co-production, runs at the O'Reilly Theatre as part of Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until Oct 5. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024

Shades Through A Shade. Image by Ewa Figaszewska **** It sounds a little daunting, and a tad dull. Gare St Lazare’s intertextual and interdisciplinary Shades Through A Shade . An academic delight referencing Melville’s Bartleby The Scrivener, Beckett’s Belacqua from his short story collection More Pricks Than Kicks , and Dante’s Beatrice and The Divine Comedy where Belacqua first appeared. Add a sprinkle of text from St Augustine, a jigger from Julian Of Norwich, a whisper from Hildegard Von Bingen and some Jean-Luc Nancy to name the major culprits, and you might feel a doctorate in The Religious Significance of Literary Characters Whose Names Begin With The Letter B would be helpful. But the truth is The Divine Comedy , like Ulysses , and some would add Beckett and Moby Dick , is something more people claim to have read than have actually read. And those who have usually never got past Inferno . In other words, you don’t need to know all the references. For Shades Through A Shade pulls them apart, selects what it wants, then reassembles them loosely after its own unique fashion. Theatrically, Shades Through A Shade is a genuinely fun production. Puncturing seriousness by resembling the worst auditions for The Play That Went Wrong. Lines lost, awkward tableaux, overacting, the line between stage, performer, musician and usher endlessly erased sees excerpt follow excerpt in humourous fashion. Performers Natasha Everitt, Simon Jermyn, Conor Lovett, Lux Lovett, Trey Lyford, Seán Mac Earlaine and Julia Spanu taking meta-theatricality out for a spin against a steady musical score. Music by Benedict Schlepper Connolly, played live, a fusion of flavours ranging from Persian folk to religious choral channelling the laid back guitar stylings of Bill Frisell with Norma Winstone styled vocal accompaniment by Spanu. A healthy interruption of Grunge serves as a palette cleanser, as does an Alleluia Gospel moment replete with arm swaying backing singers. Set design by Judy Hegarty Lovett and Simon Bennison, with original artworks by Morgan Doyle, lighting by Simon Bennison and costumes by Valentina Gambardella might not push the visual boundaries, but screen curtains constantly being whisked across stage sees energy flow and the space constantly charged and changing. Meanwhile, extracts from letters, devouring shards of paper, rerunning the play’s highlights inject playful delight into the wild, visual mix. Shades Through A Shade. Image by Ewa Figaszewska If, theatrically, Shades Through A Shade is not so heavy after all, thematically it’s still pretty dense, and its one hundred minute running time can be a challenge. Large chunks of text endlessly recited risk becoming about as exciting as a train spotting AGM being recounted by a stickler for detail. Seeming to weave a circular theology, juxtaposing religious with the atheistic, the anxious and the absurd, and both against the spiritual, even as terms are never clearly defined. Defying faith or faith as defiance? The happy life or the impossiblity of happiness? We’ll let you decide. Directed by Judy Hegarty Lovett, and co-created with Conor Lovett, Benedict Schlepper-Connolly, Sebastian McKimm and Morgan Doyle, Shades Through A Shade might not make for light going, but it’s forever light hearted. When it comes to life, or art, we’re all just strutting and fretting our hour upon the stage, getting our lines wrong, missing our mark in both sacred and profane moments. Wondering in what state shall we die? When perhaps the more pertinent question is, in what state do we live? All up for discussion in this playful, fun and thought provoking production. Shades Through A Shade by Gare St Lazare runs at The Samuel Beckett Theatre as part of  Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 until September 28. For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2024

Sorcha Furlong in Tender Mercies. Image Al Craig. **** Poetry and prose collide in Colette Cullen’s hugely affecting Tender Mercies . Cullen’s prosaic tale a character study of hairdresser Mary concealing a knife up its sleeve. For Mary is an alcoholic on enough prescribed medication to supply an A&E unit on a Saturday night. Cullen’s tale inspired by the true life story of a woman whose body wasn’t discovered until a year after she died. A fact that frames Mary’s story with hidden poignancy, like watching a car crash as it happens. Mary’s life, a litany of banalities trying to hide the truth from us and herself. A life leaning heavily into secrecy. The truth hidden in plain sight; the pharmacy’s paper bag tucked beneath the table, the cardboard wine carrier covered with a cloth. Tales of once regular clients, like Rita, wanting to change her hair to red interspersed with mentions of Mary’s ex-husband Johnny, her twin brother Barry, her adoring Dad and a mother who took tough love to a whole other level. All supplying weak backstory and weaker justification for why Mary thinks she’s a ten time loser. Or why she can’t shake the monkey some call depression. The overcooked sympathy risking her truth disappearing like the last dregs in the bottle. A truth revealed in Sorcha Furlong's poetic and brilliant performance. Furlong impeccable as a lonely, isolated woman, so wounded even her smiles have scars. Even though director Caroline Fitzgerald elicits ten of the best performative minutes to be had anywhere, from the outset Tender Mercies struggles with its identity. Like its uncredited set, Cullen’s text is a contrived mess of convenience. As with alcohol and pills, its I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles , street games, Bunty readers nostalgia doesn’t mix well with its grim realism. Leaving Tender Mercies speaking clearest to women of a particular generation. And so it goes for about forty minutes, rambling through old references, backstory and exposition, none of it particularly gripping. Furlong guiding us through Mary's days of wine and rose coloured glasses. Lulling us into wondering where this might be going and a false sense of thinking we’re witnessing a performer doing an impressive job. But this is meat and potatoes for Furlong. Impressive is coming, and you’ll know it when it gets here. In the hands of a lesser performer, Mary’s breakdown could play like a cheap gimmick. A gut punch to the emotional buttons for easy effect. With Furlong, we get layered nuance, subtleties within subtleties, flashes of truth that burn only for an instant, being too painful to look at any longer. Furlong reaching in and scooping truth from its pain dark depths. Mary, like a parent watching their child fight for their life, helpless to do anything. Her hope an unrequited lover’s last kiss. All her worlds imploding from sheer emotional force. The diminutive ending, with its darker suggestions, offering slow release from the whirlwind in which everyone, including Mary, has failed her. Typecasting carries penalties. In Tender Mercies , Furlong reminds you she can deliver to standards few attain. Timing could have been better though. With Dublin Theatre Festival 2024 running in tandem, it’s naturally going to attract the bulk of theatre goers. But if you want to check out a top class performance, Furlong at The Viking is a sure fire certainty. In the end, you might remember Mary, but Furlong you'll never forget. Tender Mercies by Colette Cullen, runs at The Viking Theatre until Oct 12th. For more information visit The Viking Theatre

Cortisol. Image, Simão Nogueira. *** When it comes to a sinking script, a good director can steer it to shore. A great director can find enough of its heart to show you what could've been. Such is the case with director Jeda de Brí whose impressive work on debut play Cortisol , by sisters Megan and Shannon Haly conceals a multitude of sins. Its ready-made formula of traumatised heroine suffering life in her twenties foregrounds two impressive performers who, alas, make for two second rate writers. For no matter how much de Brí dresses it up, there’s very little meat, and less originality, on this cliched, bone dry skeleton. A lopsided, radio play passed off as story telling theatre, Cortisol follows childhood friends Sam and Izzy through Sam’s mother's death, diverging life choices, separation at college, Sam moving to Berlin, and Sam’s endless self-pity which she calls her twenties. Simply put, it’s all about Sam. Izzy, like Sam’s mother, grandmother, or her girlfriend Sophie, little more than walk on parts in Sam's self-induced victimhood. Cleverly switching characters between performers strives, but fails, to enforce a degree of intimacy that simply isn't there. Wanting us to believe this relationship flourishes when everything suggests it died ages past. Its continued existence little more than habit that breaks down under the barest scrutiny. As when Izzy announces her exciting news. Sam turning it into yet another excuse as to why she’s so unhappy. Salvaged by a neat twist at the end that, if psychologically trite, proves dramatically sweet. With its short scenes and televisual structure, Cortisol resembles Tik Tok theatre. Emotional soundbites and dramatic flashcards overlaid by cliched Hallmark text. What keeps it interesting is the manner in which de Brí composes the space, allows energy to flow and performances rise above the script, highlighting Megan and Shannon Haly as having considerable presence and talent. As writers, not so much. Jenny Whyte’s three podium set, Dara Hoban’s lights and Fiona Shiel’s sound design going a long way to compensating for Cortisol’s dramatic and emotional shallowness. Joan Didion famously said, “I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be.” In Cortisol , clinging to those people fails to deliver and fails to convince. Even as the Haly sisters turn in valiant performances and de Brí cements her reputation as one of the best directors around. Cortisol, by Megan and Shannon Haly, directed by Jeda de Brí, runs at Smock Alley Theatre as part Dublin Fringe Festival 2024 until Sept 21. For more information visit Smock Alley Theatre or D ublin Fringe Festival 2024.

Dancehall Blues. Image by Ros Kavanagh **** Entering CoisCéim Studio for Dancehall Blues, directed and choreographed by David Bolger, you might find yourself wondering if you’re at the right show? Double checking your programme, you discover the word you might have glanced over; dystopia. But this is CoisCéim Dance Theatre and David Bolger . Responsible for some of the most uplifting and beautifully crafted pieces of the past three decades. Works defined by joy, hope and tenderness. In fairness, even when doing dystopia CoisCéim craft it beautifully. But somehow it doesn’t look right. Hazmat boiler suits suggesting workers in a black roomed abattoir. A large disco ball swinging like a wrecking ball set against an industrial soundtrack. The walls replete with fascist images set against a German sounding villain from the 1940s. Meanwhile, two masked dancers conduct a dialogue without a conversation. Bodies, like passive, mechanical meat suits get pulled, pushed, prodded, rolled. All very inhuman. All very 1984 . All a little bit cliched. But fear not. As wall curtains are pulled and the world outside overheard, light and something rather crucial enter the space. In no time you’re on familiar, if bittersweet ground. Dancehall Blues serving up a poignant reminder that, at heart, CoisCéim and Bolger are forever hopeless romantics. What enters the room is humanity, given shape and form by dancers Stephanie Dufresne and Alex O’Neill. An operatic aria sees Dufresne undertake a slow, gentle striptease to peel away the outer skin of the boiler suit. The body humanised is suddenly made more expressive. Meanwhile, O’Neill performs with mechanical rote till the mask is slipped, the human peers out and a similar shedding follows. Now begins a conversation without dialogue. Or series of conversations. Dufresne and O’Neill, like Adam and Eve trapped in their garden of Eden, look through the windows at a joyous street song playing outside. Movement, both natural and curated, crafting exquisite moments in solo and duet. O’Neill’s stuttering, often jerking physicalty mesmerising. Offset by Dufresne's sweeping elegance whether dancing, walking or climbing on chairs. Romance ever present in their flirting stand-offs, their shared playfulness, their gentle oneupmanship. In If You Go Away sung like a French torch song in a 1940s movie. Cork pulled by the teeth then spat to the floor as wine is guzzled from the neck. The penetrating gaze. The stylish, black Fedora. The eternal cigarette… actually, scratch that last one. Yet dystopia is never far away. The locked door. Voices from outside. The cautionary voice overs. At one point the phrase The Great Reset is written in lipstick on a mirror. Whether referring to the World Economic Forum’s recovery plan post Covid, or something more open ended, the answer is left unclear. What’s clear is that the dancers might be safe in their prison cell, but it’s still a cell. In which their sketchy narrative of short scenes, like album tracks, suggests hope but also whistling in the dark. Dialogue, when it enters, shapeless and weak when addressing too big, too open ended questions. Dufresne and O’Neill’s physical conversations far more beautiful, insightful and heartfelt. As the end arrives, poignant and bittersweet, it’s left to us to wonder if perhaps this is all we have? Moments, dancing together in our prison cells beneath sparkle and starlight. The world gone to riot outside as we wait, and wish, for the best of us. Perhaps. But at moments it looks more than enough. At moments it looks a little like heaven. Dancehall Blues by CoisCéim Dance Theatre runs at CoisCéim Studio, Fairview Strand, and part Dublin Fringe Festival 2024 until Sept 21. For more information visit CoisCéim Dance Theatre or Dublin Fringe Festival 2024

Hyperphysical, by Irish Modern Dance Theatre. Image Patricio Cassinoni ***** Passion and play. Individuality and the collective. Old and new. Vital opposites necessary for the creation of dance. All evident in Irish Modern Dance Theatres double bill Hyperphysical . A yin yang, diptych of contrasts and harmonies making for a rather unique whole. With The Future is on the Way by American choreographer Abby Z and the New Utility , five dancers undertake a punishing, durational performance, pushing the body to its physical limits only to keep on going. Rigour constantly maintained. Synchronicity, sharpness of articulation, never allowed waver. Even when tempo changes, tension never lessens. Opening with martial arts horse stance, rising arms are imbued with tai-chi grace. A descent to the floor sees street and hip hop elements added. Pace quickens. In no time the hybrid of forms evolves and intensifies. Dancers grunting, calling, encouraging each other to keep going, to press on. The choreographer calling out from the auditorium like some invisible drill sergeant. Solos, duets, and duets of duets feeling like a military parade ground drill. Pummelling bodies pushed to their limits to become the troop, the battalion, the unit, the company. The indiviudal subsumed into the whole. Keep going, don’t quit, don’t slacken. A strategy as old as the hills often condemned for promoting elitism in the name of weeding out the weak. Or of finding the very best. Like Inez Berdychowska, Roberta Ceginskaite, Boris Charrion, Rosie Mullin and Adam O’Reilly, each astonishing to watch. Repeating patterns and movements till it's impossible not to be impressed by their stamina, dexterity, commitment and resilience. The five becoming one. Five fingers making a fist. In contrast John Scott's revival of Actions [now] offers a shorter, calmer, more playful duet featuring two male dancers; O’Reilly and Charrion returning for more. If less physically demanding, Actions [now] is imbued with hyperphysical searching. Its apparent randomness suggesting a feeling out of form rather than setting its course by something already determined. Here, two do not become one, despite the duet. Rather, like individual soloist, they learn, share and evolve through a process of mirroring, imitating, synchronising and playing together. Children showing off, collaborating, calling to each other to follow me, or asking instruction from the audience of what they'd like to see them do. Running, spinning, ballet and explosions sees the stern focus of the driven adult complimented by inclusiveness, openness and vulnerability. Its playfulness and charm simply irresistible. Full of John Scott's signature stylings and a love of collaborative endeavour, Hyperphysical is Irish Modern Dance Theatre at their best. Individually, each work makes for a remarkable whole. Seeing both side-by-side is to get a rare view of both ends of the dance spectrum simultaneously. Hyperphysical making for a sensational production, doing exactly what it says on the tin. Hyperphysical , by Irish Modern Dance Theatre, ran at The Lir as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2024. It transfers to Dance Cork Firkin Crane for Sept 20 and 21. For more information visit Irish Modern Dance Theatre or Dublin Fringe Festival 2024.

Julius Caesar Variety Show by Joy Nesbitt. Image by Eti *** There’s an urgent need for a play about the black lived experience in Ireland, with particular reference to black people’s experiences engaging with the arts. Alas, Julius Caesar Variety Show isn’t it. What it is, is a first year, Drama Soc experiment that misses as often as it hits. Disappointing given it features two rising stars of Irish Theatre; writer and director Joy Nesbitt and performer (but also a writer and director) Ultan Pringle. Nesbitt’s premise is simple. Three actors, a pianist, and a director from hell are workshopping an upcoming production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar . The building they’re in, a once venerated theatre, is about to be knocked down to make way for a Direct Provision Centre. Outside, a hostile, far right mob are loudly protesting, keeping the company trapped inside. Set-up laboriously established, what follows is a series of on the nose, subtle as a brick polemics via dull diatribes and dubious acting exercises, all designed to highlight the changing, and unchanging face of Irish society. Taking a scattergun approach, Julius Caesar Variety Show throws endless theatrical mud hoping something of worth will stick. Unfortunately, very little of worth does. Take the cliched characters. Three of whom are aligned with once famous actors. Pringle’s director and Daniel Mahon’s fawning Laurence Olivier clearly representing a white, male patriarchy. Even as Loré Adewusi’s Sidney Poitier and Pattie Maguire’s Marlene Dietrich speak to a liberal, pronoun positive women and immigrant cohort. Conrad Jones-Brangan’s musician sitting somewhere on the fence. Dropping more names and cultural references than a wannabe influencer, explorations of power structures between men, women and people of colour in the arts lead to an inevitably predictable ending whilst offering too little of insight on the way. Julius Caesar Variety Show , wanting to be of the moment, evokes the feeling of the moment likely to be long over by the time its endless discussion are done. Its dream of pronoun appropriate behaviour creating a new dawn looking more like power still corrupting even as it changes hands. Nesbitt and co reaching for low hanging fruit, the richer fruit seemingly out of reach. Yet every so often something drops from the higher brances, reminding you of what might have been. A pity, given Julius Caesar Variety Show is a labour of love that makes some important points. About colourblind casting, white male privilege, how right wing hatred might be a TV soundbite for many, but for black people it’s a viable threat to their lives. But it makes its points in juvenile fashion. ’But this is the Fringe, an opportunity to experiment with new ideas.’ Were this their first outing, you might tend to be more lenient. But Pringle and Nesbitt have a track record of far superior work. Like wearing your communion clothes on your first day of college, Julius Caesar Variety Show doesn’t fit anymore. They’ve outgrown this kind of student level production. One positive takeaway. Pattie Maguire’s passionate performance is a revelation. Like Nesbitt and Pringle, Maguire has the talent to be one of the best. She shows it here. You’ll have to look elsewhere to find Pringle and Nesbitt at their best. Julius Caesar Variety Show by Joy Nesbitt, runs at The New Theatre until Sept 14 as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2024 For more information visit The New Theatre or Dublin Fringe Festival 2024.

Bitch by Marty Breen. Imahe Sophie O'Donovan ***** If you don’t pick up on the subtleties in Bitch early on, it’ll likely tear your soul out. Even if you do Marty Breen’s  one person, musical monologue is likely to emotionally eviscerate you. It all looks innocuous. A cross between a show tunes singalong at Marie’s Crisis alternating with a stand-up comedy routine. Visually, it’s a little juvenile. Suzie Cummins’s cabaret pink lights for the piano and masculine blue for the comedy reinforcing Breen’s gender switching throughout. But hesitation as the cymbal fizzes and outbursts of excessive rage hint at bravado. At dark, unsettling themes. Themes that eventually come to the forefront. But by the time they become clear, it’s too late. Bitch has trapped you in a vice like grip you will not be able to escape from. Nor will you likely want to. Like a twenty-first century, R-rated Victoria Wood, Breen’s impressive musical and vocal skills sees them setting to song a variety of ideas and experiences. Juxtaposed and complimented by a stand up routine in which an incel looking, needs-to-be-more-masculine comedian talks about his love life. For a time, it feels like little more than a showcase reel to attract agents, highlighting Breen’s considerable musical, vocal, comedic and performative talents. But those early subtleties come back to haunt. Director Jeda de Brí doing a sterling job creating a safe space for Breen to flourish, and facilitating that challenging transition from lightweight to soul stirring. Bitch becoming a powerful exploration of sexual abuse, and of how women are conditioned to internalise blame especially for things they’re not responsible for. True, it follows the Netflix redemption formula with insight provided by an all knowing pain in the ass. Yet as the a cappella finale brings it all home, with its head nod to Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run with the Wolves, the hairs on the back of your neck rise as Breen bears their soul. Bold, brave, and oft times brilliant, Bitch is a blisteringly breathtaking experience. But Breen is even better. Not to be missed. Bitch, written, composed and performed by Marty Breen, runs at Bewley’s Café Theatre until Sept 15 as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2024. For more information visit Bewley’s Café Theatre or Dublin Fringe Festival 2024.

Illness as Metaphor. Image by Edit Jason Booher **** Illness as Metaphor. The 1978 book by Susan Sontag exploring the difficulty we experience talking about illness. Written in response to Sontag’s own experience of dealing with breast cancer. Diseases like TB and cancer often romanticised or mythologised as barometers of personal worth. Illness a metaphor for punishment, self-inflicted injury, for weakness, secrecy or shame. Or spoken of through military metaphors; invasive, attacking, terminating. Dead Centre adapting Sontag’s book to speak to six people currently living with serious illness. Cabrini Cahill, Eamonn Doyle, James Ireland, Conor Lenehan, Una Mullally and Megan Robinson, along with director Brian Kidd, recounting their true life experiences as they try unpack Sontag’s musings. Lots of sickness and pain involved, suggesting it’s not a show that’s big on laughs. Except… Illness as Metapho r is very big on laughs, offering an intriguing interrogation of the biggest metaphor maker of them of all; theatre. What Illness as Metaphor is not big on is cheap sensationalism and lazy sentimentality. Its seven strong cast, gathered in response to a callout by Kidd, giving a no frills account of their personal experiences and their responses to Sontag’s book. Kidd, along with co-director Bush Moukarzel, keeping things thematically grounded even as theatrically things go through the roof. Throughout, metaphor is defined as one thing explained in terms of another. Facilitating a delicious conceit as each performer plays the person to their immediate left; acting being the greatest example of one thing playing at being another. Allowing stories to be told with detachment, puncturing the personal without ever denying it. Allowing for some hilarious moments of self-deprecation. Meanwhile, Kidd, as a chain smoking Sontag, reads from her book whose pages are projected onto the back wall. Soon to become a blue screen. Blue both a multi-layered metaphor and a device which allows bodies disappear, horses to appear, and an endless fall from the sky to magically occur. As videos go, Kilian Water’s DIY, shoestring style wouldn’t be Dead Centre’s best work by any distance. But it’s all part of a makeshift, meta-theatrical, self-awareness. Asking why do we need metaphor? Why can’t we just say what’s wrong with us? In the end, Illness as Metaphor is affected by the very disease it diagnoses; being unable to talk directly about illness. For this is never illness in its raw, unvarnished state. This is illness sanitised into art, avoiding difficult issues like the right to die, even as art is recognised as completely ineffectual in saving lives. Art might ease symptoms, but it cures nothing. Also, all language is metaphor, and literalism is the lowest level of meaning. Metaphor, at its best, is about saying more, not less. Of conveying something beyond the limit of language rather than being restricted by it. And some metaphors ring true, even in relation to illness. The metaphor that people managing illness are nicer, kinder, wiser human beings. On the evidence of the cast of this meta-theatrical delight, that very much seems to be the case. Not Dead Centre’s best work by any stretch, but Illness as Metaphor is arguably its most moving. Illness as Metaphor, by Dead Centre, runs at The Project Arts Centre until Sept 14 as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2024 . For more information visit Project Arts Centre or Dublin Fringe Festival 2024.

The Maestro and The Mosquita. Image Ros Kavanagh. **** Lights, music, sound, action. Core elements of any Louis Lovett performance, crafted and curated through an alchemy of magic and hard work. Like Bryan Burroughs, Raymond Keane and Mikel Murfi, Lovett is one of Ireland’s great physical performers. His signature style marrying clowning and tones of Commedia to facilitate unforgettable theatrical experiences. If you thought he couldn’t possibly get any better, think again. The Maestro and The Mosquita by Carmel Winters sees Lovett breaking through to even higher ground. Leaving mere mortals to look on in wonder as his irresistible spell seduces and enchants. Even if it slightly overstays it's welcome. In fairness, his collaborator’s must take some of the credit, and a little of the blame. Winters tale of a man, a mosquito, and the testing of their relationship is built around an impressive economy of text. Language riddled with hints and suggestions, saying very much more by saying so much less. Allowing Lovett’s Germanic tones, expressions and physical mannerisms convey humour, heart and deeper truths. Yet beginning with direct address to the audience, then shifting to a story that checks in with them now and again sees proceedings stumble at the gate. Not helped by the story being initially confusing and longer than it needed to be. Leaving Lovett’s expertise as the only thing to connect with for a time. No great suffering there, but good stuff slips through the cracks as you try to work it out. Directors Muireann Ahern and Stephen Warbeck managing visuals beautifully, but narrative not so successfully at times. Still, things eventually settle and in no time Lovett has you eating out of the palm of his hand as the maestro and his mosquito set about defining the nature of their special relationship. If Lovett is master of his craft, Sarah Jane Shiels is similarly so. Shiels possessing the ability to eclipse herself and allow the personality of the show or artist shine through. The only hint of her presence hiding in the sheer excellence of the work. Here clothes, shadows, footlights and mosquito flights are infused with Lovett’s boyish charm. Echoed in Warbeck’s stunning score and Carl Kennedy’s perfectly executed sound design. By the time the final lullaby arrives you are helplessly, eternally transported. Feeling like an improv exercise that goes on a tad too long, or a fairytale trying to be a novel, The Maestro and The Mosquita is at its best when less is doing so much more. Even so, Lovett’s performance is a source of such joy you never want him to leave the stage. The Maestro and The Mosquita by Carmel Winters, presented by Theatre Lovett, runs at The Project Arts Centre until Sept 15 as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2024 For more information visit Project Arts Centre or Dublin Fringe Festival 2024

Eva O'Connor in Chicken. Image Paul Baker and Hildegard Ryan **** Aardman Animations get the live action treatment in Eva O’Connor and Hildegard Ryan’s award winning Chicken . A darling of the Edinburgh Fringe, this hugely inventive piece of storytelling theatre is surpassed only by the manner of its telling. Charting Don Murphy’s rise from mysterious birth to Oscar stardom via Michael Fassbender’s appendage. Followed by Don’s plummet from grace courtesy of Colin Farrell’s bad boy influence. Too much Special K and not enough self-respect finds Don shacking up with a performance artist. The first step to recovery as he returns home to star in Martin McDonagh’s latest blockbuster. Only to discover the glaring secret of his mysterious birth resulting in a rousing call to arms. Less Braveheart so much as Wallace and Gromit , Chicken is an absurd delight speaking to a plethora of themes. Made anthropomorphically marvellous by the fact Don is an actual chicken. Or rooster to be exact. One big, Irish cock. O’Connor’s one woman monologue playing with every chicken pun, and then some, as the aspiring ack-tor tells his story. A story funny, absurd and inventive, if not for all of the time. Relying on its magnificent visuals to carry the day which, though they do, come close to being a one trick pony. But oh, what a pony. O’Connor strutting and fretting her hour upon the stage in a superlative chicken costume. So convincing you begin to believe O’Connor must have chicken DNA in there somewhere. Cluckings, flicks, pecks and head bobs executed in the round under delicate lights delivered with unadulterated brilliance. O’Connor exuding a bold, confident authority, physically and vocally, and an undeniable presence that commands the space and everything and everyone in it. Even her je na sais quoi has je na sais quoi. Physically, vocally, O’Connor operates at a whole other level and is simply glorious. Chicken suggesting she might well be the next big, international breakthrough. Chicken delivering one of the outstanding performances of this years Dublin Fringe. Chicken by Eva O’Connor and Hildegard Ryan, presented by Sunday’s Child, runs at The Project Arts Centre until Sept 15 as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2024 For more information visit Project Arts Centre or Dublin Fringe Festival 2024.

Ebby O'Toole-Acheampong, Sophie Lenglinger, Kate Stanley Brennan in Afterwards. Photo by Patricio Cassinoni **** A polemic on abortion post Repeal The Eight, Janet Moran’s Afterwards resembles an educational, public information broadcast from the 1980s. Moran’s cookie cutter, tick box, stay on message script quickstepping around women still seeking abortions abroad. Narratively, little of interest happens; three women receiving aftercare in an abortion clinic in England relay personal histories and political highlights during an overnight stay. A rape victim, a one night stand, and a mother who doesn’t want any more children ensure all groups are represented. Like a twenty piece jigsaw puzzle, Moran’s neatly cut pieces are then assembled to match the prepackaged picture. History, activism, Ireland post Repeal the Eight, the various reasons and responses to abortion all discussed with no surprises, shocks, twists or really fresh insights. Not even the anti-abortion lobby protesting outside the clinic can raise a genuine stake. Slack action interspersed by Shadaan Felfeli’s Carry On orderly whose campy dispensing of bad scrambled eggs with a side of encouragement elicits a few giggles. Moran’s world one where male advocates of women’s choice are either gay or utterly gormless. David Rawle’s cringe inducing young man looking like he’d struggle to hold a conversation with a woman over the age of eleven. With stakes at a minimum, conflict barely present, the end always assured, the story goes the only place it could ever really go; nowhere. Yet all is rescued by three stunningly brilliant performances. Everything Moran reduces to cliche, Kate Stanley Brennan’s Cork mother, Sophie Lenglinger’s English woman and Ebby O’Toole-Acheampong young woman resurrect and revitalise. Each owning the stage at key moments, making humour richer and the dark undercurrents of pain, shame, judgement and despair keenly felt. Even if Brennan’s ‘Roman’ accent roams from Cork to Trenchtown and across the Yorkshire Dales you forgive it given the integrity of her performance. Throughout, the camaraderie and chemistry of three strong women signify where the play’s real heart lies. Dialogue whisked along by Conall Morrison’s direction, with Moran credited as co-director, foregrounding character over story, where Moran's humanity and humour is best realised. Even as Laura Fajardo Castro’s functional set and Suzie Cummins’ lights look like an easy day at the office. Along with Neil O’Driscoll’s pale projections which suggest aspirations towards a movie. If Afterwards , theatrically and themeatically, frequently underwhelms, its three central cast pump blood, sweat and tears through the plays clogged arteries. Moran’s song remaining the same even as Brennan, O’Toole-Acheampong and Lenglinger sing it beautifully. Still, it always feels like a child coated in bubble wrap riding a tricycle on astroturf; playing it safe whilst thinking itself brave. The result a three star play elevated to a four star experience, courtesy of its five star performances. Afterwards by Janet Moran, a Once Off production, co-presented with the Abbey Theatre and Dublin Fringe Festival runs at The Peacock Stage of The Abbey Theatre until Sept 14. For more information visit The Abbey Theatre or Dublin Fringe Festival 2024

An Attempt To Talk With The Beginning Of The World. Image by Neil Harrison **** When Freud first posited the idea of infant sexuality, he was roundly dismissed by most of his contemporaries. An experience Anna Newell might well relate to. Take An Attempt To Talk With The Beginning Of The World, premiering at Dublin Fringe Festival 2024 before undertaking a national tour. A work that describes itself as ‘playful up-close dance, intriguing immersive sound and light, and many, many ping pong balls…for infants 3-12 months.’ Are we seriously expected to take this seriously? Infants as a target audience for artistic work? Even Freud might have struggled with that one, surely. Or not, as it turns out. For An Attempt To Talk With The Beginning Of The World is rigorously crafted, utterly engaging and of significant artistic merit. Newell, like Freud, proving herself to be something of a genius. Which is not to say you’ll necessarily subscribe to everything Newell and her collaborators are selling. But so you’re clear, what An Attempt To Talk With The Beginning Of The World is not selling is drama therapy, theatrical play dates, twenty minutes of creche activity or an adult and baby bonding session, even as it achieves all of the above as incidentals. No, An Attempt To Talk With The Beginning Of The World is a genuine attempt at art. At prompting curiosity and creativity. At striving for human connectedness. And succeeding beyond its own expectations. An Attempt To Talk With The Beginning Of The World. Image by Neil Harrison Which might be difficult to see at first given how simplicity often looks much simpler than it actually is. Newell’s dramaturgical rigour concealed beneath Sinead Lawlor’s darkened set containing six individual pods set in a circle, like lily pads around the edge of a pond. Each accommodating one adult and infant who, collectively, form a theatrical round. Overhanging each pod a soft, glowing globe softens the dark; Archer Bradshaw’s illuminations spellbinding as planets, plants and wisps of magic. The circularity of the pond, pads and globes a pattern repeated as ping pong balls, illuminated orbs, and several movement sequences describe circularity in flow. In which choreographer and dancer Hayley Earlam and dancer Jess Rowell interact, breezing in and out with swirling, soft motions like half feathered signets; Lawlor’s costumes also showing a deft touch. Throughout, movement set to an astonishingly impressive score and sound design by Isaac Gibson sees Harry Potter styled jingles juxtaposed with ambient grooves. Each scene an alchemic burst of light, sound and movement; always unhurried, ever moving yet never rushed. No forced concentration or demanding of the infant’s attention, but rather a cultivated fascination that endures the entire twenty minutes till it all explodes in baubles of delight. Throughout, there’s something of ANU’s immersive approach at play here. A challenge to notions of audience and participation and of the spectator’s relationship to the work. If, for infants, a show has no marked beginning or end Newell achieves constancy of engagement through inconstancy, by constant changes in sound, tempo and visuals. The now forever being refreshed. Key concepts, including beauty, the defining ingredient in Newell’s work, needing to be reframed. For this is no cold, Aristotelian notion of beauty, but beauty as experience. As aesthetic arrest. Opening out into awe and wonder, then curiosity, and from there to creativity. An Attempt To Talk With The Beginning Of The World’s true aim revealed immediately after the show. Adults, infants and performers gathered together on the floor in an unforced act of human connectedness. It being near impossible to tell who are the children and who the adults as they play together. Play the foundation of all great art. Forget the beginning of the world. An Attempt To Talk With The Beginning Of The World engages whole galaxies. Dublin Fringe Festival 2024 faciliating a truly unique work of art by a truly remarkable artist. An Attempt To Talk With The Beginning Of The World by Anna Newell Theatre Adventures, co-produced by Riverbank Arts Centre, co-presented by Draíocht Blanchardstown, ran at Draíocht as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2024 until Sept 11. It now tours to The Network For Extraordinary Audiences. For more information visit Dublin Fringe Festival 2024 or Anna Newell

Are Ya Dancin'? Image by Billy Cahill **** Women had it tough in 1960s Killybegs. Institutionalised misogyny, sent to England to hide shameful secrets, the indignity of being refused service in a pub. Compounded by marriageable men like Norman O’Gorman. A Mammy’s boy aspiring to be Elvis with a voice that could mangle metal. Or blow-in Tommy O’Neill. A gormless mope with the personality of a panic attack but a voice that could front a showband. Leaving the two most beautiful women in Donegal hankering after him. Good girl Sarah, too cute to be true, and modern minded barmaid, Mary, finding their friendship tested by the new arrival. By secrets. By Tommy’s rise to national fame with local showband The Stormers. All unaware that a new dawn looms on the horizon in which their world will recede as into the mists of time. In Are Ya Dancin’? a labour of much love by Carol Gleeson and Helen Spring , the vicissitudes of 1960s Ireland underscore the exhilaration, escapism and enduring love of the showband era. Delivering a delightfully entertaining, visually stunning and infectiously fun night. Helen Spring and Carol Gleeson in Are Ya Dancin'? Image by Billy Cahill It’s been a long road for Gleeson and Spring. Beginning in 2018 with The Voice Within . An impressive production that must now be considered Are Ya Dancin’s? first draft. The inspirational duo wanting to better tell their story of two women and a shy man and the people and music of the showband era. Nostalgia and history here made to play well together. Sentimentality, still there, but now honed by touches of an Edna O’Brien styled fearlessness concerning the plight of women. Infusing infectious song and dance routines with a bittersweet edge, especially during the final, roof lifting medley. Songs where life, love, hopes and dreams resided. If only for a Saturday night. Yet when it comes to the annoyingly gifted Gleeson and Spring, story is only the half of it, and arguably not the most impressive half. Jealousy wanting to really hate them when you discover they are also the show’s producers. And doing an exceptional job; naturally. Ronán Duffy’s set, part bar, dancehall, and star bright heavens, beautifully mixing realism with escapism. Delicate touches, like Sweet Afton cigarette adverts, employing meticulous detail to enhance an otherworldly era. Conor Sweeney and Aidan Cooney’s lights, along with Conor Wilkins and Ríona McElwain’s sound design evoking the texture and atmosphere of the time. Yet it’s Andrew Reddy’s meticulous costumes and Margaret O’Connor’s superb hair that best recapture the period with its panache and style. Echoed in Deirdre Browne’s superb choreography, evoking the school hall dance routine of Grease . Are Ya Dancin'? Image by Billy Cahill If Pat McElwain’s direction facilitates some curious choices, including endless waves of unnecessary dry ice, as a rule McElwain marshals his forces brilliantly. Not an inch of stage is left idle as composition, flow, and complex transitions are all masterfully handled. McElwain negotiating the uneasy demands between the script’s realism and its comic book stylings. If, mostly, he successfully negotiates the distinction between stereotype and archetype, a tendency to over egg the omelette in places, and undercook it in others, sees key moments and characters jarring occasionally. Helen Begley’s superb Bridget Mullins and Dan Ryan’s scene stealing Norman work well for being genuinely cartoonish. Yet a mostly impressive Hugh Gallagher as the band’s impresario Seán overworks the attitude till it feels like overacting or a caricature. Similarly Seán MacMathúna as Tommy O’Neill, Donegal’s answer to Dickie Rock. A one dimensional mope, MacMathúna shines brighter when honestly embracing his secret heartache. Electrifying during the final medley when the quiff sporting, hip swivelling singer reveals why sales of women’s knickers have doubled in Donegal. Seán MacMathúna and Paul Mescal in Are Ya Dancin'? Image by Billy Cahill Meanwhile Kevin Reade as guitarist Jim Brennan beautifully handles what is arguably the plays most complex character with a wonderfully understated performance. A superb Paul Mescal (no, not that one, his Dad) pure dynamite as the embittered bar owner Seamie. A grudge with a chip on his shoulder, Mescal’s Seamie grounds proceedings in granite stubbornness that defines the need for escape. Even Pat Breslin’s soft spoken Father Gallagher, and Rory Dignam’s local boy, Johnny, cower when Seamie passes. Yet it’s the women who steal the show. Along with a divine Begley as an uptight, upright paragon of virtue, Laura Gleeson as youngest sister, Tess, (rotating with Lynn Carter) brims with ingenue innocence and the voice of an angel. It almost makes you cringe to say Spring and Gleeson are both terrific, because clearly there is nothing these two women cannot do. But even they cede the spotlight to the vastly underused Bronwyn Andrews, adorably brilliant as Annie. A woman and wife with a love of life and voice to match delivering a performance of pure joy. Are Ya Dancin'? Image by Billy Cahill If the final scene doesn’t quite pull off escapism married with realism, it’s still a brave and bold choice that sees Are Ya Dancin’? refuse an easy, saccharine happy ever after. Even so, there’s still a musical big finish sure to have any audience singing, clapping and on its feet . Are Ya Dancin’? is not high art, rather it’s unapologetic entertainment that can border on pantomime at times. It’s not serious theatre, but often leaves serious theatre looking like the poor relation imaginatively and theatrically. It’s not even a musical, but rather a musical play where key songs like Sketter Davis' The End of the World are gorgeously realised. If you were there, there’s much to love here. If you weren’t, you might well find yourself wishing you had been. To go back for just one night. In which case, go see the eminently enjoyable Are Ya Dancin’? A joy from beginning to end. Are Ya Dancin’? written by Carol Gleeson and Helen Spring, presented by A Likely Story in association with 3Olympia Theatre, runs at 3Olympia Theatre until August 31. For more information visit 3Olympia Theatre

Garrett Keogh in Head Case. Image by Conleth White **** Dublin Old School meets Waiting for Godot in Garrett Keogh’ s absorbing Head Case. Like Emmet Kirwin’s energised tale, Keogh’s self-penned monologue arrives via free flowing verse. Like Beckett’s Waiting for Godot it’s all about waiting and the discrepancy between what is and what should be told through absurdist humour. Juxtaposing the horrific state of the Irish healthcare system with what most would consider basic standards of decency and dignity. Godot might never turn up, but the conditions in an Irish A&E unit are man-made, avoidable and solvable. A point Keogh doesn’t labour, even as he makes it plain by way of observational character studies as he waits in vain for a hospital bed. What brought him to A&E being a food fight that went too far. A suspected head injury resulting from a fired carrot that, like the proverbial butterfly’s wings, led to a tsunami of aggression on the far side of laughter. The dark stained story and its domino effect more a lynch pin rather than a through line. Something to set up observations of the people and practices that populate an A&E unit without sensationalism. The aggression and violence experienced by hospital staff hinted at by way of chairs welded to the floor and oppressive security guards. The tense calm when life threatening injuries take greater priority numbed by vomit stained soilings and eventual head x-rays as Keogh’s protagonist eternally waits. Garrett Keogh in head Case. Image by Conleth White If Keogh's observational detachment seems to pull its punches, it’s because he’s not dealing in realism. It’s the utter absurdity rather than the visceral impact of the situation Head Case chooses to foreground. Keogh’s clever rhythms and rhymes establishing pace as well as non-realist context. Music’s call and response convention wonderfully effective as Keogh’s absurdly sung call “I’m waiting” never receiving its response. Echoed in the intriguing use of inner and outer voices articulating the frustrated inner monologue hidden behind an outer reserve. Distracted from occasionally by Conleth White’s lighting design trying too hard to accentuate what was fine in the first place. Live music by accomplished pianist Hélène Montague yielding something of a pyrrhic victory. Reminiscent of a live score, with clumsy sound effects, being played during a silent movie. More often framing proceedings like an old time, party piece. One where the raconteur regales the room with a funny after dinner story told around the piano. Leaving Head Case most likely to speak best to an older audience. It’s easy to highlight all that Head Case is not, all that it neglects to address, all the punches it chooses not to land. But it bears restating, Head Case is not trading in realism. Surrender to its mild mannered, old school, absurdist charms and Head Case will give up its secrets. Absorbing, often charming, always engaging, Head Case might not kick you in the teeth, but it lands its velvet gloved punches with considerable panache. Keogh proving, once again, he’s a master craftsman. Head Case , written and performed by Garrett Keogh, with live piano by Hélène Montague, runs at Bewley’s Café Theatre until September 7. For more information visit Bewley’s Café Theatre

Emma Moohan in Aileen. Image uncredited. ** The issues highlighted by Rachel Gunn’s deplorable breakdance routine at the Olympics echo similar issues in theatre. Is it enough to say you were expressing yourself when a show clearly doesn’t work as well as it should? Is citing your process, or having a go, sufficient excuse when an audience have given their time and money to come see your best and get something far from ready? Should funded artists or companies be allowed falsely cite sexism, racism, choose your own, to dismiss what are justifiable criticisms? Not that Emma Moohan is by any stretch a delusional Rachel Gunn. Or her one woman show, Aileen , a no points disaster. Moohan is clearly an actress of robust talent. Even so, Aileen doesn’t do her, or fan fiction, many favours given it's far from ready. Not helped by director Gertrude Montgomery failing to give it shape, despite an energised effort. If you’ve seen the 1979 movie Alien , you know what happens. If not, you could be forgiven for thinking it was an Irish Carry On movie with the cast of Dinner Ladies serving as the ships crew. The audience, set up as shareholders sitting in on a debrief, listen whilst Aileen Ripley recounts events on the Nostromo’s last voyage. Moohan’s voices and gestures from the Victoria Wood school of impersonation telling an exposition heavy story of a close encounter of the dull kind. Just one of many old school, variety show scaffolds supporting Noonan’s unstable structure. Ripley, like a hand-on-hip Deirdre O’Kane, strikes poses whilst reliving her encounter with lover Dallas, a strange distress signal, and a chest bursting alien in a retelling both underwhelming and overwritten. Meanwhile, hard working lights by Jess Fitzsimons Kane, and an equally impressive sound design and music by Brian Keegan, try elevate proceedings even as director Gertrude Montgomery seems intent on dragging them down to the level of Nativity play. Cute when it's five year olds, less so when you have to sit through an invested but unimaginative ninety-five minutes. Five minutes of which proves genuinely funny. Which is five minutes more than those that genuinely stand out. Ending with a song and dance routine straight from the Morecambe and Wise playbook, the room is spilt in two. Family and friends up on their feet cheering. The rest of the room grimly silent, as they have been for most of the night. If Aileen is a showcase for Moohan’s talent, it reveals an experienced actor with a commanding presence, but a comic writer with little understanding of comedy, economy or timing. From Dreamgun Film Reads to Rik Carranza Presents: Star Trek vs Star Wars , the latter currently at the Edinburgh Fringe, fan fiction is a hugely popular genre. One whose appeal is growing exponentially, and whose standards of excellence are rising all the time. Aileen , with its Irish references, might raise the odd giggle, but there’s not enough laughs, irreverence, or truly original subversions to practically or imaginatively sustain it. Still, Moohan always owns her stage and Aileen does have its moments. And it’s a million miles better than what’s passing for breakdance lately. Aileen , written and performed by Emma Moohan, presented by Venom and Duct Tape, runs at Smock Alley Theatre until August 17. For more information visit Smock Alley Theatre

Naomi Louisa O'Connell in Mary Motorhead. Photo by Ros Kavanagh **** Two issues inform much of opera’s history; its tense relationship with realism and how best to marry a museum past with works speaking to a modern future. Both questions front and centre in Irish National Opera’s brave double bill Trade and Mary Motorhead . In which life’s gritty realism enjoys an uneasy relationship with realism as artistic convention. Composed by Emma O’Halloran, with libretti by her uncle, Mark O’Halloran, based on two of his plays, both short operas enjoyed critical acclaim when first performed Stateside in 2019 ( Mary Motorhead ) and 2022 ( Trade ). Receiving their Irish premiere as part of Kilkenny Arts Festival 2024, the O’Halloran double act certainly serves up something unique. Opening cracks in verismo that allows light stream through. Even as many might be left operatically underwhelmed. Naomi Louisa O'Connell in Mary Motorhead. Photo by Ros Kavanagh To some, the O’Halloran’s make for an odd choice, with neither particularly experienced in opera. Yet from the mouths of these opera babes spring truths and challenges. Beginning with Mary Motorhead , a modest character sketch about a woman incarcerated in Mountjoy prison for murder. A soliloquy in which a Midlands Mary moves to Dublin, makes a friend and marries a man named Red. Lyrics serving up retro exposition about her sex, drugs and a rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. Emotional resonance achieved by way of powerful singing from mezzo soprano Naomi Louisa O’Connell, whose voice as expressive instrument and interpreter of lyrics proves breathtaking. O’Connell transforming Mary from bad girl with a half baked backstory into something exciting. But only up to a point. Like Emma O’Halloran’s eclectic score, informed by Alex Dowling’s electronic sound design and David Sheppard’s sound design, it all leans into safety. Utilising everything from tribal rhythms to goth styled, synth-pop, there’s little suggestive of that dirty, sexy danger of a magisterial Motorhead, be that Lemmy or Mary. O’Connell strutting like Joan Jett rather than Courtney Love. Dressed in Montana Levi Blanco’s leather trousered, goth queen black showing a flicker of prison blue chic. The result less Bad Girls so much as Jailhouse Rock . A wild tale in which wildness is constantly tamed. Director Tom Creed reining in what might have been better released, or allowed be a little louder, madder and badder. Creed never looking entirely comfortable in the heart of darkness as O’Connell’s rage rises to a threatening growl but rarely a roar. Yet another prison drama not seeming to agree with Creed. As with The Quare Fellow, set design by Jim Findlay and lighting by Christopher Kuhl escapes into cabaret sketch with kaleidoscopic lights, dry ice and comic book, crayon colours. Undermining realism’s physical and psychological potency. Flights of kitsch fancy sapping much of its power. O’Connell’s stunning singing and performance forgiving a multitude of such venial and mortal sins. Even so, if it came to a prison yard showdown, you’d still bet your cigarette ration on Electra. Oisín Ó Dálaigh and John Molloy in Trade. Photo by Ros Kavanagh If realism is again foregrounded in Trade , it struggles even as its conventions gain a more successful foothold. Often scored like a film soundtrack, Trade’s character study of an older man and younger rent boy meeting for sex sees talk of economy and silence proving somewhat exaggerated. Some judicious pruning of the libretto likely to have given music and singing greater impact at certain moments for letting the silence speak. Silence amounting to a lack of text and singing, but rarely, if ever, music. Emma O’Halloran’s score doing the emotional heavy lifting early on. Frequently coming in over the top of recitative-like singing as it reports a ton load of exposition. Establishing a hierarchy of music above text, with both towering over singing. A tension resolved by Creed who, as with Mark O’Halloran’s classic Conversations After Sex , excels with scenes of intimacy. Allowing sexual swaggering give way to uncomfortable honesty and connection. Creed frequently weaving music, lyric and voice into something sublime. Navigating the journey from recitative understatement to voices reclaiming full emotional expressiveness as efforts to talk it all better open old wounds. Delivering a bittersweet, gut punch of an ending having earlier landed several solid blows. Tenor Oisín Ó Dálaigh and bass-baritone John Molloy simply astonishing throughout. Their shy, understated moments more powerful for being contrasted with genuine snarls. Findlay’s design and  Kuhl’s lights hugely successful for adhering closer to the tenets of realism and finding its poetry. John Molloy and Oisín Ó Dálaigh in Trade. Photo by Ros Kavanagh If, structurally, Emma O’Halloran leans into soundtrack and musical theatre territory at times, especially in Trade , conductor Elaine Kelly is again extraordinary at plumbing musical depths with directness and subtlety. Ensuring Irish National Opera Orchestra’s amplified chamber ensemble unleash the full power of O’Halloran’s music. Never more so than during Ó Dálaigh and Molloy’s monologue styled solos which, musically and vocally, achieve that sought after frisson of music, text and voice in perfect accord. Yet, in both pieces, dramatic time and musical time don’t always play well together. Creating a weighted, ponderous feeling of motionlessness. Of going nowhere. Nothing much happening, in which recognised colloquialisms make for a surprise source of laughter. Trade and Mary Motorhead less musical stories so much as postcards from the operatic edge. Character or scene studies delivering gut punches after lots of standing around unlikely to win everyone over. As an operatic experiment, they yield much of worth, much to learn from, and some glorious, gorgeous moments. But do they speak enough to opera’s future? Is Mark O’Halloran’s trademark realism a good fit or too limiting? Is Emma O’Halloran music, which achieves moments of perfection with its loops, electronica and classical arrangements, capable of meeting the musical, emotional and lyrical demands of a full scale, modern opera? Right back where we started. Dogged by the same old questions. Though a betting person would put their mortgage on Emma O’Halloran making waves in the future. Trade/Mary Motorhead by Emma O’Halloran, libretti by Mark O’Halloran, presented by Irish National Opera, runs at Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny as part of Kilkenny Arts Festival until August 11 before undertaking a national tour Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, as part of Dublin Theatre Festival, Oct 11-13 Cork Opera House, Oct 16 Siamsa Tíre, Tralee, Oct 19 Glór, Ennis, Oct 23 Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Oct 26 For more information visit Irish National Opera or Kilkenny Arts Festival 2024

Shauna Brady, Áine Collier, Caroline McAuley, Anna McLoughlin in Sent. Image uncredited. Mean Girls meets meaner girls in Scarlet 4 Yer Ma’s rollicking Sent. A comedic car crash involving four girls, an anonymous social media account, and a queen bitch named Nikita who’s about to get her comeuppence. But Karma can be a bigger bitch with a few stings in her tail. Like TKB’s excellent Well That’s What I Heard , the murky morals of social media are explored in this dark, twisted comedy. Best when it leans into being dark and twisted, when it lets its laughs breathe, and when it marries timing with pace and stops rushing. Short, sweet, with a brilliant tribute to Britney Spears,  Sent presents a young company starting out in their raw, unvarnished state. Caroline McAuley, Áine Collier, Anna McLoughlin and Shauna Brady off to Edinburgh to hone their craft, test their mettle, see what works and what can be improved. Building on serious talent, a girl power camaraderie, some deft jokes and an abundance of that star power, je ne sai quai quality which sizzles and can’t be faked. Seen in preview, Sent needs work in places, even as Scarlet 4 Yer Ma embrace the playful irreverence of Smack The Pony. Suggesting they might well become comedy’s Spice Girls, only funnier and better singers. Catch them now, so you can say you saw them when. Sent by Scarlet 4 Yer Ma previewed at Bewley’s Café Theatre, July 27. It runs as part of Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024 at Paradise in The Vault from August 12 to 17. For more information visit Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024

Jason Mcnamara and Jessie Thompson in Crawler. Image uncredited **** Most days you can’t scroll through your feed without seeing another TikTok, Hip-Hop sensation enjoying their fifteen seconds of fame. Bite size, teaser trailers showing off a handful of explosive moves like a firework display. Routines lasting as long as sex with an over enthusiastic lover, and yielding about the same result. Lots of exhilaration and excitement at first, then it’s all over just as it’s begun. Showing enough to make it abundantly clear that Hip-Hop is more at home with songs rather than large projects. That it’s competitive. That it requires flamboyance, hard work and technical dexterity. That you have to ooze style and be seriously good to make it. In the case of award winning, Hip-Hop dancer, Jessie Thompson , seriously good is an understatement. Thompson is a true original. Pushing at the boundaries of Hip-Hop whilst remaining true to its roots, Crawler sees Thompson move past sound bites into something louder, wilder, deeper and durational. And often exhilarating to behold. A dreamscape open to many interpretations; its blurb says a lot that could mean anything or nothing. Even so, the experience is undeniably visceral. Thompson pushing against contemporary dance to yield a new, interdisciplinary experience. If Hip-Hop is often loud, Crawler is unafraid of being silent or still. Sound and movement allowed to whisper as well as shout. Even in stillness energy is being generated beyond mere recovery or conservation. Seen in the barely perceptible opening, with Thompson’s body slowly collapsing in on itself as it struggles to rise. Jason Macnamara’s percussive score looming like encroaching thunder. Mapping a liminal void echoed in John Gunning’s camouflage of shadows. Jessie Thompson and Jason Mcnamara in Crawler. Image uncredited Rising, Thompson is less a conduit for unseen energies so much as a puppet in service to its strings. Stuttering into a sequence of repeated patterns, delineated by Macnamara’s beats. Her white costume, tai chi style movements, leg extensions, back arches and whip like pirouettes evoking Shaolin martial arts. Sequences following diagonal and circular pathways when she's not pressed front and centre. Thompson’s confrontational stare etched from shadows challenging all comers. Yet the throw down is to no one other than Thompson, challenging herself to dig deeper. Evident in an electrifying body popping sequence that transcends the formulaic. One viscerally, brilliantly breathtaking, evoking wild and terrifying things. Thompson seceding to a higher power as rhythm and energy course through her, achieving perfect synchronisation with Macnamara’s percussive heavy rhythms. Her hair, like an upstaging dancing partner, a primal force unleashing turbulent violence. Thompson, shedding her white top for a hoodie, executing some deft footwork that pays homage to the rhythmic roots of her practice. Till the sensual and sexual come out to play. Hoodie cast aside, Thompson toys with stripper styled bends and positions, cavorting on hands and knees. Harnessing the power of both the male and female gaze, leaving no one in doubt who’s in control of her body and of how it is being represented. Movements wild, electric, and vibrantly sensuous leave her soaked in durational sweat as she executes a final series of floor spins. Easing from the stage, breathing hard, the final image is not of exhaustion, but of resilience having conquered the odds. Jessie Thompson and Jason Mcnamara in Crawler. Image uncredited Crawl before you walk they say. In her efforts to break new ground Crawler sees Thompson walking tall. Taking Hip-Hop and pushing it to speak to deeper things. Seen in preview, Crawler is untidy in places, with one or two sections requiring tightening, but much of that will resolve itself as the run progresses. What is markedly evident is that Thompson is braving uncharted waters to refine and deepen her practice. Crawler an exciting, exhilarating work by a phenomenal young talent. Crawler, by Jessie Thompson, previewed at Project Arts Centre, July 26. Edinburgh Fringe - Assembly @ Dancebase Dates: 2 - 11 August (no show Aug 5th) Time: 14.40pm  (45 mins) Standard Ticket: £15 Concession Ticket: £14 Tickets available via Edinburgh Fringe   and Assembly

Cosima by Sheena Lambert. Image by Susana Blanco **** Behind every great man stands a greater woman responsible for his success. So the axiom goes, and Cosima Wagner would vehemently agree. True, she didn’t compose great operas like her vaunted husband, Richard Wagner, or musical compositions like her esteemed father, Franz Liszt, Cosima being Liszt’s illegitimate, yet acknowledged, daughter. Yet she was a formidable and ferocious woman with an indomitable spirit, whose ruthless business acumen ensured her husband’s legacy by way of the Bayreuth Festival, which celebrates Wagner even to this day. Sheena Lambert’s play, Cosima, offering a hop, skip and jump through selective details of Cosima’s life, interpreted so as to try reclaim and recast her as a feminist heroine. Ignoring her virulent anti-semitism, her deeply unpleasant fascist conservatism, her cruel, despotic tendencies in service to the memory of a man as means to vent her frustated ego. Attention to Cosima’s many failings deflected by way of another axiom; that behind every great woman there’s a man trying to drag her down. Allegedly her father, Liszt, and most other men she met, aside from Wagner who was more of a god. Lambert’s Daddy daughter dynamics creating further misdirection, making it the dominant motivation in Cosima’s life. Leaving Lambert to make numerous points but never a case for the real Cosima for playing fast and loose with inconvenient truths. Even so, Cosima still makes for an exceptional theatrical experience. Lambert’s modest tale made utterly marvellous by a magnificent performance from a mesmerising Mary Murray. So brilliant, you might well fall in love with this modern Miss Havisham, who wore widows clothes for the remainder of her life following Wagner's death. Like The Woman in Black , a diminutive Murray seems shrunken in Victorian mourning wear, seated in a chair as Ride of the Valkyries plays. In one of the best curtain raisers this year Murray, with baton and scrapbook, sings notes as she flicks through pages. Fleeing to the dresser, she adjusts her hair, clothes and voice, transforming herself into other versions of Cosima. A feat regularly repeated as Cosima goes from innocent ingenue to unhappily married mother, passionate lover to embittered business woman. Her misjudged marriage giving way to an affair which gives way to another marriage, this time to Wagner. All the while Cosima's father haunts her. His withheld approval, or request for forgiveness, rolled out as reasons for Cosima’s frustrated bitterness. Cosima’s moral outrage at her unfeeling father viewed through a modern lens which Lambert cleverly incorporates by way of modern references. The end result a story of a self-willed, feminist who survived one form of tyranny and replaced it with another. Patriarchy replaced with a matriarchy after her own design. One, by all accounts, a jump from the frying pan into the fire. As storytelling theatre, Cosima leaves much to be desired. Novelistic in structure, in the hands of a lesser performer it could feel like a reading of a half baked biography. Its essay like exploration omitting more than it includes, its story lacking real stakes or conflict to sink your teeth into, its selective chronology of a life crafted solely in service to the author's agenda. While there can be no doubt Bayreuth was a monumental achievement, Lambert’s framing of Cosima’s life proves economical with the truth. In the hands of director Rex Ryan, no serious questions are asked regards the rehabilitation of Cosima’s tawdry reputation, her links with Nazism dismissively glanced over. Instead, Ryan takes a theatrical defibrillator to Lambert’s tale and sends thousands of theatrical volts coursing through it. An electrifying Mary Murray sensational as a fantasy Cosima. A woman of joy, mischief, passion, grace, resilience and determination with ne'r a stain on her spotless soul. Murray’s performance an utter tour de force, elevated by Ryan’s energised direction. An unforgettable performance of a biography that should be taken with a pinch of salt. Yet you almost forgive it on account of the power and beauty of Murray’s performance. Which has seen Cosima’s run extended. But book soon, tickets are going fast, if not already sold out. Murray is simply not to be missed in one of the crowning performances of the year. Cosima by Sheena Lambert, runs at Smock Alley Theatre until; July 26. For more information visit Smock Alley Theatre

Dancing at Lughnasa. Image Ros Kavanagh **** Memory plays can be problem plays. Brian Friel ’s 1990 classic, Dancing at Lughnasa , a case in point. Flaunting with the conventions of realism, its narrator more distanced author than invested character, using memory to legitimise its saccharine sentimentality, it should come with its own insulin shot. Issues director Caroline Byrne tackles head on, ultimately winning the war even while losing key battles. Friel’s memory tale of five Mundy sisters in fictional Ballybeg in 1936 awash in Paul Keogan’s sepia soaked light. A school teacher, an unmarried mother, a clothes maker, a house keeper and what was once called a simpleton; together they dream of boys, dancing, and the harvest festival. Their daily lives a struggle to make ends meet as they raise the illegitimate child Michael. The return of the exhausted Father Jack who served in the missionaries in Uganda, and a visit from Michael’s father bring subtle yet distinct challenges. But sure wasn’t it long ago and far away, as Michael constantly reminds us. Fact conflated with atmosphere. History or nostalgia a distinction without a difference. Even if life proves a hardship that doesn’t play out well. Still, thanks for the memories. We’ll always have Ballybeg. Here’s looking at you kid. Or rather, here’s the kid looking at you. Lauren Farrell, Zara Devlin, Ruth McGill in Dancing at Lughnasa. Image Ros Kavanagh If Byrne resolves key tensions, some decisions prove less successful. A treacle coloured mix of realism and meta-theatricality sees Chiara Stephenson’s wooden frame punching out past the proscenium and towards the audience. Evoking less the memory of an Irish cottage so much as a Balinese bamboo hut. An unwelcome pole, front at centre, making for an annoying visual distraction. A thin sheet of gauze with a cut out door further promotes meta-theatrical self awareness, looking lazily done. Like its cast when talking to thin air as an invisible Michael looks on. In contrast, the field with its rich harvest against which coming and goings are superbly silhouetted, or set as tableaux, is a masterstroke. Stephenson's costumes also hugely successful for being painstakingly detailed. Aside from the neutral Michael who doesn’t seem to know if he belongs in the 1930s, the 1960s or sometime later. Terence Keeley’s Michael, a Jackanory story teller recounting events he couldn’t possible have seen, being someone its hard to connect with. Like a news anchor relaying the past, Michael is more device than character. Those populating his childhood memories the ones we really care about. Molly Logan, Zara Devlin, Jack Meade, Nicky Harley in Dancing at Lughnasa. Image Ros Kavanagh Yet others struggle for connection or credibility. Lauren Farrell’s Rose, despite being an exuberance of impassioned energies, is hard to view as someone in need of continuous care. Ruth McGill’s schoolmarmish Kate, all severity with touches of softness, too often strikes a one tone note of eternal reprimand. Less struggling elder trying to hold her family together so much as their walking admonishment. Leaving it to Molly Logan’s loud mouth Maggie, and Nicky Harley’s lonesome Agnes to provide nuance and depth, which both do splendidly. Along with much of the humour. The relationship between Zara Devlin’s Christina and Jack Meade’s Gerry leaving others to bring up the comic rear. Meade’s understated Gerry a cowardly sneak making half baked plans. Devlin’s Chris seeing through him, if not seeing everything, yet loving him all the same. Devlin making us understand why through touching glances and gentle shifts as she draws shyly, yet confidently closer. Devlin’s radiating presence irresistible even when standing still, informing a top drawer performance. One that risks being eclipsed by Peter Gowen’s confused Father Jack. A mesmerising portrayal of a man of inherent contradictions embodying the central tensions of the play. Jack, losing his memory or reclaiming it, being a Christian pagan in search of new blood rituals and a polyamorous church. Molly Logan, Nicky Harley, Peter Gowen, Zara Devlin in Dancing at Lughnasa. Image Ros Kavanagh This tension between the civilised and the savage, the old ways and the new, is given vivid expression in Father Jack’s tale of animal sacrifices in Africa. In the temperamental Marconi bringing music from the secular world into the Mundy’s Catholic kitchen. Sinéad Diskin’s sound design, awash with musical nostalgia, evoking temptations for Bacchanalian abandonment in 1936. Irish traditional music facilitating a tribal, ritualised release as the women, like a Wiccan coven, dance wildly in circles around the kitchen table, covering their faces in masks of white dust. Their bodies whirling dervishes of irrepressible release as sepia turns to flame. A bonfire celebrating the true fruits of the harvest ceremony. Even though it is unable to halt the relentless march of progress. Which will see some condemned to factories, others to the cruel streets of London. The Mundy's, like the Tuatha Dé Danann, condemned to an underworld of memory lost to the mists of time. To memory’s flights of fancy. Its faults and inevitable failure when there is no one left to remember. Dancing at Lughnasa. Image Ros Kavanagh Returning to The Gate after twenty years, Byrne ensures Dancing at Lughnasa walks its delicate tightrope with considerable style. Like Micheal, it might all be in our mind, but Byrne aspires to more. Never tipping into overt sentimentality, she’s wise enough to know you can’t erase it. Nor does she allow the script become a dried, dusty historical document whose facts get in the way of its fictions. Rather, Dancing at Lughnasa arrives at where memory becomes myth. Connecting us to things we don’t want to forget because they enrich and re-connect us. A pretty impressive feat, and a great night of theatre. Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel, runs at The Gate Theatre until September 21. For more infmratine visit The Gate Theatre

Somnium by Brú Theatre. Image by Tomek Stankiewicz **** A dichotomy is established even before the show begins, foreshadowing the tension between opposing worlds. The ancient dark of an ageless stage offset by calming music suggestive of a modern spa. The conflict resolved momentarily as artist Julianna Bloodgood keens in the darkness. Haunting that liminal space suggested by the show’s title Somnium . The world between waking and sleep. As Bloodgood sits by her instruments, unfurling shadows behind sheets of gauze reveal a woman sat onstage. The vocal ritual given physical and narrative accompaniment by Philippa Hambly, with both performances soon enriched by Jane Cassidy’s stunning parade of impressive visuals. Brú Theatre 's fifty-five minute ritual aspiring towards transformation and occasionally getting there. Even as its retelling of a tale as old as time can feel twice as long at times. Its story aspiring to myth reduced to a fairytale. The tale in question being the Greek legend of sisters Philomela and Procne. About how Procne’s husband, Tereus, rapes Philomela then cuts out her tongue to prevent her telling. About Philomela’s subsequent revenge by way of a nightingale and The Furies. Less reimagined so much as repackaged as strands of mist from the Celtic twilight. Its power diminished, its savagery sanitised by the civilised manner of its telling. Somnium unsure if it’s a concert with theatrical accompaniment or a theatrical performance with musical accompaniment. Competing forms of music, body and visual design striving towards interdisciplinary coherence yet rarely fusing into that transcendent other. The result, too often, suggestive of stylised, Riverdance broodiness with none of the joy. Myth and mysticism more John Boorman’s Excalibur than Black Elk Speaks. Bloodgood’s hybrid of languages and sounds a spiritual Esperanto. Its text less the mythic poetry of a Joy Harjo so much as knock off Romanticism with cliched pastorals. Songs and scenes alternating as trippy visuals become more and more ambitious. Layered flames giving way to encompassing forests and breathtaking snowstorms as the story unfolds. From an ever shifting crowd to a nightingale in a sea of clouds that encompasses the entire room. Even as true depth is often achieved when visual flamboyance is reduced to the soft, orange glow of twilight gloom, or the haunting blue of moonlit shadow. All the while Bloodgood’s keening strives for moments of release. The final, stunning image, perfectly scored, achieving that sought after merging of sound, body and imagery. The end of a stumbling journey finally reached, the view making it one well worth the taking. Despite talk of interdisciplinary collaboration, Somnium shows a clear, hierarchal order. A pyramid of power with Bloodgood firmly at its apex. Director and co-creator, James Riordan, theatre maker Hambly, and visual artist Cassidy acolytes in service to Bloodgood’s high priestess. Who, like all priests and priestesses, blocks access to the temple even as they reveal it. The audience obedient spectators rather than engaged participants hypnotised by the ritual's sounds, shadows and lights. Attentive to Bloodgood's musical finger pointing at the moon on a moonless night. Which is not always a bad thing by any measure. Bloodgood’s voice can weave such spells its balm for the soul. Yet in borrowing from all traditions, Somnium belongs to none, even as it strives to root itself in the mythic past via pick and mix language and mysticism. Gregorian Latin replaced by a pagan chant, yet still only accessible to the initiated. The Catholic priest now a pagan priestess steeped in stillness. Singing the same song with different lyrics. Achieving roughly the same result. Even so, Bloodgood can wield such genuine power it's impressive to behold on occassion. As artistic experiments go, Somnium is often hugely successful. Even though it preaches to the converted, there's more soul in this single production than many other companies can muster in a year. Brú Theatre reaffirming their reputation as one of the bravest, innovative, risk taking companies in the country. If Somnium can feel like the opening ceremony for the Olympics at times, there are moments it captures a million lifetimes, offering brief, fleeting glimpses of the timeless within time, of the silence behind the silence. Somnium by Brú Theatre, directed by James Riordan with the company, composer Julianna Bloodgood, runs at Bank of Ireland Theatre, University of Galway, as part of Galway International Arts Festival 2024 till July 20. For more informations visit Galway International Arts Festival 2024 or Brú Theatre

Mark Huberman ('Sam') and Maeve Fitzgerald ('Deb') in Map of Argentina by Marina Carr. Image incredited. *** Had the proposed Boy gone ahead, we would have had three world premieres by Marina Carr in less than twelve months. Ignoring whether or not that’s fair given the dearth of opportunities for new Irish writers, you wouldn't wish a pulled production on anyone. Instead, we're left with two. Audrey or Sorrow which premiered at The Abbey in March, and The Map of Argentina which premiered at An Taibhdhearc as part of Galway International Arts Festival. If you think The Map of Argentina is a new work, you would be mistaken. It's been in print since 2015, and is included in Marina Carr: Plays Three . A play some might think wasn't produced for very good reasons, it being a curio in the Carr canon to say the least. Were Carr to write a novel and adapt it into a mini series for television, the end result might well be The Map of Argentina. Episodic scenes, with scored intros by Carl Kennedy, capturing key moments in the life of Deb. A woman who’s child bearing years are over and whose children are unbearable. Mother of five, married to the cuckolded Sam, Deb has the hots for her tender bit of rough, Darby. Deb trying to make her life and soul fit. Reflected in Ciarán Bagnall's Mondrian inspired set. A collaboration of hard edged rectangles and a constantly repositioned couch containing the mess desperately wanting to spill over. For if loving Darby is wrong, Deb doesn't want to be right. Except, she does. Wants to be right with herself, with her brood of five, with her husband, his mother, her ailing father, and the surprisingly wise Darby. Wanting everything and its opposite. Map of Argentina by Marina Carr. Image incredited.   Under Andrew Flynn's compartmentalised direction, The Map of Argentina doesn't quite come together, with scenes serving as pendulum sweeps between emotional extremities. Woman loving her husband, woman wanting her lover. Woman hating her husband, woman wanting to leave her lover. Woman wanting her children yet hating being reduced to just a mother. Each a distinct picture in a slide show gallery that sees Deb looking fragmented, as if wanting her cake and to eat it too. Yet some inspired casting goes a long way to bringing conflicting passions into a cohesive force. Mark Huberman’s Sam, initially a walking wound, hugely impressive as a father and husband seeing his world fall apart and not knowing what to do. Only knowing that when it comes to his children, the mother will always be favoured in the courts. Deb, a brilliant Maeve Fitzgerald, making vivid a woman torn too many ways at once. Feeling too much and too little at once. Adventurous and afraid all at once. Fitzgerald’s Deb a living field of pained energy. Not someone to be dismissed as having a midlife crisis, but a soul looking for completion. Fionn O’Liongsigh’s short, dark and handsome Darby, with just the right touch of brooding menace, suggesting a masculinity to be desired in many senses of the word. Allannah O'Grady, Art Brophy, Elise Broderick, Fionnuala Barrett and Eli Sloan each terrific as children who turn every tragedy into their own. Brid Ní Neachtain as Sam's mother, and Daniel Reardon as Deb's father rounding out the family unit. Of course, let’s not forget Rae Visser as the cliched French waiter, they might get the hump if we do. When it comes to the otherworldly, a staple ingredient in Carr’s work, we find it restricted to the tale of the Argentinian. Michael Cruz’s curious surgeon, like a calcified heart, cringemaking for all the wrong reasons. Not helped by Carr’s writing showing a surprisingly simplistic, almost juvenile directness which allows little room for dreams of hindsight in the midst of the maelstrom. Leaving The Map of Argentina feeling somewhat immature. But if it’s not Carr’s best work, at times it feels like her most personal. A public glimpse of the private writer. Carr wearing her heart on her sleeve. For there’s something deeply moving and satisfying about The Map of Argentina, despite its failed efforts to contain its mess. Something that feels hard won. The Map of Argentina by Marina Carr, presented by Decadent Theatre Company and Galway Arts Centre, runs at An Taibhdhearc as part of Galway International Arts Festival until July 27. For more information visit Galway International Arts Festival 2024 or An Taibhdhearc

Mat Fraser and Liz Carr in Unspeakable Conversations. Image by Peter Searle *** Consider this your trigger warning. I’m about to play devil’s advocate. I’m about to claim that as a celebration of disability that challenges prejudice and preconceptions, Unspeakable Conversations is an absolute triumph. As a play purporting to interrogate whether a parent should be allowed kill, murder, terminate, chose your own, a disabled child within the first months of their lives, as proposed by Animal Rights Activist, Professor Peter Singer, it’s an infuriating failure. Singing to the converted who applaud, teary eyed, as it sidesteps the very question it raises. Leaving others feeling hoodwinked. Like many parents of disabled children upon whom the choice is being proposed. Who, like women in the abortion debate, find their voices silenced in the same way the Not Dead Yet campaign hoped to silence Singer after his appointment to Princeton. The end result some joyous, feel good fiddling while Rome looks about ready to burn. Steady. It’s about to get worse. Theatrically, Unspeakable Conversations is divinely simple. Disabled actor Mat Fraser, alternating between playing himself and Peter Singer, introduces disabled actor Liz Carr, who alternates between playing herself and Harriett McBryde Johnson. An activist and attorney who fought for disabled rights during her lifetime. Through clever visuals and snappy dialogue by Christian O’Reilly, in collaboration with Carr, Fraser and Olwen Fouéré, name dropping, award envy, and anecdotal back stories provide context. Most notably around the encounter between Singer and Johnson immortalised in Johnson’s 2003 New York Times Magazine article, Unspeakable Conversations, recounting their debate at Princeton. In between there’s dancing, conversations on disabled actors playing able bodied people, recollections of first sexual encounters, and an Olivier Award Carr is determined Fraser is never going to hear the end of. All quaintly directed by Fouéré and Kellie Hughes. Charming, poignant, playful, hilarious and hugely insightful, Carr and Fraser prove irresistibly entertaining offering celebration as protest. But that's not what was proposed on the tin. It was supposed to address killing disabled babies, remember? Take one glaring omission; the voice of the parent of a disabled child faced with the choice. Not just the parents of OIivier award winning, successful, poster children for the disabled, but the teen mother whose child is housed in a Saint John of God unit. Or a single mother who can’t manage emotionally, financially or personally with a child suffering a severe disability. Who likely couldn’t get an abortion. Whose life is now dedicated to caring for said child whatever her personal dreams might have been. Who may not want to be burdened with the responsibility, even with supports. Who might feel their own potential is equally valuable. Shouldn’t she have the same right to live her life? The same right as someone seeking an abortion? Is it not a question of a difference without a distinction? The assumption that every life is precious because you can’t predict what that life might potentially become being the same argument used by the Pro-Life lobby for the unborn foetus? If you can terminate one, why not both? If not one then surely neither? 'But it’s not about the parent,' you say, 'no one, disabled or otherwise, should have to justify their right to exist.' Most parents of disabled children might agree. We simply don’t know because they’re never heard, even though it is they who are faced with the choice and responsibility. Talk of assisted suicide for the disabled offering a neat segue into further avoidance. For assisted suicide presupposes choice and agency. Termination by a parent within the first months does not. Also, what constitutes disability? Aspergers? Autism? Why not terminate any child in its first few months if it’s a question of burdening the mother? Such are the questions lurking under the bed. Questions that haunt Unspeakable Conversations yet are left unspoken. Why is this a problem? For those with disabilities. Refuse to ask the hard questions, to listen to the challenging voices, and you’ll only ever hear what you wanted to hear in the first place. Making it impossible to really address concerns, really challenge prejudice, or really effect change. Leaving the danger to mount. Another two notable, scary and glaring omissions. Firstly, before the Nazis unleashed the horror of the Holocaust, there was the T-4 Euthanasia Program which saw an estimated 70,000 people with disabilities murdered in Germany and Austria from 1939 to 1941. Even when officially ended in 1941, it continued secretly, killing an estimated 200,000 by 1945. The question proposed is not rhetorical or concerning some hypothetical nightmare; disabled terminations have historical precedent. But it couldn’t happen today, right? Glaring omission number two. America looks about to re-elect as President a criminal unashamed of mocking the disabled. As in 1939, the monster is only as powerful as those who refused to believe it exists. Making Johnson’s final gesture not one of hope but of childlike naivety. ‘I have to believe,' a clamping of hands over her ears and singing la la la to pretend the monster isn’t there. Carr and Fraser standing proud and defiant. ‘Not Dead Yet’ rising as an outraged chant, growing louder and louder. Meanwhile the monster under the bed bides its time. “No. Not Yet. But soon maybe.” Unspeakable? True. But do you really think it couldn’t happen again today? One positive takeaway. Johnson might not have wanted, or felt she should have to talk with Singer, but she did. Both learnt as a result. A beginning towards change was initiated. We need to have a proper conversation about the unspeakable. Unspeakable Conversations by Christian O’Reilly, in collaboration with Liz Carr, Mat Fraser and Olwen Fouéré, presented by Once Off Productions and Galway International Arts Festival, runs at the Mick Lally Theatre until July 27. For more information visit Galway International Arts Festival 2024

Aaron Monaghan and Rory Nolan in Endgame. Image by Ros Kavanagh **** Pan Pan in 2019. The Gate Theatre in 2022. Now it's Druid Theatre ’s turn. Begging the question, do we really need another production of Endgame ? Or, rather, are we about due one? Samuel Beckett’s 1957 timeless classic a theatrical river you never step into twice. Each new encounter a freshly minted experience offering oft forgotten insights. Its existential inquiry into the absurd nature of existence forever escaping the frames trying to bind it. Even those of the ever excellent Druid. Who, under Garry Hynes’s brilliant direction, are unafraid to make strong, defining choices. Choices as brave and bold as they are likely to be divisive. Aaron Monaghan and Marie Mullen in Endgame. Image by Ros Kavanagh Take Aaron Monaghan’s cartoonish Clov. Whose ragged mechanical movements suggest a wind up toy, or puppet, emphasising his inability to sit down and his servant status. Reinforced by Francis O’Connor’s dusty butler’s tailcoat offset by tracksuit bottoms. Clov, a programmed Pavlovian executing repeated patterns, opens the curtains, checks the desolate landscape, and jumps with frustration at his master’s whistle like an obedient dog. Rory Nolan’s Hamm, looking and sounding like a bombastic Monty Woolley, planted centre stage in the middle of their universe. Filling up his reclining wheelchair from where he can neither see nor stand. His ghostly parents, Nell and Nagg, a charismatic Marie Mullen and Bosco Hogan respectively, living out their final days in adjoining dustbins adjacent to the blind, chair bound demi-god. Popping up like creatures from Sesame Street for biscuits, conversations, reconnection, or not. Time a trudge going nowhere but death, which is dragging its heels. There being nothing beyond the hollow, circular walls of O’Connor’s grey, bunker cell except that other hell. The one that in 1957 might have spoken to a nuclear winter, today to global warming. Or to a nuclear winter. Rory Nolan in Endgame. Image by Ros Kavanagh Endgame , like a ship at sea, can change its direction with just a minimal degree of movement, ensuring no two productions are ever the same. Here comedy of the vaudevillian double act routine is leaned into by Nolan and Monaghan, who are both terrific. Their chemistry, honed over years, informing the denied depths of the co-dependent relationship shared by Beckett’s antagonists. Making their pain, arrogance and delusions all the more poignant. Their mundane questions, meditations and arguments artfully weaving a universe of meaningless meaning. Hynes’s assured direction foregrounding Endgame’s humanity and humour over its anguished absurdity. Its pained pointlessness reminding us that absurd situations make absurd people only because of the possibility, real or imagined, of something better. Even when yesterday, tomorrow, family and religion have all failed. Art perhaps? One suspects Beckett would be coiled up with laughter at the suggestion. Meaningful meditations on meaninglessness? You're having a laugh, right? Indeed we are. Bosco Hogan and Marie Mullen in Endgame. Image by Ros Kavanagh When Hamm and Clov argue, their anguish, delusions and frustrations are all too human and all too everyday. Not just philosophical pratfalls, but living screams, pleas and death rattles generating living laughter. Hynes restoring poignancy to the heart of Endgame . Its humour enriching its humanity. A play whose meta-theatricality highlights our strutting and fretting of our hour and thirty upon life’s stage. Yet it signifies everything. A superb addition to the best productions of Beckett's masterpiece. Endgame by Samuel Beckett, directed by Garry Hynes, presented by Druid Theatre, runs at Town Hall Theatre as part of Galway International Arts Festival 2024 till July 28. For more information visit Galway International Arts Festival 2024 or Druid Theatre

Venetia Bowe, Cathy Belton, Simone Collins and Robert Sheehan in Reunion by Mark O'Rowe. Image by Kris Askey ***** Reunion ’s devils lie in its details. Writer and director Mark O’Rowe foreshadowing a dramatic storm within its comic clouds. Aoife Kavanagh’s squawking gulls and ominous score unsettling against Francis O’Connor's earth brown kitchen offset by gun grey gloom. In which a mother and daughter, positioned opposite sides of the stage, speak across the separating distance with their backs to each other. Both revisiting their holiday getaway on a wind lashed island off the Galway coast in remembrance of times past. Family and extended family gathering for a meal that might well become a last supper. O’Rowe’s family reunion serving up a dramatic battle of the sexes as much as a comic battle of the ex’s. Gender cliches writ large as pub bound men look sad and pathetic whilst a cackle of women gossip in the kitchen. All gathering for dinner where personal vanities, petty foibles and needs seeking fulfilment see people’s defences killing them throughout the night, or wounding those around them. Their worlds transformed the following morning. O’Rowe’s script a masterclass in deceptive simplicity. Full of recognisable characters given vivid presence by a brilliant ensemble.     Cathy Belton in Reunion by Mark O'Rowe. Image by Marcin Lewandowski Like the maternal Elaine. Cathy Belton marvellous as a widowed mother clucking after her family and their partners. Her son Maurice, a pitch perfect Robert Sheehan, and girlfriend Holly, a superb Simone Collins, harbouring a secret or two. Accompanied by Holly’s doddering Dad, Felix, played with excellent comic timing by Stephen Brennan. The beer swigging Felix a gormless romantic who, should his boat come in, would likely be at the airport. Unlike Valene Kane’s superbly manipulative Marilyn, whose trained to heel Ciaran, an engaging Leonard Buckley, seems unable to act without Marilyn’s consent. Tensions rising between the blame dissing Marilyn and her married sister Janice, an understated Venetia Bowe, who, along with her phone hugging husband Stuart, a convincing Desmond Eastwood, makes a surprise visit. Accompanied by Elaine’s vivaciously animated sister Gina. Catherine Walker breathtaking and brilliant as a woman nursing her wounds after a recent break up. Throw in a frantic poet screaming forget me not in the shape of Ian-Lloyd Anderson’s Aonghus and home truths soon become painfully, hilariously, and poignantly real. Culinary compliments giving way to caustic comments and cruel comebacks. The final image taking us full circle as we arrive at the same compositional space but with different people begging new, or the same old questions. O’Rowe refusing to wrap it all up in a satisfyingly neat bow. Reunion 's pained anguish and bitter laughter all the more satisfying as a result. Desmond Eastwood and Catherine Walker in Reunion by Mark O'Rowe. Image by Marcin Lewandowski With its family dysfunction, its insinuations and incriminations, its unresolved ending, comparisons to Chekhov are inevitable. Yet that’s as much a compliment to Chekhov as it is to O’Rowe whose observational brilliance and economic dexterity elevates language to a whole other level. Yet where O’Rowe’s writing is frequently discussed in terms of poetry, Reunion shows all the hallmarks of music. Clear, simple, conversational notes ringing clean and true even as language is patterned with symphonic complexity. Contrapuntal sentences, recurrent phrases and layered dialogue speaking to the composer rather than the poet. O’Rowe conducting it all to perfection via a divine ensemble. The end result laced with the retro charm of a 1940s movie. The isolation device of And Then There Were None providing context for a subverted Mrs Miniver amid touches of Ealing comedy exaggeration. Peppered with the pathos of The Big Chill . The one time enfant terrible now looking older and decidedly conservative unlikely to please everyone. Robert Sheehan in Reunion by Mark O'Rowe. Image by Marcin Lewandowski While it feels like putting the boot in given all that’s happening, or not happening at The Abbey, it’s a glaring question that's already being asked. With many notable artists decrying the problem of supports for new Irish writing and the role of the National Theatre in that regard. Showing no disrespect to Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival, who endlessly promote the best in new Irish writing, why didn’t Reunion premiere at the National Theatre? Or other legacy writers, like Billy Roche’s by all accounts excellent, On Such As W e? Or Ultan Pringle’s Boyfriends, a perfect show for the Peacock by a young, up and coming writer? A venue that, all too often, houses works like Ciara Elizabeth Smyth's Lie Low and Tom Moran's Tom Moran Is A Big Fat Filthy Disgusting Liar after they’d already achieved success? The optics, like those currently informing the suspiciously delayed Governance report, alongside going dark, are not great. More so given the gender biased Gregory Project has proven a lacklustre affair. All food for thought sure to be discussed over drinks and nibbles during GIAF 2024. Where you should most certainly catch Reunion . In which great direction, great writing, great performances equals great fun. O’Rowe’s most enjoyable play of recent years a comedic and dramatic delight. Reunion , written and directed by Mark O’Rowe, presented by Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival runs at The Black Box Theatre as part of Galway International Arts Festival 2024 till July 27. For more information visit Galway International Arts Festival 2024 or Landmark Productions

Jim Roche and Liam Hourican in A Little Could and Counterparts. Image by Malcolm McGettigan **** One wonders what Joyce would make of his contemporary Bloomsday branding? All things Joycean reimagined into a cozy cottage industry for nostalgics and tourists. Like literary Arran sweaters, steeped in the old time glow of bowler hats and Dublin saunters. Easy to forget that the mellifluous Molly Bloom was, and remains, genuinely radical. That Joyce’s classic collection of short stories, Dubliners (1914), contains countless thorns that trail blood across any rose tinted trips down memory lane. Both traits evident in Volta’s presentation, in association with Bewley’s Cáfe Theatre and The James Joyce Centre, of two complimentary short stories from Joyce’s classic collection. Volta’s A Little Cloud and  Counterparts  leaning into nostalgia yet retaining enough balance so as to land their Joycean punches cleanly. Mirrored tales offering character studies of failed, delusional men and the vulnerable who suffer their drunken frustrations. Joyce’s impeccably articulated characters not the only ones being subjected to unnecessary frustration. Self-delusion is clearly evident in A Little Cloud , where a mild mannered, law clerk, Little Chandler, harbours unfulfilled aspirations of being a poet. The rigidly respectable husband and father believing that because he admires Keats he might very well write like him. Obviously he wouldn’t be as popular. That would require a level of self-belief this home bird, Horace Wimp could never muster. Unlike his old friend Ignatius Gallagher. A braggart who went abroad to make a career as a journalist. Gallagher stoking the embers of Chandler’s dream over drinks during a home visit. The pull between life as it is and what might have been struggling to resolve itself. The end’s soft savagery poignant and painful. Liam Hourican excellent in a beguilingly deceptive  performance. The belligerent Gallagher and the stammering paragon of shy respectability, Chandler, both meticulously detailed yet made to look naturally effortless. While Counterparts  recites different lyrics, the song remains essentially the same as yet another desk bound, legal employee harbours unrealistic notions about his life and prowess. Jim Roche’s labour-shy Farrington living proof that work is the curse of the drinking class. That before Behan and O’Brien praised the pint of plain Joyce had already explored its joys alongside its darker aspects. The resentful Farrington lunging into an after work pub crawl only to plunge into desperation and a need to make someone pay. Jim Roche compelling as the loud mouth braggart and supporting cast. Roche slipping effortlessly between blowhard mushiness and brutal menace in an equally terrific performance. If, in Dubliners , the discrepancy between what’s being said and what’s actually happening opens up cracks where the truth comes in, this deft production manages to retain something of that same sting in its tales. Even as nostalgia is forever dominant. Colm Maher’s autumnal orange lighting too cozy to capture the underlying harshness. Both pieces, like matching musical movements, awash in Morriconi style sentimentality plucking at the heart strings. Music, played live by Feilimidh Nunan and Conor Shiel, charmingly effective in channelling several tunes popular during the stories era. If efforts to musically evoke a baby’s cry backfire into laughter, it’s not the greatest offender. That honour belongs to Dublin City Council who have failed to resolve an ongoing issue around buskers playing with electronic enhancement outside Bewley’s between the hours of 12.30 pm and 2.30 pm. In this instance, Counterparts ’s final, poignant kick in the gut ruined by someone caterwauling Coldplay. Similar to if someone had stood beside, oh, I don’t know, let’s say a busker, and began declaiming Lear whilst the busker was trying to sing. Licenced buskers need to make a living, but the artists in Bewley’s also need to make a living. Unlike buskers, they can’t go elsewhere. No one is winning here as no one leaving the theatre was disposed to donate to the offending singer. Indeed, some swore they will never do so again as long as buskers continue to ruin shows. Dublin City Council needs to address this disgraceful practice if it wants to retain any credibility as an organisation claiming to support artists in its city.  Right now artists and audiences are losing out and tension is brewing. Adapted and directed by Roche and Hourican, the old axiom that every Dublin pub is ground zero for embittered geniuses resenting how life played out is writ large.  A Little Cloud  & Counterparts confirming that if Joyce shows a love for Dubliners, there’s sufficient evidence to suggest he doesn’t always respect them. There's also the thorny issue of class, but we need to stop as we could be here all day. Steeped in nostalgia, A Little Cloud & Counterparts  still packs a mean punch and succeeds on Volta's own terms. Roche and Hourican creating an enjoyable afternoons entertainment via two superbly articulated performances. If only the buskers could play elsewhere during those two critical hours. They could. And they should. A Little Cloud & Counterparts  by James Joyce, presented by Volta in association with Bewley’s Cáfe Theatre and The James Joyce Centre, runs at Bewley’s Cáfe Theatre until July 20th For more information visit Bewley’s Cáfe Theatre

Emmanuel Okoye and Ultan Pringle in Boyfriends. Image by Owen Clarke ***** Opposites attract. Or do they? In Ultan Pringle ’s brilliant Boyfriends the question is up for debate as an anonymous gay couple negotiate the early stages of a relationship. In one corner, wearing blue trunks, stands a black, shredded Adonis who hates emotional Americans, has no love of literature, and isn’t into dogs watching him have sex. In the opposite corner stands a pasty, dog owning, literary barista sporting a less than chiselled body, a dead brother, and questionable taste in trunks. A match made in heaven it would seem. So why are they fighting all the time? About meeting friends, counting calories, or parental remarks? Could it be their endless conversations are designed to deflect from really talking? About the wounds and traumas they share that render them afraid to love? Could it be their defences are killing them and may well kill their relationship? Could they be any less opposite? But so what? What is a boyfriend anyway? What the fuck is romance anyway? In Boyfriends , they might well be the answer to everything. Ultan Pringle and Emmanuel Okoye in Boyfriends. Image by Owen Clarke Like much contemporary new writing Boyfriends feels as if written for a Netflix series. Short, snappy scenes, cleverly awash in pop culture references, bleed into each other to make a cinematic styled whole. Yet under Joy Nesbitt’s shrewdly paced direction, it all coheres wonderfully onstage. Nesbitt enjoying two for two following her scripts success in Landmark Theatre’s Theatre for One at Cork Midsummer Festival . Showing acute directorial acumen, Nesbitt understands the strength of Pringle’s script lies not in what's said, smart, funny and incisive as that is, but in what's being left unsaid. What cannot be said, especially when characters don’t know what they really want to say. Pringle knowing it’s better to illustrate than simply argue as their relationship journeys towards costly self-articulation. Proving, as the old folks say, that if you want to know me come and live with me. Because living together chips away at every chink in your armour till there’s nowhere left to hide. Till you have to step out from behind the barricade and into the light. Then what will you do, when you both emerge naked and broken? Emmanuel Okoye and Ultan Pringle in Boyfriends. Image by Owen Clarke If Owen Clarke’s lighting design suffers a few awkwardly blocked moments, it might well be because the demands of lighting Boyfriends is comparable to lighting a Taylor Swift concert. Indeed, if Tay Tay is looking for someone who can spin a million lit plates all at once she need look no further than Clarke. Or if looking to upgrade her set, she need only call Choy-Ping Ní Chléirigh-Ng, whose set design is a stroke of genius. The wall-come-bedroom floor as simple and brilliant as it is efficient and effective. Tony Bailey's equally effective costumes facilitating another Guinness Book of Records attempt for costume changes. Mostly though, it’s its three strong cast who utterly seduce. Beginning with an arthritic dog, Marshmallow, who upstages everyone. Alongside Pringle’s professional barista refusing to own his temperamental need for misery so he can avoid the real vulnerability of catharsis. Like Emmanuel Okoye, whose hardened exterior resists the question if it could ever be loved? Both actors fizzing with genuine chemistry, their characters revealing more the harder they try to hide. A couple who can ask what was your best blow job at ten o’clock in the morning to avoid asking the really intimate questions. The texts of their lives informed by silenced, subtextual depths as their prologue becomes an epilogue. Or is that the other way around? Back to those opposites again. Emmanuel Okoye and Ultan Pringle in Boyfriends. Image by Owen Clarke Soaked in smart, pop culture references, astute relationship insights, and endless humorous quips, Boyfriends is one of the best, if not the best, new plays of 2024. Like Pretty Woman for the 21st century, only prettier, funnier, and way sexier, Boyfriends has all the makings of a modern day, rom-com classic. A great gay love story, Boyfriends is a great love story whatever your persuasion. Joyously, heart-achingly, gorgeously enjoyable, Boyfriends deserves to run and run. But get your tickets fast. Once word gets out they’re going to be scorching hot! And Ultan Pringle? Remember the name. You’re going to be hearing more of it. Boyfriends by Ultan Pringle, presented by LemonSoap Productions, runs at The Project Arts Centre until July 6, transferring to An Grianan Theatre, Donegal, July 11 - 13. For more information visit The Project Arts Centre or An Grianan Theatre

Laura Whitmore and Colin O'Donoghue in 2:22 by Danny Robins. Image by Helen Murray **** Possession. Poltergeist. Paranormal activity. Before our overexposed, desensitised selves got used to seeing unspeakable horrors on screen, both real and imagined, films like The Exorcist, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and The Ring captured the public imagination and scared it witless. Nowadays, ghost stories in our explainable, twenty-first century can be rationalised away. Yet aren’t stars ghosts? Echoes of something that died a long time ago? Just one of many arguments put forward by four people asking if ghosts exist in the scare-fest that is 2:22 by Danny Robins . First premiering in 2021, 2:22 is essentially a second rate ghost story. But one wrapped up in an impressively compelling play, delivered by a first class ensemble. Colin O'Donoghue, Laura Whitmore, Shona McGarty, Jay McGuiness in 2:22 by Danny Robins. Image by Helen Murray Best not to look too closely at the story though. Robins’s dodgy premise of a dinner party argument about the credibility of an event due to occur at 2:22 a.m. suggesting everyone should just shut up and wait till 2:22 a.m. But alcohol flows in limitless abundance so why put off a good argument on the supernatural versus science? Old lovers and friends, new lovers and enemies debating whether the house, a wardrobe, or the infant Phoebe is being haunted by a ghost. Anna Fleischle’s superb set an intersection of old world homeliness and gentrified, hipster renovations. Where Sam and Jenny are building a nest for their recently hatched daughter. Or rather Jenny is. Shona McCarty superb as a whirligig of maternal multitasking worried for her daughter's safety after a paranornal experience. Meanwhile, an impressive Colin O’Donoghue as the cynical, insufferable Sam, a mansplainer with the personality of a toothache, is working on some remote Scottish island observing the stars for a book he’s writing. Graciously honouring Jenny with his presence for the scheduled dinner party. His oldest friend, Laura Whitmore’s psychologist in need of therapy, Lauren, being their guest. The trio making for a platonic ménage-à-trois, leaving a terrific Jay McGuiness as the down to earth Ben, Lauren’s no frills, London boyfriend, looking like a third wheel. Even as Ben, conveniently, has had some experience with ghosts. As so the arguments begin. Shona McGarty and Colin O'Donoghue in 2:22 by Danny Robins. Image by Helen Murray And that’s pretty much it till the final, thrilling moments. Directors Matthew Dunster and Isabel Marr resorting to hurried pace and ghost train, rollercoaster, jump-out scares as Robins’s script argues towards its haunting finale. Cued screeching (foxes apparently) and baby monitors, thunderclaps and mood music, flashing, red neon and jolting security lights scream like a dodgy rave where someone has spiked your drink. There’s even the obligatory dry ice. Lucy Carter’s lights and Ian Dickinson’s sound design stupendous in establishing mood and delivering adrenalin induced scares. Deeper scares arriving courtesy of a questionable seance during a compulsory electrical blackout and an ending that will prickle the back of your neck if you haven’t figured it out. Shona McGarty, Colin O'Donoghue, Jay McGuiness, Laura Whitmore in 2:22 by Danny Robins. Image by Helen Murray Concealed in Robins’s litany of engaging arguments is a terrific play about how the Nineties are aging. Touches of Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf with its messy, volatile interactions in which sparks fly as nostalgia dredges up history. History needing closure sometimes. All coalescing around four excellent performances. Whitmore’s liberally wine swilling Lauren being a tour-de-force. Indeed, fans of Whitmore, the former Love Island host now stretching her acting muscles, will only love her more. Those who aren’t fans might very well find themselves becoming one. Whitmore's rigorously detailed performance, informed by expressive touches and soulful, penetrating eyes, oozes that easy, natural presence of an old style movie star as she magnetises the gaze. Given that her co-stars turn in memorable performances of their own, that’s no mean feat. A ghost story theme park ride, 2:22 crosses the finish line in haunting style. It’s not the greatest ghost story, or even the scariest, but 2:22 has its fair share of scares and is terrific fun. Did I mention Whitmore? She's really good. 2:22 by Danny Robins, presented by Runaway Entertainment in association with 3Olympia Theatre, runs at 3Olympia Theatre until August 11. For more information visit 3Olympia Theatre .

Laurence Lowry, Conor Donelan, Owen O'Gorman and Pádraig Murray in The Island. Image Al Craig **** Aristotle spoke of tragedy purging powerful emotions through catharsis. A word hotly debated by many modern theatre makers. Many diluting its meaning to suggest that simply attending theatre is cathartic. It isn’t. Catharsis is hard won. Requiring a gifted artist to take us through blood, sweat and tears to where fear and terror hide. Like writer Tina Noonan and her searingly powerful The Island. An unflinching interrogation of male sexual abuse in a rugby school in Dublin whose horrors were silenced by shame. Which is not to say The Island is a perfect play, just that it's often rather brilliant. Noonan’s rapid fire pace, firing like synaptic nerve endings, overloading the whole with an excess of detail. Making sluggish its rollercoaster pace that whisks you immediately into the action. Cool dude Donnelly (Conor Donelan) and pessimistic Pete (Pádraig Murray) return to the former’s apartment after a rugby victory at their old alma mater. Soon joined by the maudlin Mark (Laurence Lowry) and the obstreperous Owen (Owen O’Gorman) for beer and pizza. Gathered around a kitchen island, celebrations give way to a memorial for their recently deceased friend Gonzo Gerry. Their trip down memory lane a playful reminder that all have struggled with relationships, all remember their glorious past lovingly, and all are lying to themselves. Noonan relying on the old device of alcohol and wacky tobacky to allow men drop their inhibitions and talk openly. Confessional dominos falling once the first one topples, revealing pains and secrets endured. Four men who’ve known each other all their lives who never really knew each other. Asked by several survivors to help tell their story, Noonan reluctantly agreed, mindful of the huge responsibility that comes with giving voice to the stories of others. Never sensationalist, never didactic, Noonan knows she can’t cover it all. The responsibility of the State, the impossibility of punishment for abusers long dead, how to find closure are all wisely only touched upon. Instead, Noonan pulls back the veil of shame and secrecy. Revealing masculine bluster preventing men from talking. From admitting how their experiences might have ruined them sexually. Ruined them as husbands, or fathers. How suicide can seem attractive when your soul bursts with a pain that can’t be spoken, undone, or made go away. For you can’t deal with the wound until you first acknowledge it. The Island offering just that; a first, unsteady step. Culminating in a powerful image of a man singing Latin with a single candle, revealing all he couldn’t say. The play's natural ending undermined by a tagged on, well intentioned epilogue. In which a know-all, annoyingly self-righteous son Finn (Ruairi Nicholl) tries to offer easy resolution only to sound false and contrived. For The Island speaks to tragedy. Tragic heroes have a tragic flaw. In this case it is their silence that dooms them. Pretending it never happened a lie. Pretending they can handle it, that it will all be magically better also a lie. Just ask Gerry. One thing’s for sure, catharsis begins with speaking. Refreshingly minimal in staging, The Island relies solely on its cast, its director, and its cue perfect lighting technician Michelle Barry to stop your breath. Director Seamus Moran doing a terrific job keeping this runaway rollercoaster on the rails and on track. A superb ensemble of Donelan, Lowry, Murray and O’Gorman highlighting the power-plays, the frailties, bravado and genuine courage of boys playing at being men remembering when they were boys. O’Gorman’s monologue outstandingly moving in an already outstanding ensemble. Then there’s Noonan, who’ll likely point at those whose stories she shared as the real stars. They are, but they were blessed to find her. Noonan addressing unspeakable horror with humour, compassion, humility and insight in a brave, bold, and often breathtaking production. The Island by Tina Noonan, runs at The Mill Theatre, Dundrum till June 21 before transferring to Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, June 25 -27. For more information see respective venues.

Siobhan Cullen in The Sugar Wife. Image by Ros Kavanagh *** Saturation. Too much of a good thing. Like Stephen Graham. Some days it seems you can’t change the channel without seeing the brilliant Liverpudlian actor on screen. Or Siobhán Cullen. Poster girl for Irish television gracing not one, but three critically acclaimed television series; Bodkin, The Dry and Obituary . Currently appearing in The Sugar Wife by Elizabeth Kuti at the Abbey Theatre. Cullen living proof that you can never have too much of a good thing. Even as The Sugar Wife evidences when you don’t have enough. A play whose micro moral interrogations are soon eclipsed by its macro nihilism. Tierra Porter, Chris Walley, Peter Gaynor and Siobhan Cullen in The Sugar Wife. Image by Ros Kavanagh Set in 1850, during the height of the Great Famine and the rise of the Victorian era, and just five years after Black abolitionist Fredrick Douglas lectured throughout Ireland, The Sugar Wife’s historical grounding is more on point than might at first seem. Especially as its themes get skewered through a modern, fair trade, historical revisionist lens. Samuel and Hannah Tewkley, moralist Quakers who own a Dublin tea company (no prizes for spotting similarities with another Quaker family who set up a popular Dublin tea shop in 1840), prepare to host two American guests. Photographer Alfred Darby and former slave Sarah Worth on a visit to Ireland. Kuti’s episodic script with its signalled scene changes a novel aspiring to be a screenplay masquerading as a play. Action frequently dragging with nothing much happening beyond endless exposition and backstory. Aside from the guests arrival and two brief charitable visits to the waif-like prostitute, Martha, by intermission there’s little action of interest to report. Siobhan Cullen and Síofra Ní Éilí in The Sugar Wife. Image by Ros Kavanagh Post intermission proves more promising. Conversations between the worldly Samuel and the manipulatively aspirational Alfred explore the power dynamics of their relationships with women. Culminating in a badly judged confession and Samuel’s request for Alfred to take a racy photo of his puritan wife should she agree to it. Hannah agreeing to it and then some, even if you don’t quite buy it, or the speed at which she agrees. The script’s cinematic aspirations evident in a clichéd, music video sex scene, set to Philip Stewart’s modern soundtrack, crackling with the sexual chemistry of a flaccid lily. As if characters are having sex solely because the author insists on it. Still, it manages to produce the desired narrative effect, kicking doors open to reveal secrets, offset by a staggered monologue about murder and rape on a slave ship. Throughout, if redemption is thin on the ground, hope proves an impossible dream. Learn to survive or die. Blame the game not the player. Nothing changes, we just swap sins, for therein lies freedom. The spiritual parable always lost to the secular story. Which Kuti’s characters always knew, but pretended they didn’t. Desire, when realised, more real than any remote heaven. Tierra Porter in The Sugar Wife. Image by Ros Kavanagh Whilst Kuti’s feminist, anti-racist polemic is front and centre, it would be unfair to reduce the script to these primary concerns. Kuti has an ocean of fish to fry. Art versus pornography, religion versus business, morality versus what’s truly moral, the existential poverty we call life. Characters representing a clash of virtues declaimed from crumbling pedestals. Chris Walley’s fetishising Darby a knock-off D.H Laurence. Tierra Porter’s slavery survivor Sarah a mix of dignified practicality and worldly cunning. Peter Gaynor’s brilliant Samuel oozing greed and desire from every sanitised pore. More honest in his worldliness than the virtuous hypocrites surrounding him. Living an enforced morality he has no real interest in. A morality laughed at by a scene stealing Síofra Ní Éilí as the syphilitic Martha. A superbly understated Siobhan Cullen providing the lynchpin as Hannah, infusing Kuti’s Jane Eyre with a touch of The French Lieutenant's Woman. Whose spotless morality is anything but. Kuti’s women negotiating their emancipation and independence from well intentioned, saviour men looking to liberate them. All the while the horror of slavery looms. Siobhan Cullen in The Sugar Wife. Image by Ros Kavanagh If director Annabelle Comyn elicits strong performances, the structural tensions between a novel passed off as a play are never fruitfully resolved. Paul O’ Mahony’s minimal set vacillating between the liminal and the bland. Paul Keogan’s chiaroscuro lights a tad more successful given the word chiaroscuro gets mentioned several times. Molly O’Cathain’s costumes most successful of all. A colourful silk kimono offsetting Cullen’s ash grey Quakerisms hinting at larger, global associations which Kuti frequently alludes to. Travelling full circle to where it all begun, inner monologues are transformed now we have the full, hopeless story. But the backdrop image of waves leaves you wondering why the daguerreotypes you hoped to see never materialised as a safety screen is curiously dropped during the final monologue. Siobhan Cullen in The Sugar Wife. Image by Ros Kavanagh Originally produced by Rough Magic, and winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Award in 2006, as well as being nominated for an Irish Times Theatre Award for Best New Play, The Sugar Wife talks the talk, and it certainly likes to talk, culminating in moral nihilism. Equating women’s suffering under patriarchy with the worse atrocities of slavery a point rather than a case being made. In speaking to the historical Black female experience, Kuti does a competent job as advocate, but Alice Walker, Toni Morrison or Zora Neale Hurston speak better. To Kuti’s immense credit, she’s unafraid of creating flawed characters. Pharisees rather than victims awaiting their stoning. Forgiveness having no place amongst these hypocrites, liars, adulterers, manipulators and would be saviours. Their selfish dreams too personal and too small. Reality far too big. Tolerance the best that can be hoped for. Humanity forever renegotiating the terms of its hypocrisy. As it was, in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. The Sugar Wife by Elizabeth Kuti, presented by The Abbey Theatre, runs at The Abbey Theatre until July 20. For more information visit The Abbey Theatre

Alter, by Kamchàtka. Image uncredited. ***** Once the dust settles on Cork Midsummer Festival, curious hotel staff will be scratching their heads as to why there were so many bags of uncooked potatoes abandoned in hotel rooms across the city. Each with a single potato missing. Well, they need look no further than Kamchàtka’s breathtaking Alter . The Barcelona based, outdoor theatre makers clearly unaware how impossible it is to buy a single, uncooked potato in Cork. Which is fine for locals who can pop home and grab one. But those who travelled, packing a potato wasn’t high on their priority list. But trust me, you’ll want to bring a potato as per their instructions. And to turn up on time at the pick up point to be driven to a secret location for what will be a theatrical experience you’ll never forget. Even the sky plays its role to perfection. Cusped between twilight and darkness, its faint blue hue fringes the tops of the trees as the forest is plunged into impenetrable dark. Up ahead on the narrow pathway she waits. A lady of the lanterns. Globes of light hung on a narrow branch like milk pails suspended across her shoulders. Close up, she resembles a World War Two refugee. A wanderer amidst the trees and sweet smelling earth looking for others who are also lost. No words, never words, just looks and gestures gently urging some to take a lantern to light our way. As she lifts her suitcase we follow, treading through moss scented woods like hobbits trailing Gandalf. A butter coloured moon playing hide and seek slips between branches yearning for solstice. Each snap of a branch beneath our feet a moment of worried caution. In the primordial dark and impregnable silence of the forest, fears and memories lurk we’re usually kept safe from. Along with treasures we’ve mostly forgotten. A world were nonsense often makes the most sense. Like a man, buried alive up to his chest, winding a hand held projector showing a black and white, home movie on the lid of his suitcase. Or a lamp plugged into the soil that suddenly gives light. Or being gathered around a secret place, furrowing through soil to unveil an expected feast; potatoes cooked naturally in the earth. We gather round, share food and drink, standing or sitting on blankets. Reenacting a primal ritual, sitting together for safety and the sharing of stories. With a wind-up projector the woman shares her story behind a child’s painting. Our new arrival reveals the source of his heartache. A music box melody reminding us all this is forever old and eternally new, lost in time and forever timeless. After we've returned to the earth the riches it has given us, we pack up and move on. Only to discover we are not alone. Other groups promenade through the midnight forest, following other lost wanderers carrying their lives in a single suitcase. They greet like old friends and lovers till we all converge around a man with a hand-wound music box. Lights are magically strewn and music joyously erupts like a party at a gypsy camp. For a moment the world is sublime. Only utter, shared joy. But like the snapped twig, something unseen threatens. The pained, frustrated wanderers gather their suitcases. Each leaving a parting gift in the darkness as they walk on. Endless wanderers, or homeless refugees, disappearing into the trees. Whatever they are, they are part of us, as we are part of them. As you return to your bus to ferry you back to the city, the silence lingers. You discover you’ve received far more than you have given. Have made your own what you were willing to embrace and share. Above, the night sky is crystal clear. The stars silently applauding. Telling truths older than time, Alter is theatre at its most primal. Rooted to the earth, Alter might not be the greatest show on earth. But then again, it might be. Not to be missed. Alter, presented and performed by Kamchàtka, runs as part of Cork Midsummer Festival 2024 until June 16. For more information, visit Cork Midsummer Festival 2024

Winter Journey. Image uncredited **** Given the name, you might think its primary focus was Schubert’s Winter Journey . But this is Cork Midsummer Festival so it’s really about Cork. Which is not to say Schubert’s song cycle is superfluous. Original poems by Wilhelm Muller, which Schubert set to music in 1827 provide a haunting undercurrent with their theme of transitioning from summer to winter, from life to death. Cork city’s historical Shandon district, part ghost town, part living community, throbbing with life and memory. Even as its streets are being gentrified to within an inch of their identity. Sounds heavy? Not overly. Especially as joy, wonder and curiosity prove the defining features of this gentle promenade visiting nine sites. Ten in truth. Shandon, with its musty, silent streets and patchwork pavements, derelict and flake-paint buildings next to achingly shiny new ones being a site in itself. As an old church bell chimes, a game of theatrical orienteering sees the audience scattered to nine key locations with their small map. Meeting artists, singers, and installations, along with delicious cocktail sausages. Jazz funk, opera, and Irish trad along with pubs, butchers and Art Centres. A cornucopia of living presences all that little bit magical the closer you listen and look. Different strokes for different folks; true. But you’d hard pressed not to find at least one occasion that doesn’t mesmerise. Like the room with the wall of climbing flowers next to a typewriter with its half typed page. Spectacles and a recently finished cup of coffee set next to it on the table. As if its owner had just stepped out for a moment. Their presence vibrant in their absence. Here but not here, likely to come back any second now. Meanwhile tape reels, and a violin case embedded in a bookshelf, evoke Schubert. Polite inquiry to a helpful steward reveals the artist’s poignant motivation behind this deeply personal work, especially the violin. Immediately the room is transformed. The poignancy deepened. Or maybe you’d prefer the woman pressed into the corner of a room behind a modest wall of musical tech. Fiddling with knobs and computer generated effects, her voice, like the inimitable Anne Briggs, conjures the dark as it dispels its terrors. Or maybe a taste of a trad session in a tiny bar with a welcome as warm as a winters fire. Musicians trying to cheer up Schubert amidst a pint of stout and a club orange in a tall glass. Or maybe a bespoke family butcher traversing then and now. A living memory speaking to a time before one size, same size, every city corporatisation lost sight of what’s valiantly being kept alive here, their cocktails sausages moreish in the extreme. Or an old church with a raven haired woman, her lips and dress black as sin, keening from somewhere Middle Eastern perhaps. Answered from the organ gallery by a Celtic, ethereal response. The raven, head on her hands, asleep, or indifferent. Meanwhile, outside, jazz funk sax meets spoken word rap, while across the way opera in the park evokes an 1980’s art house movie. Up the road an artist paints in a small gallery with local images next to reproductions of Klimt and Monet. You’re invited you to join them. But let’s stop there. Throughout, Schubert’s ‘Winterreise’ is reimagined and reinterpreted to unify the distinct identities that make up Winter Journey. Artists JFDR, Gavan Ring, Gary Beecher, Lina Andonovska & Dermot Dunne,, Outsiders Ent., Neil O’Driscoll, Peter Power, Rachael Lavelle, Ciara O’Leary Fitzpatrick, Johnny McCarthy, Emma Nash, Sheherazaad and Bláithín MacGabhann weaving a rich yet delicate tapestry. A lament at times, for a future that never happened perhaps, it’s never quite a requiem. For after winter comes spring. The season of birth and rebirth. The question what is to be born, or reborn begs an answer. But the bell rings once more signifying the journey’s end. Or that your love affair with Shandon, with Cork, with Cork Midsummer Festival, and Winter Journey has just begun. Winter Journey, presented by Islander, Sophie Motley and Cork Midsummer Festival, runs until June 16. For more information visit Cork Midsummer Festival 2024

Theatre For One. Image uncredited ***** For some, entering the small red booth is like entering a Soho peepshow. For others, it's like sitting the opposite side of a confession box. Either way, entering the booth for Theatre For One is like entering a boxing ring. Full on, full frontal confrontation with a single actor directly before you who has nowhere to hide. Nor, for that matter, do you. Comprised of twelve short performances, six old and six new, performers find themselves being stretched to the limit of their craft. Telling stories which variously shadowbox, jab cautiously, swing wildly, or simply knock you flat out. Though an American import, Theatre For One , as in its first Irish incarnation in 2019, is an all Irish affair. Its six original writers (Marina Carr, Stacey Gregg, Emmet Kirwan, Louise Lowe, Mark O’Rowe and Enda Walsh), complimented by a line-up of six new writers (Iseult Deane, Susannah Al Fraihat, Aoibhéann McCann, Joy Nesbitt, Ois O’Donoghue and Aoife Delany Reade), whose short plays were selected from a nationwide, public call-out. If, in terms of gender balance, 2024’s all female line-up looks criminally unfair, and statistically improbable, that’s in no way to detract from the work of the writers. That their mentors, the class of 2019, were clearly gender balanced only adds to the sense of wrong. Confining this review to three performances, their diversity alone speaks to Theatre For One’s immense riches. Enda Walsh’s Cave , featuring a motionless, essentially unblinking Peter Corboy , speaks for the monster under the bed. The alien creature in the shadows living off our fear. With simple, fairytale directness, its one punch blow delivered in its bittersweet last moments speaks with powerful and stunning simplicity. In contrast, Joy Nesbitt’s devastating Dear Rosa presents short scenes like a series of jabs as a racially confused black woman tries negotiate a predominately white world. Demi Issac Ovlawe’s confidently insecure young black woman speaking to an imagined Rosa Parks, who she hopes to emulate. Asking advice about whether she should change her hair. Guilt and shame arising from the knowledge that Parks’s bus seat is still being fought for today. Nesbitt’s snappily sharp script, like Morgan Parker’s poetry, navigating the personal and political life of the modern black woman with insight and ease. If Dear Rosa and Cave land their respective punches cleanly, Louise Lowe’s Bait sees Una Kavanagh deliver a killer blow you’re not getting up from. If you ever wondered how some women numb pain with cheap alcohol and cheaper sex, Lowe shows you why while Kavanagh makes you feel it. Her woman in a sparkly dress, having been physically, mentally and emotionally dropkicked by her boyfriend, sees fair weather sharks circling outside her flat, scenting blood. Malicious charmers offering a bottle of vodka as balm to her wounds. Knowing there is only so much a broken girl can survive in a shark tank on her own. Of the many joys of Theatre For One, witnessing the actor in close proximity is arguably the most rewarding. Those who hide their nervousness behind their craft, or hide the fullness of their presence, and those, often more experienced, who are simply devastating. Like Una Kavanagh. Whose greatest drawback to national acclaim is that she makes anguish so vivid, so powerful and real, you suspect she’s naturally off her rocker. No one can play that hard, that deep, that compellingly, emotionally, viscerally brilliant every time. Capable of revealing in the quiver of lip a woman, ingenue, and innocent abroad who’s broken yet soul defiant all in the same instant. Kavanagh not just a force of nature, but nature itself. Watching her work up close and personal confounding you further and deepening the mystery. An utter, utter privilege. As is Theatre For One . Nothing else comes close. Cork Midsummer Festival and Cork Opera House present Landmark Productions and Octopus Theatricals Theatre For One as part of Cork Midsummer Festival 2024. For more information visit Cork Midsummer Festival 2024

Rex Ryan in Stephen Jones's Ghost Story. Image by Wen Driftwood  **** With Mask Monologues Glass Mask Theatre close out their latest season. In truth it hasn’t been their best, but it’s certainly been their bravest. Hanging in there despite no funding, experimenting with new, if not always entirely successful ways of making theatre, producing three male monologues exploring masculinity. Talk about going against the grain. But as always, there’s a sincere search for something vital in what Glass Mask do. Evident in Mask Monologues, an exploration of masculinity that might not rise above the anecdotal, but begins a much needed conversation. Three tales of broken men unable to live up to the roles society assigns them, seeking redemption without realising the dice were loaded from the start. That if they don’t understand how they’ve been duped, history might well be doomed to repeat itself. With minimal staging, and with each monologue speaking confessionally to the audience, there’s a sense of attending a Masculinities Anonymous Meeting. But Ghost Story , by Stephen Jones , sees director Ross Gaynor playfully puncture the dilemma with his opening image. A cartoon ghost costume whisked off Rex Ryan beginning proceedings with a playful elbow to the ribs. We’re serious, but this is theatre, so let’s enjoy this tale of a Richard Carver loving widower waiting for a blind date. A widower with a past you might have heard about, made more suspicious by his liking Guinness Zero. Waiting for the beautiful Adele, to whom he may never be able to say I love you. Jones’s sensitive script, more character study than story, tripping along nicely towards its final twist. Ryan delivering a smartly understated performance. Never insistent, never definite, just someone thinking out loud trying to make sense of where they are, how they got there, and what might come next. Michael Glen Murphy in Eva O'Connor's Her Dad is Old.  Image by Wen Driftwood  A trait echoed by Michael Glen Murphy in Her Dad is Old  by Eva O’Connor. A tale of an aging Lothario and his upper class daughter trying to reconnect. Murphy, under Ian Toner’s confident direction, successfully negotiating the most demanding of the three pieces, though a little less flailing and interruptions by an unnecessary soundscape wouldn’t hurt. Murphy at his best when you just let him be. Crucially important given O’Connor’s uneven script struggles with character as character and character as narrator. Murphy negotiating two distinct voices and vocabularies rather than one organic whole. His seductive charm and presence, like a warm embrace, bringing forth the latent, paternal undercurrent in O’Connor’s smart script. Whose ending overworks the final moments. Murphy, holding us in the palm of his hands in a moment of utter poignancy, reveals a multi-verse of heartrending humanity. Only for a final, soul crushingly unnecessary line nailing meaning to the ground. Undermining the power of O’Connor’s class conscious script which raises many fascinating questions. As does the daddy daughter relationship which fuels Her Good Side by Rex Ryan . Dan Monaghan’ s Carl, sitting on a park bench with a camera beside a children’s playground causing the occasional shift in the seat as he reveals his self-pitying life story. Ryan’s deceptively smart tale of a wannabe, never was, never gonna-be film maker addicted to addiction. Drugs, drink, seeking the perfect shot, Carl zones out of the real world looking for he could not tell you what. His ex-wife Claire, and his daughter Sophia long suffering victims of his victimhood. Monaghan’s masterful performance proving irresistible as a man whose delusions mask, then mangle, his inert goodness trying to manifest but not knowing how. Loving his daughter, who is his art. Not understanding that what she needed was a father. Resolution lying in a bittersweet end where hope, as in all the other monologues, looks thin on the ground. Dan Monaghan in Her Good Side by Rex Ryan. Image by Wen Driftwood  Like Clare Keegan’s short stories, there is a wealth hidden beneath the ordinariness of these three distinct, yet interconnected vignettes. Addressing questions no one else seems to be asking. You don’t have to love Glass Mask, and God knows I’ve had my fair share of issues, but you can’t deny they are the only venue doing what they do. Yes, it’s theatre in a bistro, and the demands of the latter might annoy some. But the smoked almonds are to die for so there’s that. Either way, Glass Mask continue to experiment, succeed, fail, then try again. Give space to new voices and new works by old voices. Produce works we might not otherwise have seen. Elevate bistro theatre into a distinct pleasure. Did I mention the smoked almonds? If for no other reason than they’re the only one doing what they do, Glass Mask deserve support. On the evidence of Mask Monologues alone, they’ve earned it. Roll on next season. Mask Monologues runs at Glass Mask Theatre until June 22. For more information visit Glass Mask Theatre

Sole Flower, Spidered Soul. Photo: Robbie Reynolds ** You’d imagine Lucia Joyce must be sick of it by now. Press ganged into service every June for the Bloomsday bandwagon. Eager to reclaim Lucia’s tragic life and to redeem or indict Joyce. Passing mystery off as history. Reading her as wronged woman and gifted dancer whose mental illness and subsequent internment resulted from an unsupportive, and possibly creatively jealous father. Or being spurned by Beckett. Or add your own male based causality. Lucia’s revisioned history reducing her to a feminist trope. For the truth is we know little about this hugely promising young woman and her mental health, who spent her later life in an asylum. Or of her father’s position with regards to her mental health. Mostly, we infer. Imaginatively speculate. Telling us more about ourselves than Lucia or Joyce. As is the case with the well intentioned but tediously trudging Sole Flower, Spidered Soul by multidisciplinary writer Fèilim James . An imaginative “what if” that shoehorns old world Daddy/Daughter dynamics into a moral debate framed a century later. One forever ignoring the many elephants it drags into the room. When it comes to “what ifs” James is unafraid to grab the imaginative bull by the horns. What if Joyce and Lucia met in the afterlife? What if Joyce was presented with the choice of a second, healthy chance at life for Lucia at the cost of his literary legacy? Following a series of hurried quotes and the introduction of a Master of Misrule, the jester-like Clown, imaginative inventiveness pretty much disappears once the coffined corpses greet each other. Instead, weak argument ensues only to blunder on unconvincingly. Self-serving diatribes side-stepping the questions glaringly raised. Lucia and Joyce devices to facilitate a loaded, half baked debate on parental responsibility rather than characters real or imagined. The only voice heard being James’s, saying very little of interest. Joyce made to fit the parental crime. Lucia played as outraged victim. All delivered in overworked language set against overworked abstract theatrics. If Joyce is presented as possessing an immeasurable ego, the priggish Lucia’s self-righteous, overly entitled ego eclipses him. Her self-aggrandising arguments sounding hollow for ignoring larger questions into which James never digs deep. Keeping it simplistic, interrogations get buried beneath the author’s verbal avalanche. Patrick Joseph Byrnes’s direction as off putting as it is occasionally ingenious. Michael McCabe’s Beckett-like Clown’s initial stomping being a case in point. Fiona Bawn-Thompson and Daniel Mahon frequently staring off into space while the other talks, with McCabe pressed to the wall like a frozen spider looks like an immature stunt. A last ditch use of projections, of which the stage become an extension, sees visual cliches offset by impassioned dancing cleverly choreographed by John Scott. But by then it’s too late. Lucia’s creativity momentarily glimpsed before the final decision, whose reconciliation is difficult to buy into. And more difficult to care about. Commissioned by Smashing Times and developed with dramaturgical support, Sole Flower, Spidered Soul sees characters that never ignite indulging in an unsustainable argument impossible to believe. Looking as if developed as a creative writing exercise, or end of term essay, James clearly shows talent and promise. Yet Sole Flower, Spidered Soul leaves you wondering at the role of the dramaturg, who frequently do not deliver in Ireland to the level of other countries. What are you being paid for exactly? What do you bring to the table beyond being a questionable sounding board? What damage might this income stream of dubious merit result in? Often it seems that anyone who wrote, or even read a play qualifies. Even those with qualifications can seem like teachers who should never be allowed anywhere near a pupil. Dramaturgy has real value when the job is done properly. Alas, too many dramaturges are like unregulated, self-proclaimed life coaches, full of borrowed and half baked ideas which leave the writer poorly served. As a playwright James has some work to do. Yet those supporting him need to bear their share of the responsibility. Sole Flower, Spidered Soul by Fèilim James, presented by The New Theatre, Smashing Times and Bloomsday Festival 2024, runs at The New Theatre until June 15th. For more information visit The New Theatre

Emma Campbell and Caoimhe Kavanagh in Carline. Image Molly Behan *** It’s dispiriting news coming out of The Abbey. Our National Theatre going dark till late September. The reasoning spurious, the fact undeniable. As if Dublin doesn’t already suffer a shortage of venues. Especially those that facilitate young artists looking to test themselves and grow. To try things first without having to rely on the Arts Council lottery with its demands, conditions and restrictions. Many inexperienced, wanting to learn by doing and not be reliant on slim apprenticeship or mentoring models, or talk tanks that lead to too few real opportunities. Exhibiting a punk-like enthusiasm to get onstage having taken things as far as they can. As was the case for many formative decades in Dublin. Remarkable venues like the legendary, and now derelict City Arts Centre much missed and needed. Around the corner from a black box space that’s recently been peering above the parapet. Where aspiring writer and director Úna Nolan tests their mettle with a predictable tale of an independent woman accused of witchcraft in the hugely promising Carline. No frills, just thrills, The Pearse Centre Theatre on Pearse Street has a small stage and impressive light rig that says budget doesn’t solve everything. Artists failing to properly utilise the space not suffering from a lack of money but imagination. Which is in abundance here. Entering the space, the scent of incense greets you before you see the stage. Jade McNutt and Jack Donoghue’s detailed interior of a seventeen century cottage resembling a new age coffee shop designed by Laura Ashley. Not for the last time will the past be gentrified by the present. Sitting onstage like a scullery maid sporting a Bane mask, Emma Campbell’s vibrant Maud waits patiently as the customary housekeeping takes place. Every trigger warning is given, except a trigger warning warning you there are going to be so many trigger warnings. Followed by Ruairí Nicholl’s Vicar moving through the dark auditorium talking theological. About possession and love. But listen close, the heart of Carline beats within Nolan’s dark, mantra-like phrase. Emma Campbell in Carline. Image Molly Behan In what follows, a budding relationship blossoms between the independent midwife Maud and conventional housewife Florence. Caoimhe Kavanagh marrying frail delicacy to Florence's larger desires for being compelled to play life safely. For this is a world where a spoonful of Basil or a questionable birthmark is enough to get you burnt at the stake. A. Coveney as the villainous John Price eager to strike the match. His enthusiasm tempered by Nicholl’s impassioned Vicar trying to do the right thing in the right way and properly investigate. But it’s all just rationalisation. Making up reasons for the unreasonable in order to justify the unjustifiable. Leading to a predictable, and somewhat rushed conclusion, with a visual epilogue of touching beauty. Channelling The Crucible and Kissing The Witch , Carline's structure is of an abridged novel adapted into a screenplay. Carline’s cinematic flow interrupted for spending too long on unimportant areas whilst leaving others underdeveloped. Including its hurried ending. One where story and message make for uneven, but not uncomfortable bedfellows. The past, sanitised and gentrified, judged through a modern lens, even allowing for Florence’s impressive speech on her day to day life. Jumping through time, scenic shifts evoke the screen rather than the stage, even as Nolan as director proves compositionally impressive, crafting many a mean image. Maud’s physical examination, or several acts of violence, highlighting Nolan’s impressive eye. Still, you can’t help but feel they look intended for camera, consciously or unconsciously. Begging the question if Nolan might have benefited from someone other than themselves as director. Someone who would have pushed at the script more. For whilst Nolan crafts a credible story issuing wonderful lines and moments, there's room for digging deeper. And while they make compositionally impressive use of the space, eliciting strong performances proves not to be their strong suit. Carline. Image Molly Behan Grand Guignol and hammy in execution, Nolan’s single focus characters act up their acting. The independent Maud, the impassioned Vicar, the conflicted Florence and the villainous Price all portentous and exaggerated in tone and gesture. Indeed, Price’s menacing sneer is only a moustache twirl away from silent movie villian. If exaggeration was intended, it’s a poor choice, leaving its cast looking unsupported, lost between realism and artifice. Still, Nolan’s superb use of props, costumes, hair and make-up go a long way to compensating. Nolan again strongest when visual, reinforcing the sense of Carline as less theatrical and more cinematic with its scenes and close ups. A hugely impressive light design by Clare McLoughlin adding fuel to an already commanding visual fire, using light and shadow to terrific effect. Carline gets things wrong, but mainly through inexperience. Yet how else do you get experience except by doing? Mostly, it gets things right. Including the most important thing of all. Having the courage to put new work before an audience having developed it is far as you can to see what you can learn. What we learn is that Nolan is criminally talented across the board, bringing a signature rigour to everything they touch. Like all those involved, Nolan is on a learning curve. Learning what works and doesn’t. How to never turn your virtues into vices, either moral and theatrical. Learning by way of forty-five delightful, richly invested minutes. True, some of that delight stems from Nolan’s refreshing, go get it, David and Goliath bravery. But Carline has a lot going on, a lot to be proud of, and promises a lot to come. Carline , by Úna Nolan, runs at The Pearse Centre Theatre until June 7. For more information visit Carline

The Wizard of Oz. Image credit unknown. *** You can’t improve on perfection. And there are few movies more perfect than 1939’s The Wizard of Oz . ‘So good it should never be remade or reimagined,’ claim the purists. Seeming to forget the 1974 musical The Wiz . Made into a 1978 movie staring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, spawning the hit Ease On Down The Road . The Wizard of Oz reimagined in Harlem with an almost all black cast. The film a financial and critical flop, becoming a cult classic in later years. Now we have another reimagining, this one again bearing the title The Wizard of Oz . One following the story of the original movie but in the style of The Wiz . Delivering a car crash of kitsch, glitz, and wildly relentless energy in a production unlikely to become a classic. In fairness, its target audience appears to be children and those with a less reverential relationship with the original. Judy Garland’s doe-eyed, innocent good girl replaced by Aviva Tulley’s girl boss Dorothy. An outsider with attitude growing up in depression era Kansas whisked to the land of Oz by a tornado. On an adventure to get home and standing up to anyone who gets in her way. Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion also given a more contemporary twist even as they recite large chunks of the original dialogue. Completely sacrificed is the charm and eccentric voices of the Muchkins whose Lollipop Guild give the first indication that if Dorothy’s not in Kansas anymore, we’re not in any recognisable Oz. Rather, Colin Richmond’s retro set suggests a first draft design for Fallout , its Las Vegas styled Oz heavily influenced by 50s Americana, including a pink moped for Glinda. Douglas O’Donnell’s video projections referencing Back to the Future: The Musical’s simulation technology, similar to that used on the Universal Studio ride Harry Potter and The Forbidden Journey . Whisking us through time and space and everything in between with barely a chance to catch your breath. All the while the stage resembles the docking port in a spaceship. Whilst the Oz themed Wicked is a truly great musical, The Wizard of Oz proves to be pure pantomime. Its classic songs by Harold Arlen (music) and E.Y. Harburg (lyrics) drowning in a mix of uncharacteristically forgettable tosh by Andrew Lloyd Webber (music) and Tim Rice (lyrics). Tulley’s commanding presence and voice wasted on the duo’s half baked songs trying to raise feel good vibes. Tulley, along with a scene stealing Craig Revel Norwood as the Wicked Witch of the West, shouldering much of what makes The Wizard of Oz engaging. Norwood's Witch irresistible for being an unapologetic pantomime dame. Meanwhile, director Nikolai Foster keeps the action frenetic and energised. Foster deserving double his salary for shaping Webber and Jeremy Sams’ messy adaptation into something workable. Similarly Abigail Matthews’s War Horse inspired, puppet dog Toto. Matthews likely to need physiotherapy for slipped discs and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in the years to come on account of the loveable mutt. Fast, furious, but rarely fabulous, The Wizard of Oz might ooze Eurovision kitsch, yet next to Oz musical Wicked , coming to Bord Gáis Energy Theatre later this year, it's very much pantomime minus the audience shouting at the stage. Whirlwinds of colour delivering a musical theatre sugar rush, its technological touches and pantomime antics are likely to delight a much younger audience. Or those with an insatiable passion for kitsch. For everyone else, if this is what over the rainbow looks like, then there really is no place like home. Even so, Horwood and Tulley make it a trip worth taking. The Wizard of Oz , produced by Michael Harrison Entertainment, runs at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre until June 8. For more information visit Bord Gáis Energy Theatre

Niamh Cusack, Imogen Doel, Hazel Doupe, Risteárd Cooper, Marty Rea in Circle Mirror Transformation. Image Ros Kavanagh **** Some meet for a reason, some for a season, some for life. Yet even ships that pass in the night make us better for having known them. The bittersweet lesson underlying Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Baker’s charming sit-com Circle Mirror Transformation . Baker’s tele-play styled script following a group of five people attending a drama class over a six week period. Played out over a series of acting exercises and tea breaks, what they learn about each other isn’t revealed in what they say, but in silences, secrets, the unspoken. Teased out, tricked out, coaxed into the light to be mirrored, healed and transformed. Ideally. For the road to redemption isn’t always an easy one, and where it leads might not be where you want to go. Imogen Doel, Marty Rea, Risteárd Cooper, Hazel Doupe in Circle Mirror Transformation. Image Ros Kavanagh While Circle Mirror Transformation doesn’t sing exclusively to the theatre choir, it resonates more deeply with those who’ve been through the drama workshop experience. The Boal games and Meisner exercises, the icebreakers meant to free participants who often wonder why they don’t have a script in hand and why they aren’t engaged in real acting. Lying on the floor counting to ten. Creating tableau images from their life. Recounting someone’s story back to them. Sharing secrets in unsafe ways. People left open, vulnerable and raw, often unsure what to do with what the exercise brings to the surface. Still, the eternally youthful Niamh Cusack as Marty, sporting a perma-smile of encouragement for her floundering class, is blind in her belief that drama makes a difference. A superb Risteárd Cooper as her self-aggrandising husband James, trying to salvage their marriage, tries half heartedly to engage. A brilliant Marty Rea as recently divorced carpenter Schultz, and a flawless Imogen Doel as the uber-commited, hula-hooping Theresa more than make up for James’s self-indulgent narcissism giving each lesson their all, hoping no one sees what they don’t want them to know. Meanwhile Hazel Doupe’s Goth-like Lauren, a sixteen year old aspiring actress, listens in silence with teenage vulnerability writ large on her uniform of black. All working their way to the final day of class when everything, and everyone, will be made different. Niamh Cusack and Risteárd Cooper in Circle Mirror Transformation. Image Ros Kavanagh Whilst the classroom format has many precedents, an overriding sense of The Kominsky Method meets The Breakfast Club looms throughout, right down to the popular girl and the silent, dark dressed geek. Five awkward archetypes in a classroom environment looking for answers to life. If Baker’s televisual script relies heavily on blackouts and short scenes, her writing has a brutal, mesmerising economy that’s hugely refreshing. Róisín McBrinn directing life into Baker’s taut script by eliciting five impeccably detailed performance. Still, the traverse arrangement, with the audience sitting either side of Paul Keogan’s stage mirroring each other, frustrates more than facilitates. And given these are such gorgeously judged, rigorously detailed performances, being frustrated by poor sight lines, or listening to someone’s expressionless back, doesn’t sit well. Which proves too often the case. Imogen Doel, Niamh Cusack, Risteárd Cooper, Marty Rea, Hazel Doupe in Circle Mirror Transformation. Image Ros Kavanagh Offering drama as drama therapy, Circle Mirror Transformation is safe bet, no risk theatre. Aside from its Pulitzer pedigree, its story of humans trying to make sense of life is supremely relatable and enjoyable. Made irresistible by McBrinn and an ensemble delivering pitch perfect performances. It might be a no frills script, but there’s immense depth to Baker’s humorous and heartfelt slices of life as her flawed characters discover themselves through drama. Ensuring Circle Mirror Transformation is a genuine joy from beginning to end. Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker, presented by The Gate Theatre runs at The Gate Theatre until June 30th. For more information visit The Gate Theatre

Mark Hawkins and Martin James in The Woman in Black. Image, Mark Douet *** There are two opposing viewpoints when it comes to the stage version of The Woman in Black . The defence claims it is an excellent stage adaptation of Susan Hill’s 1983 gothic horror novel, that it is the scariest play ever, that it is inventively theatrical, and given that it's the second longest running play in the history of the West End, second only to The Mousetrap , nothing remains to be said. The prosecution, however, attest that it is a horrendously clunky adaptation by Stephen Mallatratt, about as scary as a ghost train ride for under sevens, so theatrically uninventive as to constitute a dressed up movie, and what it says everything about is the problems in theatre if this is being held up as some kind of benchmark. On the evidence of the current touring production at The Gaiety, the division is alive and well, sparking stand ovations amongst some and heavy dozing and clock watching amongst others. Begging the question, were the case to go to trial for a decision, who’d likely win? Alas, sifting through the evidence, the jury might well find in favour of the prosecution. As a Gothic scare, The Woman in Black proves less Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein so much as Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein . Or Carry on Screaming . More laughs than scares, with what scares there are cheaply achieved and laughable. Indeed, those hoping for something akin to the genuinely scary 2012 movie starring Daniel Radcliffe will need to manage their expectations. Mallatratt’s play within a play making for a remarkably dull slice of story telling theatre. A two hander, with a ghostly third and a scene stealing dog name Spider, begins with a prologue to a prologue to the setup for the story. For what feels like half the show all we really learn is it was 9.00pm on Christmas Eve, old Mister Kipps urgently needs to tell his five hour ghost story (which he obviously survived) and an actor is trying help him do so in a theatre in the 1950s. Exposition heavy, it’s tell-not-show, short scene narrative is structured like a screenplay with scenes forever fading in and out of black. The action jumping back and forth in time as the young solicitor Kipps visits a scary mansion where a women recently died. Throw in a handful of Gothic tropes; islands accessed only when the tide is out, quicksand, dead children, spooky graveyards, suspicious villagers, pea soup fog and things that go bump in the night, and we’re off at the banshee races. Falling over countless hurdles as it trundles along till its twist in the tale ending. Martin James and Mark Hawkins in The Woman in Black. Image, Mark Douet Take Michael Holt’s clunky design aspiring to be a movie set; a grey draped stage with a gauze curtain, a multi-purpose basket and door of mysterious import. Relying on shadowed projections and The Gaiety’s iconic interior to do most of the mood setting. Meanwhile Kevin Sleep's hyperactive lights play Russian roulette with mood and accuracy. Robin Hereford’s fretful direction rushing about like a terrified child trying to dodge raindrops. Leaving Mark Hawkins as the histrionic actor doubling up as the younger Kipps to keep things moving along. The whole putting immense weight on Malcolm James as the reluctant Olivier. The superb James as the older Kipps shouldering responsibility for what makes The Woman in Black work. James turning in an award worthy performance as a veritable cast of thousands. First produced in 1987, The Woman in Black’s 'jumping from the shadows shouting boo' scare tactics can still jolt on occasion, especially for those nervously inclined. But that’s because of the shock of surprise. Granted, a rocking chair and curious locked door try generate a little tension. But too many long pauses and ghost train theatrics leave its endless pregnant pauses turning out to be phantom pregnancies. But it’s theatre, they say. Use your imagination, they tell us often enough. You might be imagining what a good design, writer and director might have looked like. Even so, The Woman in Black’s old world ghost story is infused with old nostalgic charm. And nostalgia never goes out of fashion. The Woman in Black , adapted by Stephen Mallatratt from the novel by Susan Hill, runs at The Gaiety Theatre until June 1. For more information visit The Gaiety Theatre

Night Dances, by Emma Martin/United Fall. Image, United Fall *** You can sift through Night Dances finding references to Emma Martin ’s other works. Including a veiled woman on a white horse during the opening moments. But they only draw attention to themselves as references. Finding the trees, you might not see the forest. Which turns out to be rather sparse. Artspeak promising hot, sweaty energies. Martin’s choreographic quartet posturing and posing but looking far more tame in a universe inhabited by Oona Doherty's Hard to be Soft or THISISPOPBABY'S Party Scene . Jonas Krämer stalking downstage, removing safety ropes evocative of a boxing ring, throwing a confrontational glare beyond the fourth wall. But is he really watching us? Is the fourth wall not his mirror? Krämer alone in a studio, or a bedroom, enacting a dress rehearsal for a display on the dance floor later? All swagger and shapes. Pops, flails, and strutting in silence; the gaze fixed, the expression defiant. Movements bleeding in and out of contortion as Krämer desires approval whilst pretending he doesn’t care. A Hammer Horror styled organ score by Daniel Fox cranking up the volume towards the end, but offering little of excitement or interest. The arrival of a Billie Barry styled troupe sees seven young dancers shifting the gaze from private to public. All cute sass, shorts pants and mile high pony tails, they strut to the stage, strike a pose and claim it as their own. Performing impressive gymnastic floor routines, synchronicity, snap, and positioning might suffer from excited nervousness, but sequences are performed with youthful vigour and lots of gravity defying flips. What that has to do with fury, rebellion, hope and freedom might leave you baffled, but dancers Anne-Marie Lambert, Sarah Kathleen Lambert, Romie Rose Moynihan, Casey O’Reilly, Tiffany Owens, Annie Jane Tarzan and Gabriella O'Neill Visibelli are each fabulous and deservedly cheered off the stage. Seceding it to Ryan O’Neill with their brazen stares. O’Neill crafting the most moving of the four pieces. There, but not there. Conversing with the music performed live. Movements bursting from the conversation. Not the polished performance of the professional but the impulse that gives rise to shaping something. Each movement an experiment organically leading to the next. Creating flow. A pattern. A sequence. A statement. Overhead a broad, circular light looms like a portal to heaven, or an alien spaceship. Beneath which O’Neill dances alone as if his sanity depended on it. Nothing big, just digging deep against a dynamic score by Fox, playing live with Brian Dillon and Jamie Hyland. Stephen Dodd's atmospheric lighting hugely successful in adding texture and weight. Katie Davenport's one focus design less so. Night Dances, by Emma Martin/United Fall. Image, Sean Breithaupt In the final sequence a coven of three, ghostly Salome’s arrive in veils which are soon discarded. Robyn Byrne, Aoife McAtamney and Jessie Thompson’s individual and collective routines melding strip club with night club at times. The blaze of red, the seedy shadows, twerking and other conventional tropes showing a loose synchronicity. Their solos, like individual showcases, merging with lots of loosely coordinated group work. Some imaginative flourishes standing out even as they never take your breath away. Till it all dissolves in a durational rhythm, rising briefly to a loud, thumping finish. Premiering in 2021, an underlying tension links Night Dances quartet. Or rather its two diptychs. Two contrasting male solos as well as two female group pieces. A contrast suggesting women dance together, men dance alone. The feminine public, the male private. Krämer, like a younger version of O’Neill, dancing by himself, the more mature O’Neill dancing for himself. The young dance troupe and trio of older girls creating a more challenging contrast around sexualised innocence. But that’s the thing with Martin, she’s unafraid to risk it. The indefinite. The unclear. The interpreted and misinterpreted possibilities. It’s a tidy position, creating work open to multiple readings. Yet if Night Dances was ‘anything goes’ there’d be no need for its programme promises. In which Night Dances promises a ferocity that will grab you and kiss you hard. It certainly grabs you, but only to graze its lips past your cheek with the flimsiest of brushes. Night Dances , by Emma Martin/United Fall, presented by Dublin Dance Festival and the Abbey Theatre,  ran at The Abbey Theatre as part of Dublin Dance Festival 2024 . Night Dances features in Cork Midsummer Festival 2024, June 13 - 15. For more information visit   The Abbey Theatre , Dublin Dance Festival 2024 or Cork Midsummer Festival 2024

Aebh Kelly (Flora) and Amanda Woodbury (Violetta) in INO's La Traviata. Image, Ros Kavanagh **** There are operas, there are popular operas, and there's La Traviata (The Fallen Woman) . Verdi’s classic which premiered unsuccessfully at La Fenice, Venice, in 1853 before going on to become one of the world’s best loved operas. A rollicking tale of a good girl with a bad reputation dying for love that puts the drama into melodrama, the opera into soap opera. Impassioned, improbable, wildly implausible, Francesca Maria Piave’s reversal rampant libretto, adapted from the play La dame aux camélias by Alexander Dumas fils , doesn’t require you to suspend disbelief so much as set it on fire then scatter the ashes. Opera’s eternal tension between the wiles of social convention and the wilds of a passionate heart running riot in Irish National Opera’s current production. Olivia Fuchs’s direction delivering an emotional rollercoaster ride constrained by conservative conventions. Framed by Katie Davenport’s stage within a stage design and carnival coloured costumes that prove mostly successful. Leaning into tradition, La Traviata whirls with a twist of datedness, like a musical hall Can-Can routine that brims with irresistible charm. Even as Verdi’s music and songs remain forever timeless. Sorry Amanda Woodbury (Violetta) in INO's La Traviata. Image, Ros Kavanagh Under Killian Farrell’s gently assured baton, Irish National Opera Orchestra play savoringly slow or trip along nicely. Meanwhile arias, duets, and chorus flow with bel canto ease as the lovelorn Alfredo pursues the adored Violetta at a Parisian watering hole, immortalised in the drinking song The Brindisi (Libiamo ne'lieti calici) . Like watching an old silent movie, it’s stiff, clunky, full of outdated conventions and implausible antics. Yet its very datedness seduces you. Soprano Amanda Woodbury's Violetta and tenor Mario Chang's Alfredo both social butterflies who’ve been around and seen a few things, including better days as they approach their best by date. Violetta’s consumption speeding up her body clock like a frantic time bomb whilst Alfredo’s estrangement from his Father risks him being ostracised. His love for Violetta sparking a desire to leave the high life of Paris for a quiet life together in the country. Yet Violetta requires convincing. Her resistance to Alfredo's Un felice de, eterea proving fruitless given it could melt even the most hardened heart, echoing from offstage like a memory. Mario Chang (Alfredo) in INO's La Traviata. Image, Ros Kavanagh Initially, singing gets off to an unsettled start generally speaking, sounding thin, not rounded or robust enough in places. Yet confidence grows with each passing note, even as staging means passion looking strained for modern audiences. Which proves a victory of sorts. Fuchs’s staging might forgo physical intimacy for classical convention, but the effect heightens the sense of two awkward souls unsure how to express their true desires. Confirmed in the duets delighting Act Two between Violetta and baritone Leon Kim’s Giorgio, Alfredo’s father. Initially unsettling given its two singers sing together but sound apart. An unease compounded by Kim’s attempt to age his voice. Yet if space between the two is noticeable, it reflects the narrative’s insurmountable space as Giorgio asks Violetta to forego Alfredo and cease living in sin for his family’s honour and Alfredo’s reputation. Which Violetta reluctantly agrees to. A distance made all the more enriching when, in the final Act, one of the longest death scenes in opera, Violetta and Giorgio, along with Alfredo, sing movingly together as one. No spoilers here. Davenport’s hospital bed and Fuchs’s initial stage image foreshadowing the inevitable from the first curtain rise. Amanda Woodbury (Violetta) in INO's La Traviata. Image, Ros Kavanagh But there’s a bit to go beforehand. Violetta’s return to Paris and her old suitor Baron Douphol, baritone Graeme Collins, sees her trying to trick Alfredo into believing she no longer loves him. Whilst promenading at the vivacious Flora’s costume ball, Alfredo’s arrival and inevitable confrontation brings Act Two to a glorious, swooning close. Violetta, caught by a superb Irish National Opera Chorus who enchant and energise crowd scenes. Highlighting Fuchs’s love of pictorial composition and classic tableaux, which prove superb throughout. As does a divine Aebh Kelly, announcing herself as a mezzo-soprano to watch in what little stage time she enjoys as Flora. Yet La Traviata is all about Violetta. Soprano Amanda Woodbury rising to the challenge with aplomb. Violetta not singing so much as travelling the entire emotional spectrum, usually in the same scene. From carefree party girl to devoted lover. From domestic bliss to renouncing joy for a higher cause. From despairing heartbreak to spiritual redemption. If leaning into traditional conventions limits Woodbury’s physical expressiveness, Woodbury’s spry singing negotiates Violetta's emotive expressiveness superbly. INO's La Traviata. Image, Ros Kavanagh If, on the rollercoaster ride that is INO’s La Traviata , a rare note sounds like a wheel slipping loose from the rails, the whole stays on track right till the end. Richly textured by Katie Davenport’s costumes. Sumptuous, colourful, Davenport’s tailored twist on period style suggests bespoke Vivienne Westwood. Paul Keogan’s lush lighting adding further opulence. Yet Davenport’s cartoonish design doesn’t all, or always work, even as flickers of flair and signature touches help foreground individual characters. The costume party suggests Halloween at Coppers. The Baron an oversized leprechaun, Giorgio a Russian peasant, and Violetta’s black lace skirt and bloomers a less than flattering, hen-party look that never looks good on anyone. Yet individual blemishes aside, the whole is magnificently realised. Including Davenport’s stage within a stage set, capturing the music hall look and mood of the period. Even if the hovering bed looks peculiarly juvenile. Yet even when it doesn't all work, you never confuse Davenport with another designer. Musically, this is Verdi’s La Traviata . Visually, it’s Davenport’s. A designer growing in confidence and vision with each new production. Aebh Kelly (Flora) and Ben McAteer (Marchese d'Obigny) in INO's La Traviata. Image, Ros Kavanagh La Traviata marks the final production of INO’s current season. There are those who begrudge opera its hefty financial investment. Citing examples like Verona Opera Festival's 100th season opener Aida , which delivered an ugly, unjustifiable waste of ostentation. Yet with INO it is money well spent. INO’s commitment to innovation for the future married to reverence for the past addresses the twin demands of opera, whilst also developing Ireland's future opera stars. Like Davenport. Or soprano Megan O’Neill, illuminating the chorus whilst honing her craft. Yet it's simplier than that. Opera is one of life’s great love affairs. Like love, we are sometimes blind, or too accepting of its great and little failings. Like love, we can sometimes get moody wth it. Like love, it's supremely impractical, doesn’t make sense, and can be bloody expensive. Yet it is vital and joyous, even when bittersweet, turning tragedy to delight whilst it brings us all together. At what cost? How do you put a price on what’s priceless? Amanda Woodbury (Violetta) in INO's La Traviata. Image, Ros Kavanagh INO’s Artistic Director Fergus Shiel and Executive Director Diego Fasciati deserve to be hugely commended. La Traviata has been around since 1853. Verona Opera Festival is a century old. INO turns seven this year. It may appear older and wiser, but it’s a very young opera company. Holding its own on the international stage. Whose La Traviata risks brave, bold, and often beautiful choices, many of which succeed on the terms they set out for themselves. Passionately wild, unapologetically sumptuous, La Traviata might experience the occasional rattle, but it can still mesmerise completely while taking your breath away. Roll on INO's next season. La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Francesca Maria Piave’s, adapted from the play La dame aux camélias by Alexander Dumas fils , is currently on tour. For more information visit Irish National Opera. This review relates to the performance on Thursday, May 23rd, at The Gaiety Theatre, Dublin. Primary roles are rotated during the tour. Check INO’s website (link above) for details, and for information on their forthcoming season.

Carcaça by Marco da Silva Ferreira. Image, Freepass. *** It’s a common audience complaint. Politicised productions promoting the current important message. Politicised programme notes promising much but delivering less. Productions where you want to say; “I know you’ve got a message. Just give me a pamphlet so I can read it on the way home. Meanwhile, artistically, what have you got?” Sometimes, not a lot. Or, in the case of Marco da Silva Ferreira’s durational Carcaça , not enough. And, also, too much. Like ankle rolls. Ten dancers in black, stage right of a large, white floor mat, warm up as if for a rehearsal. A lone drummer, downstage right, taps out a rhythm. Presently a dancer takes to the stage. Drummer and dancer marginally, but distinctly out of sync. But as the dancer’s movements show greater rigour you start to doubt the drummer. His drummer-boy drum rolls evoking a parade ground. On which other dancers arrive creating a carnival-like marching routine with loose synchronicity. I say loose, some might say sloppy. As dancers negotiate travelling the edges of the space towards the back wall, expanding and contracting as a unit becomes a recurring device. Forming and reforming after whirling off into collaborative duets, trios or quartets. Rolling on the floor as one to downstage, the sense of a hive mind emerges. Not of one and the many, but of the many as one. Like a team. Or a mob. Carcaça by Marco da Silva Ferreira. Image, Freepass. Following one of several forgettable solos, whose chief function is to provide recovery interludes, a durational sequence commences. If modern is married to the traditional as advertised, allusions to Hip Hop battles prove thin on the ground. Some might say invisible. Initially engaging, the sequence soon resembles a durational aerobics class, or a Guinness Book of Records attempt at ankle rolling. Meanwhile, the insistent drumming, hinting of tribal percussions, makes it clear that there’s a thin line between trance-like, hypnotic rhythms and putting you to sleep. The metronomic patterning proving closer to the latter. The durational, repetitive rocking on ankles adding visual fuel to the dozing fire. Till the message arrives to sing to the choir. A beer hall, Marxist shanty sung as dancers drag red tops, like Communist flags, across their faces. Becoming a collective mouth delivering a party political call-to-arms on behalf of the Anti-bourgeoisie Party. Their heavy handed lyrics projected as surtitles. Dull, trite, awash in populist anti-populism, you soon understand why they don’t give out pamphlets; they’d never make it past the first waste paper basket. Including the baskets of many in agreement with Carcaça’s anti-fascist, anti-capitalist sentiments. Following a clever visual that costs too much and delivers too little it all ends with a Céile of endless ankle rolls to a tune reminiscent of a Mexican organ grinder. The audience jump up with glee. Some asserting their wholehearted support for Carcaça’s political devotions. Some glad it’s all over. Most applauding the dancers durational vigour, hard work and commitment, even if some seemed more vigorous, hardworking and committed than others. McLuhan claimed the medium is the message. In Carcaça, the message undermines the medium and sells both short. Flattering to deceive, preaching to the converted, Carcaça’s low level propaganda tactics employed for the highest of intentions leaves it artistically short-changed. A shame, given that its choreographic interplay occcassionally crafts visually impressive moments. Carcaça by Marco da Silva Ferreira, presented by Dublin Dance Festival and the Abbey Theatre, a Big Pulse Dance Alliance Co-Production , runs at The Abbey Theatre until May 22. For more information visit   The Abbey Theatre or Dublin Dance Festival 2024

BLKDOG by Botis Sava. Image, Camilla Greenwell **** When it comes to introducing young audiences to dance, Hip-Hop is an obvious avenue. Which explains why Dublin Dance Festival has enjoyed a long relationship with the genre, featuring several battles and showcases over the years. Arising out of the US in the late 70s, its since become the dance darling of Tik-Tok, with several of its components becoming distinct styles in themselves. The genre evolving whilst remaining connected to its origins on the streets. Which are often gritty, violent and dangerous. Very much in evidence in director & choreographer Botis Seva’s sensational, Olivier Award winning BLKDOG . More Top Boy than L.A., Torben Sylvester’s brilliant industrial score, along with Ryan Dawson-Laight’s grim, grey tracksuits and hoodies are as far from the American Dream as you can get. California Dreamin’ maybe. But dream on. Tom Visser’s street-lit hell a cold, traumatised, Brutalist backdrop. Where hope abandons all who enter here, having little chance of escape. Visser’s black-and-white scenes using soft-spots to scratch images from the midnight dark. In which unseen and unmentionable things crowd near a huddled, lone figure isolated in a circular cell of white. Like a creature from a Playstation game, or a child crouched under a street light. The darkness pressing in, hiding brutalities the eye might not be able to handle. The imagination filling in the terrible, torturous glimpses as bodies struggle to rise, gunshots ring out, and people scamper and scurry about like mice. The frightened and the feared. The child and the monster. The child made monster. BLKDOG by Botis Sava. Image, Camilla Greenwell Throughout, Seva’s choreographic lexicon establishes a powerful fusion of signature Hip-Hop moves (the foot grab, pointing, the bring it on swagger) with clear, recognisable gestures (the pointed gun, the baseball bat swung, giving CPR). The dancers achieving low status by seeing much of their movement compressed to the floor; scurrying across the stage in yoga squat like silent Gollums. Then freezing like animals caught in a searchlight. The synchronisation of body, sound and light unparalleled. Fast, fleeting, or frozen in time, dancers shift in and out intermittent tableaux. Recurrent ideas of children, therapy, guilt and depression, of fatal violence being played and replayed. Movements oscillating between a Matrix attention to slow motion detail offset by jagged, restless energies. Soloist and group always sharing the space. The lone dancer desperate to belong, yet desperate to escape, BLKDOG’s hybrid style might leave some Hip-Hop purists put out, whilst its 'feet in the street' narrative might put off others who want the genre to tell different stories. But BLKDOG remains true to its cultural and creative roots, and to the wild, dangerous experiences that inform it. To how street dance is an effort to elevate. To escape to a better place. Perhaps even a better life. If BLKDOG falls down, it’s in giving too much of a good thing. Overplaying its hand, it overstays its welcome. What was initially riveting suffering from rinse and repeat as the end approaches. Whose final image might say more about you than the work. A chance at a new beginning or for history to repeat itself? Whatever you see, walking out into the light you know you’ve been witness to something. Something primary, visceral and transformative. Don’t be afraid. Don't worry about story. Just look at the fleeting, fierce images and all will become clear. Let them imprint themselves on your imagination. The haunting light and the soul swallowing dark. The body's expressiveness. The searing sountrack to crimes we'd rather not see. The faintest flicker of hope. It ’s all there. BLKDOG will blow you away. If you let it. BLKDOG by Botis Sava, presented by Dublin Dance Festival and the Abbey Theatre, runs at The Abbey Theatre until May 18. For more information visit   The Abbey Theatre   or Dublin Dance Festival 2024

Cellule. Image Dainius Putinas *** To the maxim ‘don’t believe the hype’ might be added ‘be wary of the blurb’. Too often posturing jargon or academic Artspeak trying to pass as insight. Talking big to inflate exceedingly small concerns. Rather like the blurb for Cellule , by French choreographer and dancer Nach. A solo dance work which purports to speak to Krumping, activism, racism, individual expression and to two pints of whatever you're having yourself. Instead, it speaks little to the above and says even less. Yet when it speaks to the dancer’s body, it’s both mesmerising and beautifully articulated. When future dance histories are written, the influence of Afrika Bambaataa must be acknowledged. His promotion of Breakdance back in the early 1980s the precursor for Hip Hop and its many generic offshoots, including Krumping. A high octane mix of body popping and electrifying robotics full of swagger and threat that’s often violently charged but never violent. Not that you’d know it here. A dull intro finds a loud, disembodied crowd offset by blurred, black and white images evoking a museum space or empty gallery. Projections done, Nach finally takes to the stage. Opening with detailed articulations of Krumping in slow motion with Tik-Tok levels of facial expression. Which is like saying it’s Formula One driven at a snails pace with exaggerated visage. Fach’s hands raised above her head in prayer, in pleading, or following police instructions. Till it soon becomes clear this was never about Krumping, or activism, but Fach. Cellule. Image Dainius Putinas Confirmed as the first level of disrobing begins. Fach losing her tracksuit top, and, shortly, bottoms, as sinuous silhouettes converse on the back wall followed by a cliched projection suggesting Fach giving birth to herself. Leading into a sublime sequence. Objectification denied as Fach invites us not to look at her but to look with her at the dancer’s body. Emmanuel Tussore’s masterful use of light crafting every tension and extension. The body's musculature etched in shadow; the crafted calf, the distended belly, the ankle twisted, the back arched. A wash of red reinforcing the body’s bloodied musculature before it all descends into cliche. The blurred images returning supported by asinine text trying to supply meaning only to sound hollow and immature. Meanwhile, Fach bends backwards inside a rectangle of red light like an Amsterdam sex worker on a quiet night. A lazy set up for the nudity that follows. The body’s vulnerability rendered two steps removed behind the dual frame of stage and screen. A black and white projection of Fach dancing naked whilst her immediate, semi-dressed body sits still on stage. Movements hinting at a power to be guessed at but never felt. Suggestive of the work of Fitzgerald and Stapleton, but with none of their bravery or visceral immediacy. Efforts to pare it back to basics in the final sequence falling short. Krumping again delivered in Disney slow motion. This time to a soft piano score and another excess of facial expression. The house lights brought up as if to say, ‘no more artifice, this is me.’ But it’s a ruse. A spiritual burlesque as Fach’s fluttering face conceals what the blurb purports to reveal. Fach a good girl slumming in a tough neighbourhood. Her eloquent investigation of the dancer’s body finding her guilty of backing down when she needed to keep going and front up. A major faux pas in the world of Krumping. Backing off from the rage, the rawness, the relentless energy. From the place Krumping speaks from, which Fach only glimpses, then sanitises. Cellule , ultimately, offering glimpses of a glimpse. The distance between street and stage reimposed for being imagined along tired, old lines. The street once again sanitised in service to the stage. Cellule by Nach, presented by Dublin Dance Festival, runs at Project Arts Centre until May 15. For more information visit Project Arts Centre or Dublin Dance Festival 2024

Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan's 13 Tongues, Inage by Liu Chen-hsiang **** 13 Tongues. Choreographer Cheng Tsung-lung’s homage to Taipei's historic Bangka district in Taiwan, and to its 1960s street artist and storyteller, Thirteen Tongues. The number 13 likely to unsettle the overly superstitious as haunting, clanging chimes open proceedings. A repeated two note, monastery call rung out on a handbell. The stage dark and cavernous, dwarfing the eleven dancers dressed in black. Lining up before descending into a damned and demented cacophony of movement married to shrieking cries. As if the inmates in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest had decided to make some frenetic martial arts movie. One can detect, or impose, an underlying narrative. A Divine Comedy journeying from the darkened hell of egoist insanity to the glittering heaven of communal relationship. Duets and quartets of shared movement gradually emerging from the chaos. The cohesion of the group coming to dominate even as the soloist remains. Lim Giong’s diverse score offering musical moments channeling everything from gospel to blues, electronica to tribal rhythms, providing a poetic, stanza-like structure. In which further juxtapositions play against each other. Solos next to group see the soloist never alone. Darkness against light uneasily divides the stage. Sharp, pulsing gestures against easy flowing movements. Extensions and lifts informed by graceful, wave-like motion. Vigorous waving, clapping, and laughing bringing the rhythms and sounds of the street onto the stage. And so it goes, the soloist becoming more and more subsumed as the ensemble dominates. The whole built less on repetition so much as rinse and repeat. Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan's 13 Tongues, Inage by Liu Chen-hsiang As the end nears, Wang Ethan’s projections elaborate the modicum of colour allowed onstage. Assisted by Shen Po-hung’s twilit lights and Lin Bing-hao’s wildly contrasting costumes. The simplicity of black, martial art styled uniforms giving way to a flash of colourful fluorescence. Flourishing into a carnival of neon as a giant goldfish swims past. The dancers glowing like fabulous fireflies trapped inside a lava lamp. The final, synchronised sequence a chorus line flaring like fireworks, dazzling briefly before the inevitable fizzle. The diverse many becoming a synchronised whole. The collective's colourful uniformity somehow less intriguing than their diverse, individual characters. The sum not quite as powerful as its individual parts. 13 Tongues themes of inclusion, of dissolving barriers, echo the aspirations of festival director Jazmin Chiodi. Barriers between the trained dancer and the lover of dancing. Between stage and street. The past and now. The practiced and natural merging in a series of vibrant vignettes. In which movement as powerful as gravity proves as light and graceful as smoke. The flavours of Taiwan’s hustling, bustling street life, its people and characters, richly conveyed in this heartfelt love letter. 13 Tongues' Irish premiere getting Dublin Dance Festival 2024 off to a hugely promising start. Whilst also proving 13 can be a very lucky number. 13 Tongues by Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, presented by Dublin Dance Festival and Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, runs at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre until May 15. For more information visit Bord Gáis Energy Theatr e and Dublin Dance Festival 2024

Todd Carty in The Mousetrap. Image Matt Crockett **** The world’s longest running play, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap , opening on the West End in 1952 and running continuously since (aside from a brief spell during COVID) is a mystery shrouded in mystery. How a whodunnit so contrived, and so very much of its time, has managed to remain popular should beggar belief. As murder mysteries go, it’s not even Christie’s most original work, sharing several similarities with her far superior And Then There Were None . Both plots revolving around a group of people trapped in a house during a storm, with one of them a killer looking to avenge an old death. Celebrating seventy plus years, the anniversary touring production currently at The Gaiety gives several clues as to The Mousetrap's longevity. Its journey towards its big revelation being an utterly endearing affair, enriched with old world charm, and awash with theatrical magic. Even before the curtains rise, a cinematic score establishes history meets nostalgia as its overriding tone. Evoking the once upon a time of Noel Coward and P.G. Wodehouse. Of modern afternoons off sick, curled up before the television enraptured by a classic black and white movie. One with a gruff, curmudgeonly Major (an impressive Todd Carty), a suspiciously eccentric young men (a delightful Shaun McCourt), a judgmental spinster (a suitably acerbic Judith Rae) and a darling dearest, young married couple (the impressive Hollie Sullivan and Barnaby Jago being perfectly pretty). Add a mysterious foreigner à la Bela Lugosi (the enchanting Steven Elliott), a modern women wearing trousers (understudy Helen Percival seizing her opportunity with a delightful performance), and a badgering, belligerent police officer (a determined Michael Ayiotis), and even the most cynical soon get trapped in The Mousetrap’s web. Its winter warm set, all falling snow offset by pockets of cuddly, cozy light, casting a visual spell impossible to resist. Hollie Sullivan in The Mousetrap. Image Matt Crockett With its bloodless murders, contrived plot, and its crucial revelations trotting in from outside the story rather than evolving from it, The Mousetrap plays like a Famous Five mystery for grown-ups. Both being stepped in eccentric Englishness from when the wireless brought the news, the War was still in most people’s memories and homicidal maniacs were an imagined dread long before serial killers became a reality. If this leaves it open to parody, directors Ian Talbot and Denise Silvey steer clear of it and cleverly treat the material as it was originally intended. Allowing whatever knowing smirks a modern audience might enjoy to arise naturally, adding further to the charm Crime fiction, from Morse to Midsomer Murders , owes a whodunnit debt to Agatha Christie. On the evidence of The Mousetrap it’s clear to see why. Whether you love a classic whodunnit, care to enjoy a slice of theatre history, or want to take a trip down memory lane, The Mousetrap is the show you didn’t know you needed. Eminently enjoyable, it gives added pleasure for allowing you become part of an illustrious elite. Those sworn to secrecy not to reveal the end. The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie, presented by Adam Spiegel, runs at The Gaiety Theatre until May 18. For more information, visit The Gaiety Theatre

Ianto Lynch and Molly Whelan in Pre-Ops. Image Méabh Hennelly. **** Twenty-one years. The International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival celebrates twenty-one years this year. But do we still need it? Isn’t it like Pride, all polished and corporate? Now everyone’s legally equal is it even relevant? Does it still have something to say? So the arguments go. Yet given Ireland’s biggest parade celebrates a Saint from a scandalised church who suffered an aversion to snakes, relevance and having something to say can’t really be cited as justifications. But if you must, International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival is indeed relevant and has quite a lot to say. Aside from revealing both known and hidden histories, fabulous and heart breaking stories, it addresses many new conversations arising from equality. Like surrogacy for gay couples. Like the relationship between women and trans, as well as the gay community and trans. Superbly addressed in Ezra Maloney ’s smart and deeply affecting polemic, Pre-Ops. Theatrically, little happens. Set in contemporary London, Irish emigrant Fiachra, transitioning from female to male, is about to undergo a hysterectomy. Lying on a hospital bed in a hospital gown, Fiachra’s nerves are struggling to contain themselves. Ianto Lynch’s deeply affecting Fiachra like a child at the dentist looking for distraction. The nervous, soft spoken “tranny” attempting to strike up conversation with the stranger on the far side of a screen. Proving that opposites don’t always attract. Helen, a heterosexual woman also awaiting a hysterectomy, would rather be left alone. Molly Whelan’s superbly crafted Helen a sombre, serious, middle class Miss Havisham all judgemental expression and a voice that sneers. A stoic survivor, like an unamused Queen Victoria, Helen’s stiff upper Englishness shows a touch of the TERF having no time for trans people taking up beds real women need. Yet Whelan's fragile sternness ensures Helen is never reduced to a tropish bigot. And so the gloves come off, and on again, and off, and on again as Maloney undertakes a smartly handled interrogation of the issues that divide and the experiences that unite. Two people in the same hospital, undergoing the same procedure, living on the same planet, but inhabiting two entirely different worlds. Ianto Lynch and Molly Whelan in Pre-Ops. Image Méabh Hennelly. Like Shon Faye’s The Trans-Gender Issue, Pre-Op s sets out to establish relationships between trans and other monitories by proffering the anecdotal over the evidential. Making its points but not always its case. Yet Maloney, drawing on their own experience of transitioning, does a far better job for not wanting to make a clear cut case in the first place. More inclusionary than exclusionary, steeped in humanity rather than argument, the humans at the centre of Pre-Ops engage with wonderful messiness. Highlighting their prejudice, presumptions, blindspots and flaws. Maloney’s fleshed out characters sincere in their blindness, groping in the dark for mutual understanding, arriving at an uneasy beginning rather than a clearly defined end. Maloney’s economical direction beautifully paced. Ensuring that if conversation skirts towards lecture on occasion, it quickly restores voices to its characters. Táin Swain cameoing as a nurse providing a clever link between the plays two acts. Whilst also serving as a clever device to efficiently relay facts about hysterectomies without the play buckling under the informational weight. Whilst clear in its convictions, Pre-Ops knows better than to align itself with easy prejudice. Rather, it allows its characters dominate over positions, which they modify as a result of their encounter. With Pre-Ops , Maloney beautifully balances the tension between polemic and people. Between the personal politicised and the political made personal. Pre-Ops might be lumpy, messy, and struggle to hold itself together at times, but it deals in real, visceral, untidy truths. Otherwise known as people. Listening as much as it speaks, informing without drowning you in information, looking to heal divisions rather than divide, Pre-Ops proves a rewarding, engaging and thought provoking piece of work. Relevant, having lots to say, with two well paced performances, it offers further evidence of the importance of The International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival. Which, with its pop up venues, double bills, shows sharing spaces and a rough and ready, punk-like sensibility feels like Edinburgh Fringe. In other words, get ready to enjoy a great festival experience. Starting with Pre-Ops . Pre-Ops , written and directed by Ezra Maloney, runs at The Ireland Institute, The Pearse Centre until May 11 as part of the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival 2024 which runs till May 19. For more information, visit International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival 2024

Geraldine Plunkett and Deirdre Monoghan in Michael J Harnett's Madeira. Image uncredited **** You wouldn’t call it a brilliant play, Michael J. Harnett’s latest offering, Madeira . A triptych of scenes rather than three acts. Tight, verbal vignettes about two sets of sisters performed by three actresses. Where conversation is action, meaning endless dialogue packed with novelistic exposition delivered by characters sitting around tables. Its story full of clever and clunky touches, including a last minute sting in the tail and a shopping list of contrivances. So no, not a brilliant play. But Madeira can still knock your socks off. Its trio of stars, under Vinnie McCabe’s assured direction, elevating Madeira into something truly touching and tender. All its stars shining, with one going full supernova. A Dublin saunter down memory lane, Madeira’s tweeness proves a velvet glove concealing an iron fist. The “yes, I remember it well” tempered by “but I wish it might have been otherwise.” Recalling when daughters were mandated to look after their parents into their old age. Women to cater to the whims of their families, especially the men. A time when pregnancy out of wedlock meant salvation via a shotgun wedding so the bad girl could maintain her good reputation. That, or damnation in the shame and guilt of a Magdalene Laundry. A time when women were expected to sacrifice their lives in the service of others. Some say little's changed. Brenda Brooks and Geraldine Plunkett in Michael J Harnett's Madeira. Image uncredited Like Betty. A dowdy woman with a pressing secret. The sister who stayed at home with an ailing parent whilst glamorous sister Angela pursued a life in fashion. The two aging spinsters reunited under the family roof. Betty catering to Angela’s needs, like a bad habit she can’t break. Both reminiscing about Madeira cakes over coffee in Bewley’s, and about what was, what might have been, and what’s coming. Geraldine Plunkett’s steely Angela displaying a shaky exterior hiding her middle class, Protestant insecurity. Harnett playing with tensions between class and religion to highlight what unites rather than what divides us. Angela a foil for Deirdre Monaghan’s phenomenal Betty. A woman whose life was unfulfilled, its promise always just around the corner. Whose sisterly love is laced with bitterness, but is herself never bitter. Monaghan’s masterclass performance a Miss Jean Brodie of thwarted opportunities, timed, paced and delivered to perfection. Only for Monaghan to do it all over again. Doubling up in the second scene as the working class, married and harried, Catholic good girl Lu. A low budget Shirley Valentine also sacrificing her life for others. Challenging her sister, the unrepentant Mona, to take care of their father only to have the appalled Mona hit her with some home truths. Brenda Brooks brilliant as the no nonsense sister insisting you always put on your own mask first as they, too, enjoy a Bewley’s coffee. Monaghan’s transition to self-awareness simply sensational. The chemistry between Brooks and Monaghan enriching every fused moment. Chemistry also informing the final scene between Brooks and Plunkett as more of Harnett’s contrivances bring both together for a final resolution. For those of a certain generation, especially women, Madeira speaks to memories often bittersweet. For those who love theatre, three superb performances make Madeira a memorable experience. It’s not to diminish Brooks and Plunkett to say Monaghan is exceptional. It just a fact. Turning in not one, but two richly detailed, beautifully pitched, sensitively portrayed, tour de force performances. Worth the admittance price alone. Madeira , by Michael J. Harnett, runs at The Viking Theatre until May 11. For more information visit The Viking Theatre

Sarah Richmond (Argene) centre with Seán Boylan (Alcandro), Chuma Sijeqa (Clistene), Alexandra Urquiola (Aristea), Rachel Redmond (Aminta), Meili Li (Licida) & Gemma Ní Bhriain (Megacle) in Irish National Opera's L'Olimpiade. Image, Ros Kavanagh. **** Vivaldi’s importance to opera is not always recognised given his most significant contributions occurred during his lifetime. Yet his drama per musica (music written for a libretto) from 1734, L’Olimpade , has enjoyed much attention in recent decades. The libretto by Pietro Metastasis, adapted by Bartelemeo Vitturi, once inspiring several operas by other composers. Set in ancient Greece during the Olympic games this rollicking romp sees love, loss and misunderstandings serve up more reversals than a Ferrari forecourt. Its tale of two bungling suitors, the foolish Megacle (mezzo-soprano Gemma Ní Bhriain in trouser role) and the fickle Licida (counter tenor Melli Li) sees complications pile up. Both men recipients of the unwarranted devotion of the abandoned Argene (mezzo-soprano Sarah Richmond), and soon to be abandoned Aristea (mezzo-soprano Alexandria Urquiola). Throw in an infanticidal King Clistene (baritone Chuma Sijeqa), a conscientious confidant Alacandro (baritone Sèan Boylan), and a tutor, Aminta, (soprano Rachel Redmond) with a life and death secret and complications soon attain Shakespearean levels of absurdity. But why stop there? Swapping identities then competing to win the princess’s hand in marriage, attempted regicide, and a rather significant necklace all allow for endless comic and romantic interplay. Reflected in Vivaldi’s galloping and emotional score given vivid life by the award winning, Irish Baroque Orchestra under Peter Whelan. Juxtaposed uneasily with Daisy Evans’s direction which locks L’Olimpade inside the vice like grip of a playfully lightweight design. Rachel Redmond (Aminta) centre, Gemma Ní Bhriain (Megacle), Chuma Sijeqa (Clistene), Sarah Richmond (Argene), Alexandra Urquiola (Aristea),Seán Boylan (Alcandro), and Meili Li (Licida) Irish National Opera's L'Olimpiade. Image, Ros Kavanagh In fairness, L’Olimpade presents several staging challenges, being less a flowing story so much as a series of da capo arias. Like an operatic Top 20 chart, its songs might allow for spirited and sensual solos, but they risk the opera being reduced to these signature identities rather than their shared relationship. A problem never quite resolved by Evans emphasising Greek theatre in honour of the opera’s setting. Leaving L’Olimpade bearing a close resemblance to Thornton Wilder’s Our Town . Cast sat either side at the wings next to costume rails looking like extras in a student production rather than a Greek chorus. Similarly problematic is honouring the 1730s via Baroque era costumes. Molly O’Cathain’s interchangeable attire frequently suggesting Morris dancers dressed for cricket in a Gilbert and Sullivan recital. If O’Cathain’s shifting set evokes the Olympic circles and a Greek amphitheatre, gorgeously illuminated by Jake Wilshire, its functionality proves a victory. But it’s not enough to visually compensate. Leaving action and staging resembling a rehearsal or an acting class. The frame highlighting sung moments, but ultimately distracting from the experience. Sarah Richmond (Argene) and Alexandra Urquiola (Aristea) Irish National Opera's L'Olimpiade. Image, Ros Kavanagh Following a promising opening, spectacle quickly wanes post-overture and returns infrequently. Leaving singing and music working against the visual grain to convey L’Olimpade’s dramatic intent. L’Olimpade’s  superlative ensemble infusing warmth, pain and playfulness into each note, with Richmond, Li, Redmond and Ní Bhriain marrying delicacy with power. An ambidextrous, multi-tasking Peter Whelan, mastering harpsichord and baton simultaneously, provides the nucleus around which all coheres. Whelan showing consummate professionalism when, unbelievably, a phone went off and the - select your own superlative - undaunted individual battered their way through a row then raced up the aisle to go outside and take their call. Meanwhile their 80s anthem ring tone got progressively louder. Whelan slowed proceedings to a halt in a manner that felt like a breath till silence was restored and music resumed following this unwanted, unwelcome and wholly avoidable intrusion. Irish Baroque Orchestra producing some of their finest playing, capturing the velocity, vivacity and tenderness of Vivaldi's music. Indeed, though you’re keen to see how everything ends, you never want the music, or singing, to stop. Peter Whelan conducts Irish Baroque Orchestra in Irish National Opera's L'Olimpiade. Image, Ros Kavanagh If its minimalist, meta-theatrical framing sidesteps rather than negotiates L’Olimpade’s staging challenges, music and singing evidence why this is an opera worthy of any repertoire. Touring Ireland, the UK and Switzerland, Irish National Opera’s co-production of L’Olimpade with Royal Opera House and Nouvel Opéra Fribourg, in partnership with Irish Baroque Orchestra, has much to commend it. Not least, some exceptional singing and playing. L’Olimpiade by Vivaldi, an Irish National Opera co-production with Royal Opera House, London, and Nouvel Opéra Fribourg, is currently on tour. For more information visit Irish National Opera Review of the performance in Siamsa Tíre, Tralee on April 20, 2024.

Dan Butler and Stephen Jones in Tuesdays With Morrie. Image uncredited. **** It’s often said the film is never as good as the book. Which is very much the case with Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays With Morrie. The 1999 film version, staring Jack Lemmon and Hank Azaria, of Albom’s 1997 all time, best selling memoir no way near as good. Yet when it comes to the 2002 play, it often proves better than the book. Albom and Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation bringing to life the immediacy of its characters relationship. Most notably the sociology professor Morrie Schwartz. An elderly Jewish man whose body is breaking down and betraying him due to motor neurone disease, but whose mind and memory are sharper than ever. Spending every Tuesday with former student and once aspiring musician Mitch, now a successful sports writer whose life is endless stress and who hasn’t contacted Morrie in sixteen years. Reaching out to reconnect after seeing a TV special where he learned Morrie is dying. Watching him decline into death with calm and dignity as Morrie imparts lessons on how to live and die before finally departing. A show about dying might not sound like a barrel of laughs, but there’s a rich vein of humour coursing though Tuesdays With Morrie. The Jewish, Rabbi styled humour popularised by the likes of Jackie Mason. An irreverent mix of worldly insight and secular spirituality, with a head nod towards the divine just in case. Taking the edge off any maudlin self pity, and, as a result, pulling some of its emotional punches. But it’s an understandable trade off as Tuesdays With Morrie is not about dying a death but of living it. Warts and all. We may not see the embarrassments, but we hear of them and see other discomforts. Indignity not ignored, but not what defines. Rather it’s the realisation that we only go around once and none of us get out alive, so love, live and forgive with all you have in you. Accept that you need others. Sometimes completely, like a newborn child. And others need you. Living is always giving. Dan Butler and Stephen Jones in Tuesdays With Morrie. Image uncredited. If it sounds like a Hallmark sentimental sugar rush, there’s a fair bit of emotional manipulation at play. Hatcher and Albom’s true life story laden with recurring phrases and gestures like extra credits that push your buttons. But not so many as to cause emotional cavities, with performances restraining at the edge of excessiveness. Dan Butler’s wise old sage imparting wisdom never subscribing to the notion of victim. Butler charming and compelling as a man who doesn’t rage against the dying of the light so much as calmly fade into it with dignity and grace. Aided by his sidekick, Mitch. If Stephen Jones doesn’t always looking comfortable as a workaholic American sports writer his American accent is well done, though those familiar with Jones’s work might find it takes a moment to get used to. Yet Jones ensures the dynamics between the two men works wonderfully, understanding his role is to set Morrie up so he can take the swing, giving Butler lots to play with. Which Butler does with considerable ease and style, the whole eagerly paced by director Andy Arnold. An emotional conversation between two men, with dialogue sometimes directed towards the audience, in which nothing much happens and you know how it ends, Tuesdays With Morrie can make for a difficult sales pitch. Like the story of a man meeting an angel who shows him what his life might have been. In both cases their enduring, heartfelt, homespun wisdom captivates and continues to do so. For Irish audiences Tuesdays With Morrie will recall the much loved Charlie Bird who died of motor neurone disease in March this year. Morrie echoing Bird’s tireless love for others, Mitch his workaholic nature. Just another reason to enjoy Tuesdays With Morrie , a production designed  to give you all the feels. Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays With Morrie , by Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom, based on the book by Mitch Albom, presented by Breda Cash and Pat Moylan in association with The Gaiety Theatre, runs at The Gaiety Theatre until April 27. Touring to Everyman Theatre, Cork (30th April - May 2nd) and Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny (May 3rd) For more information visit The Gaiety Theatre or respective venues

Children of the Sun by Hilary Fannin after Gorky. Image Ros Kavanagh **** Each of these things is a lot like the others. Persians. The Pull of the Stars. Hate F%#k. Slippery When Wet. Unhooked. Audrey or Sorrow. The Making of Mollie. Happiness Then. Bunny Bunny. Gammy. Each a show that played in Dublin during the past two months. All written by women. Most directed by women. A list that does not include dead women writers like Lady Gregory whose The Rising of the Moon also played recently. Nor upcoming shows by women writers, including two from Fishamble and one from Glass Mask. Nor Landmark Production’s Theatre for One which this year selected solely women writers. Six no less. Nor Children of the Sun by Hilary Fannin after Gorky , directed by Lynne Parke r. The Abbey’s latest addition to The Gregory Project, its year long season exclusively promoting women writers. You can’t ignore the naked empress here, making a mockery of claims of gender equality in Irish theatre. True, the award winning delight that is Tom Moran’s Tom Moran Is A Big Fat Filthy Disgusting Liar is the next production at The Peacock. But that’s the exception that proves the rule. Disagree? Read this paragraph again. Rebecca O'Mara and Aislín McGuckin in Children of the Sun by Hilary Fannin after Gorky. Image Ros Kavanagh No one wins when bias operates. Including Fannin, as some will dismiss Children of the Sun’s staging as a product of her gender rather than her talent. Especially as Gorky’s play has never been considered all that great, let alone a classic, since first produced in Russia in 1905. Its tale of a privileged elite oblivious to the social unrest surrounding them sending shockwaves through revolution primed Moscow. But such a dismissal would be grossly unfair as, in Act One, Fannin crafts one of the smartest, funniest social commentaries of recent times, up there with Sonya Kelly’s The Last Return . Landlords, love, class and art, and theories of the nature of the universe are playfully pitted against each other as one family’s self-indulgence lends them current resonance. If only it didn’t take a hand brake turn in Act Two. Careening through its own frame into a post-modern cartoon. All to labour a point it had already beautifully made. Fiona Bell and Evan Gaffney in Children of the Sun by Hilary Fannin after Gorky. Image Ros Kavanagh Not that the cartoonish is ever far away. Mel Mercier’s stunning sound design opening with the rapid clinking of clocks evokes a cluster of March Hares rushing by. Act One less Chekhov so much as a Kardashians spin off set in Downton Abbey . Sarah Bacon’s layered set reinforcing the opulence of a cultured Russian family falling on hard times. Who deal in distractions like a family from a Seventies sitcom. Time, space, and other dimensions a source of fascination for the Mammy's Boy Daddy Protasov, a conflict avoiding, sexually fearful dreamer. Stuart Graham delighting as the gormless scientist who both repels and attracts women. His long suffering wife Elena, a terrific Aislín McGuckin, highlighting that it may be a man’s world, but women, like mothers, carry the burden. None more than the vivacious widow Melania, an equally vivacious Fiona Bell stealing each scene, along with stage, props and scenery with a howlingly brilliant performance as a woman suffering platonic lust for a poetic soul. Bell’s gestures, tones and barking a comic masterclass. Rebecca O’Mara’s Lisa also hilarious pre intermission, if curiously positioned after. Like a petulant online warrior Lisa initially spouts about red earth whilst refusing to step outside, undermining her lurking, shadowed witnessing of the twentieth century in Act Two. Mirroring Eavan Gaffney’s skulking, worldly wise, orally fixated maid observing the family who fiddles while Moscow burns. Rebecca O'Mara in Children of the Sun by Hilary Fannin after Gorky. Image Ros Kavanagh Following the mandatory catch up at the bar at intermission, signs of opulence are erased for Act Two. The stage bare of props, the distant past replaced by events nearer to hand crackling through radio broadcasts. A modern Protasov grinding action to a lecturing pace as we suffer a monologue by a manacled madman in modern attire. His musings marginally more rational, and far less interesting, than Ronan Finken’s Misha monologue, a son of a Russian oligarch looking to buy a football club. The obvious references coming hard and fast as Mercier’s radio soundbites whisk us through the twentieth century. Paranoia by Black Sabbath, The Model by Kraftwerk, iconic newspaper reports and references to Erica Jong’s seminal novel Fear of Flying speaking of change. Ensuring the obvious hits you on the nose as if a banner were hung off the side of Liberty Hall. Taking us through questionable affairs, open marriages, all the way back to Russia to indict Gorky, here reduced to his failings. Rory Nolan as the vet come national treasure stepping in last moment for Brian Doherty, who returns later in the run, proving sensational. Colin Campbell in Children of the Sun by Hilary Fannin after Gorky. Image Ros Kavanagh Like Colin Campbell’s beggarly Troshin, sitting in rags with his dignified teacup, Fannin is often heavy handed in hammering home her points. The twentieth century flurrying past though everything stayed the same an idea we’d already gathered from the genius of Act One. Aided by the genius of Lynne Parker’s sensuous direction, a composition of colour and movement. But less obvious perhaps are two barbed points. Firstly, for all its commentary exploring a larger social context, Children of the Sun itself exists in a larger social context. One in which being pro-gender equality doesn’t mean you’re anti-feminist. It means a level playing field. Gender equality is not about the standard of work, which here is exceptional at times, but about having fair and equal access to opportunity and support. Secondly, isn't art just repeating the same old song? Children of the Sun’s overt commentary seeing the hilarious John Cronin as photographer Vagin spouting diatribes on art’s many phases. Meanwhile his camera records for posterity, or social media, Ian Toner’s swaggering, insecure man assaulting a defenceless maid. Art looking on, making for secondhand, second rate commentary. Making voyeurs of us all. Viewing artistic interrogations of the world’s horrors through a privileged, aesthetic frame. From the comfort of a theatre seat. Life's lyrics reimagined one hundred and twenty years later, but the song remaining the same. "Progress. To what?" Which brings us back to gender. Children of the Sun , by Hilary Fannin after Gorky, a Rough Magic and Abbey Theatre co-production, runs at The Abbey Theatre until May 11 For more information visit The Abbey Theatre

Twelve Angry Men. Image by Jack Merriman ***** It's not that woman weren’t allowed sit on juries in the 1950s when Reginald Rose wrote his teleplay (1954), then screenplay (1957), later adapted into a play (1964) from his classic film Twelve Angry Men . Women had been active on juries since the 1920s. It’s more that it was considered unseemly at the time for women to be around unruly men. Arguing, swearing, squaring off, name-calling, insulting and threatening each other which Rose was determined not to soften. Passions rising in a swelteringly hot, locked room where a jury have been sequestered. There to decide the fate of a young man facing the death penalty for murdering his father. The jury his last hope in a flawed legal system. A jury of self-righteous, self-centred, bigoted and prejudiced men in a hurry to be done with it. Men who've already decided this is an open and shut case and are almost unanimous about the accused’s guilt. All except juror Number Eight who believes there’s grounds for reasonable doubt. Ding ding, seconds away, and it’s round one as the jury vote comes back 11 to 1. Their decision needing to be unanimous. Their deliberations making for battle of hearts and minds as juror Number Eight gets them reviewing the evidence. Twelve Angry Men. Image by Jack Merriman Under Christopher Haydon’s compositionally brilliant direction Twelve Angry Men is steeped in the stylings of classic American acting. Actor Studio, Mamet styled characters driven by a Hollywood American idealism passed off as realism. The kind Eliza Kazan popularised before plummeting from grace. Which owes much to Frank Capra and his plucky everyman standing up for the downtrodden underdog. Wrestling a flawed legal system from the grip of apathy and prejudice so it does the right thing. The backbone of Rose’s script its idealism rather than the trial, whose circumstantial evidence doesn't bear up under close scrutiny. Actors Jason Merrells, Gray O’Brien, Tristan Gemmill, Michael Greco, Ben Nealon, Gary Webster, Paul Beech, Samarge Hamilton, Jeffrey Harmer, Mark Heenehan, Kenneth Jay, Paul Lavers and Owen Oldroyd turning in exquisite performances built around signature details and pitch perfect pacing. To try single out one from this dynamic ensemble would be grossly unfair given that it functions as a wonderfully constructed unit. Haydon’s impeccable direction establishing nuance, mood and suspense through tones and physical gestures, even if some border on exaggeration. Lighting by Chris Davey, sound by Andy Graham and design by Michael Pavelka a love letter to old movie film sets, beautifully underscoring the texture, temperature and tone of the times. Twelve Angry Men. Image by Jack Merriman If some accents can grate, sounding like over the top, New Yawk, Bowery Boy cab drivers, you come to forgive this given the power, balance and pacing of performances. This might be old school, the story aged a little, its gender values wildly outdated, but its sentiment that we should fight to see past our prejudices, especially when lives are at stake, resonates strongly. Staging, lights and set might be the kind Gary Grant and Rosalind Russell would have been happy to fall in love in, but they're part of its considerable charm. Along with an almost innocent sincerity impossible not to enjoy, given life by a terrific ensemble. No, it's not an updated version for a modern, gender conscious audience, but it succeeds brilliantly on the terms it sets out for itself. Making for a cracking production of one of the all-time great courtroom dramas. Twelve Angry Men by Reginal Rose, presented by Bill Kenwright Ltd, runs at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre until April 20. For more information visit Bord Gáis Energy Theatre

Leanne Devlin in Slippery When Wet. Image uncredited. **** Incalculable odds or worrying trend? Two shows running simultaneously about young, wannabe actresses living their second best lives. Both obsessing about love, sex and personal worth who meet their drunken Waterloo after a work function. Both performed by actors named Leanne. The criminally brilliant Leanne Bickerdike in the gut punch that is Hate F%#k , and the Little Gem Award Winner (DFF 2023) Leanne Devlin in her one woman show Slippery When Wet . Both shows about twenty somethings oddly similar despite obvious differences. Even as their differences make for twins rather than identical twins. Devlin’s Slippery When Wet the likeable, well behaved child. The title referring less to a Bon Jovi album so much as the health and safety notice employed by cleaners. And perhaps to a well known sexual innuendo. Seeing as sex is never far from Devlin’s supermarket cleaner’s thoughts. Essentially, Slippery When Wet follows the ready made play format. A tale of a solo someone having failed to make something happen due to some deep seated something they don’t know how to face. Who gets a second go at life after an embarrassing journey, some hard won insights and being told things they didn’t want to admit. Voila! They’re a brighter, shinier newer Netflix self. Which in Slippery When Wet leans into Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt territory. Devlin’s quirky, eccentric, innocent abroad talking bold thoughts like a good girl as she lusts after the bespectacled Love whilst cleaning up on aisle three. Working as a cleaner because it’s stable, she’s good at it and for reasons you need to go see it to find out. Seeing her life as over before its even begun, life happens as she waits around for her love life to happen. Her lack of agency making for a big ask which, when the transition moment comes at an after work party, makes for an even bigger ask so quickly is the change managed. But it’s always a new dawn, new day in the ready made universe, so happily ever after looms on the horizon. Leanne Devlin in Slippery When Wet. Image uncredited. One person shows are often developed for financial and practical reasons as much as creative ones. Yet too many solo shows sing the same type redemption song in the same manner. Even when, as with Slippery When Wet , there’s clearly talent at work, it all starts to look like something you’ve seen before. Yet the original reason for solo shows was to showcase new talent. In that regard Slippery When Wet succeeds brilliantly. Devlin’s actress come cleaner might set off more red flags than Putin’s birthday, with her self-inflicted self-pity, her yellow pack eroticism and her face licking tendencies. Devlin, however, is sure to win your heart. Showing the youthfulness of an angel and the playfulness of a devil, Devlin delivers a joyous performance. Emma Copland’s superb direction, employing mops and buckets to creative effect, ensures Devlin woos you at every turn. In theatre, the tale is only half the thing. Sometimes not even half. It’s more the telling. Slippery When Wet might not blow you away narratively despite its delicious treats, like vaginal waxing. But there’s real excitement to be had watching this exciting new talent flex some muscles. Slippery When Wet, written and performed by Leanne Devlin, runs at Bewley’s Café Theatre until April 27 For more information visit Bewley’s Café Theatre

Ruth McCabe and Sarah Morris in The Pull of the Stars. Image by Ros Kavanagh **** It’s a perennial question it seems, women’s bodies. Along with the roles and restrictions society assigns to them. An argument often vehemently engaged in by those who’ve never experienced period pains or even the possibility of a pregnancy. Or known pregnancy complicated by poverty and disease. A plight Emma Donoghue ’s feminist manifesto The Pull of the Stars sets out to address. Donoghue’s medical drama set in a makeshift maternity ward spread over three days during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Where catching your death was a daily reality. The play’s title, from Donoghue’s 2020 novel of the same name, a head nod towards Sean O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy set in the same era. Donoghue, with her passion for hidden women’s histories, finding a kindred spirit in the like minded Louise Lowe , a director known as a rigorous interrogator of Irish women’s history. Throw in reclaiming the legendary Dr Kathleen Lynn, activist, republican and medical renaissance woman, and you’ve all the makings of a seriously important work. Instead, The Pull of the Stars settles for enjoyable and exciting. A burlesque of flaring fireworks, all dazzle and fizzle. Emotional pyrotechnics full of ohh and ahs and excitable laughter. Sincerity and sentimentality going head to head as gut punches are sacrificed to sucker punches. To tragedy played as comedy, with horror and heartbreak tripping over laughter. The whole a physical and emotional Grand Guignol. The sanitised, Disney plus version. Una Kavanagh, Ciara Byrne, Maeve Fitzgerald and Sarah Morris in The Pull of the Stars. Image by Ros Kavanagh Its damning devils lurk in its murky details. Donoghue’s taut tale being stocked with enough shocks so as to border on tabloid sensationalism, which it clearly doesn’t need. Women and children dying before our eyes onstage. Placentas scrapped out by hand after a woman has just given birth to a premature stillborn. Women acting on same sex desires for vulnerable, childlike wards. Teenagers about to give birth examining their belly button wondering how the baby will slip through. Awash in the shameful stain of slavery that was the Magdalene Laundries, along with its mass graves of children, many who died from malnutrition. Una Kavanagh searing as the older Mrs Noonan ravaged by years of institutional neglect and endless pregnancies, her mind gone, her body tortured as she awaits the birth of her next nameless child whose fate will be decided by the Laundry. The Spanish Flu a minor headache when men die in blood spattered wars, women in blood spattered wards. And that’s just these three days. Sarah Morris in The Pull of the Stars. Image by Ros Kavanagh Keep them ignorant, the message ordained from Church and State. Not likely, says Dr. Kathleen Lynn. Maeve Fitzgerald shining as the no nonsense, openly lesbian, infinitely caring physician who’s become a social and moral pariah. If only the hospital didn’t need her. Or Nurse Julia Power. Sarah Morris an understated joy as an equally smart, maternal Florence Nightingale on the verge of an existential breakthrough. Sparked by the delightful Ghaliah Conroy’s urchin like Bridie, making herself useful so she won’t have to return to the hell of the Laundry. The future a promise for all three women, even as others look doomed to repeat history. Ruth McCabe’s stern Sister Luke doomed not to care by an uncaring Catholicism. Ciara Byrne's teenage Mary doomed to a life of child bearing. India Mullen’s well to do Mrs Garrett similarly condemned to the life expected of her. India Mullen in The Pull of the Stars. Image by Ros Kavanagh All of which is undermined by being initially framed as comedy. A Sisterhood of the Spanish Flu whose Chim Chim Cher-ee styled rooftop opening finds masked figures dancing against the night. Alyson Cummin’s shape shifting set, illuminated beautifully by Sinéad Wallace, transformed into a hospital ward endlessly reshaped to accommodate the screenplay demands of Donoghue’s script. Where the rabble and respectable collide. Mullen’s Mrs Garret, a kind of Margaret Dumont or Mrs Bucket, made ridiculous by the lower classes she looks down on. Almost a comic device. Donoghue’s script straining at the seams as it struggles to accommodate history, humour and heartache but, unusually, never quite finds the balance. Similarly Lowe, whose work for ANU suggests something’s awry for punches not landing as powerfully. Yet as the overplayed comedy recedes, it’s clear Lowe is what’s keeping everything on course. The wonderfully tender rooftop scene, despite concerns around age and power dynamics some might have, beautifully realised for digging deep without showing off. The final image a hopeful door to a possible future that history tells us was still some way off. Some say it’s yet to fully arrive. And what has arrived has been costly. Ghaliah Conroy and Sarah Morris in The Pull of the Stars. Image by Ros Kavanagh In The Pull of the Stars there’s a polarising tension between novel and play, between the theatrical and cinematic, between comedy and tragedy. One that’s never quite resolved. If it skirts close to kitsch in places, Lowe’s rigour hauls it back so as to avoid a sugar rush of excessive sentimentality. In 1918 the promise of equality for women in the promised new republic was a very real possibility. Before the 1920s saw a Catholic influenced constitution putting paid to the hopes and dreams of many women consigned to married motherhood. Ireland’s legacy for spirited women the Magdalen Laundries rather than an army of Dr Kathleen Lynns. To some The Pull of the Stars will speak to the politics of such traumas and to the women who endured them. To others it will seem little more than trauma theatre, cynically prodding emotional buttons for effect. The truth, perhaps, being it’s a little of both. Exquisitely designed and beautifully performed, wearing its blood soaked, well intentioned heart on its sleeve, there’s a lot to admire about The Pull of the Stars . It’s really quite affecting. But at moments it looks like might have been defining. The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue, directed by Louise Lowe, runs at The Gate Theatre until May 12. For more information visit The Gate Theatre .

Leanne Bickerdike in Hate F%#k by Jodie Doyle. Image Al Craig **** You could be forgiven for thinking 80s avant garde cinema. Writer and designer Jodie Doyle’s impressive debut Hate F%#k opening with a woman sitting on the floor with her back to the audience. Combing her hair whilst scrutinising her reflection in a menagerie of mirrors. The plastic covered furniture dominating Doyle’s monochrome set suggesting a crime scene or newly bought apartment. An unnamed male, rocking to the stage in socks and boxers, struts like a cliche to a synth pop soundtrack whilst walking towards a rail of costumes. At which point the hairbrush wielding Rapunsel swirls to face the audience. Making it crystal clear why you should never judge a book by its cover. Ruairi Nicholl and Leanne Bickerdike in Hate F%#k by Jodie Doyle. Image Al Craig Less Crimes of Passion so much as The Commitments at times, Doyle’s hit and miss script speaks to passionate and passionless sex as well as sex crimes, many committed against the self. The pretentious narcissist Abigail, an aspiring actress dismissing everyone as pretentious, is undergoing a woe is me, post-college, quarter life crisis. The type that’s provided backdrop for the likes of  Stephanie Preissner’s Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope and Máiréad Tyers’s Extraordinary. The first half of Doyle’s script, like Abigail’s life, screaming like an F1 racing car, its wheels energetically spinning an avalanche of smoke, but the car going nowhere. Juvenile, cliched observations from twenty something, coke fuelled, drunk and disappointing one night stands unlikely to engage anyone not engaged in twenty something, coke fuelled, drunk and disappointing one night stands. Till an after work party sees the cocaine bumping Abigail seeking revenge on her ex who’s engaged to another woman. An ex she’s still sleeping with, and with whom the sleeping is rough. Abigail spiralling to somewhere she knows not where, nor why, nor how after a peculiarly tender and awkward experience. Hate F%#k phenomenal when it shifts from weak story to heartfelt character study and lets Abigail breathe, curse and howl. The wheels finally hitting the tarmac and scorching into a lead. Hitting an ugly speed bump as the vitalised Abigail delivers a self-righteous diatribe during an audition. Sending the whole screeching towards the barriers. As if Doyle doesn’t trust herself, her character or her audience and opts to batter them with unnecessary lecturing. Her misogynistic director yet another walk-on trope in Abigail’s life, like the rest of Doyle’s men. Thankfully, Hate F%#k grips the road again and crosses the finish line in considerable style. Abigail, wearing her tattered heart on her soul-seared sleeve, bringing it painfully and poignantly home. Leanne Bickerdike and Ruairi Nicholl in Hate F%#k by Jodie Doyle. Image Al Craig Structurally, Doyle’s cinematic script straddles a space between one woman monologue and stand up comedy sketch, with both married to the bare bones of a play. Director Ois O’Donoghue doing sterling work welding the three into a compositionally wonderfully whole. O’Donoghue’s pacing, positioning, and crafting of inventive images hugely impressive. Along with their ability to elicit strong performances. If Ruairi Nicholl does strong work playing a variety of one dimensional, masculine tropes, it can be hard to appreciate given that all his roles together still wouldn’t amount to a credible male character. A failing in Doyle’s script which Nicholl goes a long way to try compensate for. But he also has to contend with Leanne Bickerdike. Truth told, Emma Stone placed next to the divine Bickerdike might well look pedestrian. Bickerdike oozing presence, skill, and charisma in abundance, producing an irresistible performance. Showing more natural talent in the joints of her little finger than many a seasoned veteran. Bickerdike’s Abigail less a character so much as a raw, richly layered, and relentlessly visceral experience as Bickerdike gives everything of herself. Then somehow gives more. Leanne Bickerdike in Hate F%#k by Jodie Doyle. Image Al Craig Brave, exhilarating, and refreshingly fearless Hate F%#k yields double the pleasure when you realise the calibre of talent on display. This astonishingly young company being breathtakingly brilliant. Following on from their critically acclaimed Hyper, Hate F%#k confirms Jaxbanded as a serious outfit on the rise. With Bickerdike a joyous revelation. Their future bright as they set about taking the world by storm, having everything they need to go as far as they care to go. Hate F%#k by Jodie Doyle, presented by Jaxbanded Theatre Company and The New Theatre, runs at The New Theatre until April 13. For more information visit The New Theatre or Jaxbanded Theatre

Unhooked by Ella Skolimowski. Image uncredited. *** Though full of huge ambition, it’s not always clear what Unhooked aspires towards. Ella Skolimowski ’s one woman, dark comedy being light on both darkness and comedy. Skolimowski’s ready made play about a recovering love addict saying little about love or addiction. The former unconvincingly conflated with sex which is talked about like a Victorian embarrassment. Meanwhile the character Ella speaks directly to the audience about her love and sex addiction support group, SLAAG. An abuse survivor in recovery, Ella speaks of all the things she’s not supposed to speak of and does all the things she’s not supposed to do. Including dating Fionn, her second best match on a dating app, from whom she conceals her detached retina behind an eye patch. A parting gift from her former boyfriend whose name she’s changed to protect the guilty. Throw in half sketched supporting characters, various religious motifs, and a Lolita like innocence with sunglasses to match and Unhooked serves up an ambitious exercise. One blinded by its own ambitions, thereby softening the body blow it attempts to land. Seen in preview, it’s often hard to connect with Ella who offers reflections retold rather than a character encountered. Skolimowski’s slice of storytelling theatre being one in which Ella is concealed behind layers of unawareness. Not so much performing her life as performing a performance of her life. Her aloof, apologetic tone often grating, her difficulties sounding trivial. Like its Goth styled, opening image with its Pre-Raphaelite overtones things are never quite what they seem. Yet revelations prove not quite as impactful when the truth comes out. Skolimowski’s good girl making bad decisions offering some sharp observations yet never quite making her case. The body as a site for trauma curiously framed and never fully explored, relying on slim visuals to allude to it. Director and dramaturg Anna Simpson again struggling with the one person format. Serving up trudgingly paced, compositionally weak staging redeemed by the occasional visual intrigue, often undone by an overeager light design left unchecked. Performatively, Skolimowski has a magnetic presence, imbuing Ella with a calm, unsure authority. Ella's story might be dramatically and structurally weak, with its main event told in hindsight, but its exploration of abuse with its unfounded jealousies and victim blaming skirts away from a tidy co-dependency interpretation towards a braver submissive/dominant dynamic. Where relationships are like S&M without a safe word. Where insecurities allow lies to pass as truths and facts be selectively filtered. Where violent histories are doomed to repeat for the victim feeling responsible and inviting history back in. Lending something terrifying to Ella remaining bliss-lessly unredeemed for never quite coming to grips with the truth. Unhooked another brave play with an important message. Even if, as is often the case, the telling doesn’t quite do itself, or its message justice. Unhooked by Ella Skolimowski runs at Smock Alley Theatre until April 6. For more information visit Smock Alley Theatre.

Kyle Hixon and Carmel Stephens in Mother and Child. Image by Wen Driftwood. *** The title Mother and Child by Norwegian Nobel prize winner Jon Fosse might seem a little disingenuous. Mother and son, as distinct from mother and daughter, would have been far more accurate. But Fosse isn’t interested in literalism. Or realism for that matter. Evident in his wild ride through a mother and son trying to repair their estranged relationship. Its direct referencing of  Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie telling, with both plays leaning into memory and expressionism with just a dash of psychological realism. Yet comparisons with Sartre’s claustrophobic No Exit , or with Absurdist or Post Dramatic theatre might better describe the lens through which Fosse frames the action. Which, in Glass Mask Theatre’s premiere production proves wild, relentless and frenetic. Even, at times, when it might have benefitted had it not been. Swedish director Johan Bark's take on Mother and Child a case of too much, not enough, and just right. Too much is Kyle Hixon’s unnamed son, a walking wound meeting his mother in Oslo after many years apart. She having sent him to live with his Christian fundamentalist Grandparents as a child, and later his father, as she got on with life. To say he has a chip on his shoulder would be like saying Ireland has a little bit of a housing problem. Hixon’s over-invested literature and philosophy student being all chip and no shoulder, the blurb’s silent stoicism nowhere in sight. Like some demented serial killer suffering high blood pressure, Hixon bounds about with an expression suggesting an urge to kill. His emotional intensity on a scale of one to ten registering at seventeen. So high up he has nowhere to climb. Even as Fosse’s script charts a thrust and parry journey towards the significant confrontation with his mother. After which, the balloon deflated, Hixon compels in subtle and assured ways eclipsed by his earlier performative histrionics. A subtlety he'd hinted at in his deft tipping at the suicidal precipice at the end of a thrust stage. Kyle Hixon and Carmel Stephens in Mother and Child. Image by Wen Driftwood. In cranking intensity to overload Bark shows not enough subtlety, nuance or assurance. Auteur aspirations hammering clunky theatrics over Fosse’s text. Frenetic running, writing on a wall of mirrors, a musical score forcing spiritual references and cartoonish black and white costumes suggestive of supervillains reveal more about Bark’s aesthetic than Fosse’s. The liminal set designed by Bark and the production’s hyperactivity contrasting with the solidness of Fosse’s archetypal relationship. Thankfully Carmel Stephens gets it just right with a terrific performance, forgiving whilst illuminating a multitude of theatrical sins. Stephens’s anti-feminist feminist and non-maternal mother the lynchpin around which everything coheres. Stephens climbing beautifully as she gives voice to modern hypocrisies, talks in order not to have to talk, and doesn’t waste an ounce of emotion so she can achieve optimum impact. Devastating as she lashes out, her unpalatable truths delivering whip-like lacerations. Stephens mesmerising as she questions the experience and institution of motherhood . One other aspect that often lands just right is the raw, visceral pain that underscores Fosse’s Mother and Child . Ensuring the experience rises above Bark’s overplaying of intensity via an overworked theatricality. The loss, guilt and jealousy informing Fosse’s script hitting home with powerful directness. Mother and Child clearly a labour of love for Bark. As we all know, love often blinds. Still, in the end, what you remember is the love. Mother and Child by Jon Fosse, translator unknown, runs at Glass Mask Theatre until April 6. For more information visit Glass Mask Theatre

Salome. Image by Patricio Cassinoni **** Rampant with misogyny, Richard Strauss’s Salome, 1905, inspired by Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name, presents challenges for modern productions. Its condemnation of desire, especially female desire and agency as dictated by Biblical values plays out like a Victorian sermon. Strauss’s reimagining of John the Baptist's death at the hands of a sexualised young woman placing all the blame on the woman scorned by the saint’s rebuffs. Under Bruno Ravella’s heavy handed direction, Salome skirts around serious engagement with the issues it raises. Not so much grounding sexual desire as burying it, serving up an outdated morality tale with an apology of believable context. Playing dated opposites against a non-existent middle, what should have been an emotive rollercoaster ride often cruises like a pedestrian paddleboat, making for a striking contrast with Strauss’s vibrant score. Redeemed by soprano Sinéad Campbell Wallace in the title role who soars above it all, breaking free of the puritanical chains that would bind her. Sinéad Campbell Wallace as Salome. Image by Patricio Cassinoni Visually, Leslie Travers’s cement grey set and contemporary costumes are all rather confusing. Talk of a cistern and its association with water, baptism and purity falling claustrophobically flat. Instead, opening with a star studded sky and a military chorus dressed like Starship Troopers an intergalactic space station springs to mind. Its wall a grey bulkhead housing a ship’s door reinforcing the spaceship motif. Which Salome enters like an innocent, impetuous ingenue looking to escape the leering of her lusty stepfather. Tenor Vincent Wolfsteiner’s tuxedoed Herodes evoking less a terrifying Tetrarch so much as a bumbling, lascivious Maitre’D, with mezzo-soprano Imelda Drumm’s Herodias his equally cartoonish wife. Tenor Alex McKissick’s Narraboth, the Captain of the Guard, also serves up a cartoon sketch, executing the most ridiculous death scene surpassed only by the discovery of the body which requires everyone to pretend they don’t see it. Revealing Travers’s set as a construction of ideas divorced from the demands of the libretto, which it frequently comes into conflict with. Issues Ravella either curiously ignores or openly endorses, neither inspiring confidence. Tómas Tómasson and Sinéad Campbell Wallace in Salome. Image by Patricio Cassinoni If Salome is frequently played as hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, here Salome is a stubborn, self-willed temptress doomed for pursuing what is forbidden her by men. Beginning with her childlike curiosity, which turns to lust for prisoner Jochanaan, better known as John the Baptist. A centrepiece tree in a patch of overgrown grass suggestive of the Tree of Life hammers home the Biblical references. An oversized, blood stained bonsai set against walls of soul suffocating grey later raised to reveal a pool of water. The visual, hinting at an underworld, looking like a pyrrhic extravagance promoting another Eden reference. Like the proverbial apple later offered by a snake. Meanwhile the condemning prophet, exuding the charm and warmth of a razor blade, preaches Christian moral consequences. Allowing Tómas Tómasson’s insufferable Jochanaan provide the only credible pushback to Campbell Wallace’s vivaciously immature Salome. Sinéad Campbell Wallace as Salome. Image by Patricio Cassinoni Like an angel descended, or a human adrift in a cartoon world, Campbell Wallace’s Salome is out of this world, refusing salacious clichés by charting a young girl’s growth to womanhood in a male sexualised world. The predatory circling of Jochanaan evoking less a siren so much as a petulant child whose childish attempts at seduction give her much to think about when they fail. Ravella’s genius revealed in having Campbell Wallace simply sit quietly onstage ruminating as the world flusters about her, her presence and stillness conjuring far more than many working twice as hard. No Dance of the Seven Veils needed, just the one veil that exists between childhood and womanhood in the form of a yellow dress. Liz Roche’s sensitively sinuous choreography allowing Salome transform before your eyes. Ciarán Bagnall’s superb lights crafting snaking shadows as Salome sheds her girlish skin for a woman’s body. The final, uneasy image with its suggestions of necrophilia transformed into a bite of the forbidden fruit followed by the cruel, blood stained awakening. Campbell Wallace’s understated realisation hauntingly powerful, before the inevitable end. Sinéad Campbell Wallace as Salome. Image by Patricio Cassinoni If Herodes and Salome lie broken at the end having sated their respective desires, it's not comparisons with the self-righteous Jochanaan that reveals the opera’s subtext. It's the fate that awaits them both as alleged sinners. With neither likely to qualify for salvation, one ends up rather miffed but still in power, the other cursed and condemned to die. Standard, dull, Christian fundamentalist preaching, which Campbell Wallace refuses to be chained by in a telling that avoids addressing the issues and desires Salome raises. Where emotional impact is dependent on music and singing to capture what’s left unsaid. Under Fergus Shiel’s conducting Irish National Opera Orchestra squeeze every vibrant drop from Strauss’s rich score, and a cast, singing in German, prove superlative across the board. But it would be nothing without Campbell Wallace, who highlights and forgives a multitude of sins. This may not be a Salome for all time, or even for these times, but Campbell Wallace could well be Salome every time. Her singing sensational, her presence commanding, her performance enlivened by a detailed rigour astonishing to behold. What Campbell Wallace reveals just the tip of the iceberg. Being less a star on the rise so much as a superstar in the making. Others might show you the whole of the moon. With Salome, Campbell Wallace shows she can unveil galaxies. Salome , by Richard Strauss, libretto by the composer based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French original of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé , presented by Irish National Opera, runs at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre until March 16. For more information visit Bord Gáis Energy Theatre

Eoin O'Sullivan in The Five Lamps. Image uncredited. *** Over the past sixteen years The Five Lamps Arts Festival, a community based arts festival for Dublin’s north east inner city, has seen its reputation go from strength to strength. Likewise Roddy Doyle's recent forays into theatre, ranging from the workable ( Peter Pan) to the exceptional ( The Snapper ). Alas, director Joe O’Byrne ’s adaptation of Doyle's story The Five Lamps from Doyle’s 2021 collection Life Without Children comes up short in this co-production with Co-Motion Media. For despite O’Byrne’s clear affection for Dublin what emerges is a long trudge through a sketch of a city undertaken by an even less sketched character. The whole saved courtesy of a sensitively winning performance by Eoin O’Sullivan, and a scene stealing cameo by young Sunni Doody. 2020. The first days of Covid lockdown. As Paddy’s Day gets cancelled and the world sought to put a social distance between everyone, a lone father sets out to get close to his son. Driving to Dublin despite the 5km limit, he finds himself in a deserted, dystopian landscape looking for a son who left home four years previous. A man with no name seeking a son with no name who ran away after a wife with no name left them in a town with no name. Trudging daily from Clontarf to Heuston Station, he remembers when he himself lived in the city, divulges scant hints about his past, then rinses and repeats until the end arrives. An end so convenient and twee even the Hallmark Channel wouldn’t buy it. Aspiring to be a love letter to Dublin, O’Byrne’s adaptation is more a badly written postcard left out in the rain where the good stuff got smudged till it looks like it was redacted. Scumbag junkies with hearts of gold, big hearted bread men, dog walkers and wise young girls so cliched they become cloying. There to add colour to a father’s search that, geographically, makes little to no sense. In which asinine observations of a changing city omit more than they include. Such as the history, culture and communities surrounding the Five Lamps. Where the ghosts of Spenser Avenue, Jane Place, St Laurence's Mansions, St Bridget's Gardens and Phil Shanahan House haunt the shadows of St. Laurence O’Toole’s Church. The streets here little more than a methadone clinic. If that’s a commentary on the times, it’s one that doesn’t paint the full picture. Interrupting selective observations, a tale of a father seeking redemption and reconnection sees his wide eyed memories of his time in Dublin offset by descriptions of his geographically bizarre journey. Thankfully Eoin O’Sullivan’s masterfully restrained performance, and nicely managed accents, offset several textual and theatrical problems. Including lights that play guesswork as to where they’ll illuminate next. Or Warren McCarthy’s bafflingly jolly score, like a tacky advertising jingle, evoking the same emotional impact as a nursery rhyme at a funeral. Similarly Conor McCague and Annabel Konig’s set, a domed tent and a small grey wall evocative of homelessness and little else. On which occasional projections are accompanied by half heard voice overs. With The Five Lamps never developing character beyond a sentimental trope, nor the city beyond unflatteringly flat observations, it’s hard to connect beyond a superficial level. Yet there are moments of connection courtesy of a hard working O’Sullivan, endlessly walking on the spot. If Sunni Doody charmingly steals it near the final scene, you suspect O’Sullivan is happy to let her have the limelight. The Five Lamps tries represent its local communities. People often poorly represented or misrepresented. If it doesn’t quite do them justice here, its heart is in the right place. Reminding you why festivals like The Five Lamps Arts Festival are crucially important. The Five Lamps by Joe O’Byrne, adapted from the story by Roddy Doyle, presented by The Five Lamps Arts Festival and Co-Motion Media, runs at The Civic Theatre before transferring to Liberty Hall. Civic Theatre, Tallaght - March 12 - 14 Liberty Hall, Dublin 1 - March 22 - 23 For more information visit The Five Lamps Arts Festival

Oisín Thompson and Michael Tient in The Rising of the Moon. Image by Al Craig *** If you were baffled by the exclusion of Lady Gregory from The Abbey’s 2024 programme named in her honour, after five minutes of Bewley’s Café Theatre’s production of Gregory’s The Rising of the Moon , first produced in 1907, you’ll be positively incensed. This early play by the Godmother of Irish theatre holding up remarkably well over a century later. Granted, at little over forty minutes it’s short and sweet, as are many of Gregory’s plays. But The Rising of the Moon is richly loaded, both historically and currently, whilst also being a tidily crafted one act play. Yet trying to honour its past and give it present relevance director Eoghan Carrick delivers up a pyrrhic victory in trying to serve two masters at once. In which many outstanding moments suffer on account of being caught between incompatible frames. Narratively, The Rising of the Moon is simplicity itself. A lone police Sergeant chasing a wanted fugitive waits at the harbour undercover of night in case he tries to escape by boat. Questioning an indigent ballad singer, an unlikely relationship is struck up culminating in a crucial choice being made. No prizes for guessing much hinges on the possible identity of the ballad singer. If references to a one hundred pound reward and to ballads being sold by beggars highlight a historical context, they give credence to notions of duty and of duty to a greater cause that inform the play, reflecting the lived experience of many in Ireland at the beginning of the twentieth century. A tension vividly recounted in many recent productions remembering the Civil War of 1922. Yet such historic references frequently date proceedings. More so given Toni Bailey’s contemporary costumes which make for an odd, visual juxtaposition, making the plays dated references stick out like a sore thumb. Molly Whelan and Michael Tient in The Rising of the Moon. Image by Al Craig A discrepancy which impacts on performances, where explosive outbursts are counterpointed by flat, quieter moments in which Carrick often leaves his cast to play the line rather than the character in the scene. Molly Whelan’s frightened Police Officer, using her torch upon entry to terrific effect, a funny sidekick to Michael Tient’s bombastic Sergeant. Tient’s commanding presence and authority undermined by exaggerated outbursts. Oisin Thompson’s ballad singer also hitting too many unnecessary high notes, being best when understated or letting his impressive singing do the work. None of which is helped by Fiona Shiel’s sound design. A looped, rhythmic droning that tries accentuate a sense of menace only to reinforce a ponderously plodding, repetitive pace. Atmosphere and mood best conjured by Chryzsi Chatzivasileiou’s superb chiaroscuro set conveying a midnight grey harbour wall, illuminated beautifully by Eoin Winning’s lights. The gifted Chatzivasileiou signalling she is a major talent on the rise. Had Carrick told the historical tale it might well have packed a more forceful punch. Similarly if the script’s dated references had been updated. As it is, The Rising of the Moon falls into a No Man’s Land in which both sides fight hard only to achieve a standoff, or a stalemate. Sometimes you have to choose a side. Which, ironically, is one of the central points of the The Rising of the Moon. The Rising of the Moon by Lady Augusta Gregory runs at Bewley’s Café Theatre until April 6. For more information visit Bewley’s Café Theatre

Bríd Ní Neachtain agus Caitríona Ní Mhurchú i Na Peirsigh / Persians Le hAeschylus, aistrithe ag Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Grianghraf le Ros Kavanagh. **** Persians by Aeschylus . Europe’s oldest play. Given its pedigree you might expect to have heard more about it. Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s Irish language translation Na Peirsigh being, for many, their first encounter with this oft neglected work. In which the arrogant Xerxes, son of deceased Persian king Darius, undertakes a costly attack on Greece. If its story resonated in 472 BC, it can prove a rather dull affair to contemporary ears. Its moral of don’t mess with the Gods or the Greeks told through choral chants and monologues which seed leitmotifs repeated long after you got the point. The end result a moody, broody, weighty affair. One which, thanks to Conor Hanratty 's stupendous direction, proves to be just that little bit brilliant. An fhoireann aisteroirí i Na Peirsigh / Persians Le hAeschylus, aistrithe ag Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Grianghraf le Ros Kavanagh. A clash of text and theatricality, text proves the poor relation that theatre elevates into something compelling. Indeed, you could justifiably call it Hanratty’s Na Peirsigh/Persians as much Ní Dhomhnaill’s. Whose Irish language translation might powerfully evoke suggestions of esoteric incantations, Irish allegedly the oldest European language, but an English translation, seen in surtitles, is stripped of poetry, personality or power. Trading in a directness bordering on the simplistic, it soon becomes vapid and uninteresting. Which Hanratty enlivens by advancing theatre as ritual striving for transformation. Not that Ní Dhomhnaill doesn’t grease the ritual wheel. From a candlelit procession to a chanted litany of names, ritual is given solid grounding. But it’s Hanratty, along with a first rate ensemble and crew, who send it soaring. An fhoireann aisteroirí i Na Peirsigh / Persians Le hAeschylus, aistrithe ag Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Grianghraf le Ros Kavanagh. While contemporary productions of Greek theatre often parade in modern militaristic attire, Hanratty resists the temptation to cliche and spares us yet another Nazi styled leader, or frontline solider, who overtly speaks to whatever current world crisis happens to be going on. Setting his sights higher, Hanratty embraces the original’s aspiration towards the universal in the particular and allows Na Peirsigh/Persians speak to all conflicts. Gaza, Ukraine; Hanratty allows you place your own emphasis, along with whatever questions that evokes, subverting the propaganda of the original. Even so, and even when fused with Irish elements, including some haunting Sean Nós singing during the final act, or a Hammer Horror styled summoning of the dead king Darius, it’s always in the service of Aeschylus' original and the conventions that governed it. Maree Kearn’s pared back set evocative of a church or temple steps. Joan O’Clery’s costumes one moment Greek, the next resembling Peig Sayers. Paul Keogan’s lights steeped in the shadows of time sees a masterful use of candles evoking church and pagan rituals. Mel Mercier’s droning composition tapping into dark undercurrents. The chorus’s callings and keenings, their deep exhales, and the phonetics of Ní Dhomhnaill’s Irish language translation reinforcing a sense of it all being as old as time and steeped in mystery, like a Latin mass. An fhoireann aisteroirí i Na Peirsigh / Persians Le hAeschylus, aistrithe ag Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Grianghraf le Ros Kavanagh. Told from the perspective of the enemy, Na Peirsigh/Persians explores the shared humanity of the attackers, along with their fears and failings. Hanratty compositionally brilliant in creating flow and movement for his superb cast of Karen Ardiff, Brendan Conroy, Timmy Creed, Naoise Mac Cathmhaoil, Deirdre Molloy, Séamus Moran, Caitríona Ní Mhurchú, Bríd Ní Neachtain, and Marion O’Dwyer. Less characters so much and archetypes, individuals prove stronger when personality is rendered neutral. Naoise Mac Cathmhaoil as the limping, exhausted Xerxes keening his fate as an EveryKing whose arrogance proved fatal, his singing both a hymn and the chanting of a tribal mantra. If Séamus Moran doesn’t always evoke the gravitas of the dead king Darius, Caitríona Ní Mhurchú as his wife Atossa, part queen, part high priestess, part mother, all brilliant, is regally superb. Caitríona Ní Mhurchú i Na Peirsigh / Persians Le hAeschylus, aistrithe ag Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Grianghraf le Ros Kavanagh. To say Na Peirsigh/Persians is an accurate reflection of the conventions of Greek theatre would be an exaggeration given its additional Irish influences. But it honours them and gets us closer than many other productions. Marrying Irish language and Irish cultural references with the plays original text and context, Na Peirsigh/Persians elevates and transcends both. True, it’s dark and ponderous, and for many will be little more than a theatrical curiosity. But there’s palpable power at play in this rather superb production which honours both Irish and Greek traditions. Na Peirsigh/Persians by Aeschylus in an new, Irish language translation by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, runs at The Peacock Stage of the Abbey Theatre as part of the Abbey Theatre's Gregory Project until April 6. For more information visit The Abbey Theatre

Aisling O'Sullivan in Marina Carr’s Audrey or Sorrow. Photo by Ros Kavanagh **** No contemporary Irish woman playwright, with the possible exception of Deirdre Kinahan, has enjoyed more productions in recent years than Marina Carr . 2024 looking to continue that run with not one, but two new works at the Abbey Theatre as part of its Gregory Project. A celebration of 120 years of the National Theatre, and of the contribution of Lady Gregory, featuring new works exclusively by female writers. If one of the Abbey’s Associate Artists being awarded two prized production slots has raised heckles in some quarters, seen as depriving other women writers of an opportunity (male writers already out of the running, being excluded from the entirety of the Abbey’s 2024 celebratory programme), it can feel like a moot point. With the opening of Carr’s latest work Audrey or Sorrow , a co-production with Landmark Productions, the first horse in The Abbey’s Gregory Project has already bolted. And what a horse of a different colour it is, Carr’s wonderful dark comedy about dead and dying children. Marie Mullen and Anna Healy in Marina Carr’s Audrey or Sorrow. Photo by Ros Kavanagh If Carr’s work is frequently informed by the Greeks, in Audrey or Sorrow she throws her reference net further afield to include The Tibetan Book of The Dead, Irish mythology, Catholic practices along with various cultural references to the Underworld. Yielding up a supernatural hotchpotch in which dead or unborn babies haunt a house unseen. Under Caitríona McLaughlin’s astute direction what could have been a pick and mix mess coheres into its own unique thing. Knowing when to let go, where to rein in, how much and for how long, McLaughlin makes the often incomprehensible hugely engaging, eliciting strong performances across the board. Marie Mullen (the bossy Mac), Anna Healy (the bewildered Grass), and Nick Dunning (the boyish Purley) brilliantly channelling their inner children. More Ghosts than Greek tragedy, the scene stealing trio like to dress up, have tea parties, draw cathedrals and talk about the fourth member of their troop, Audrey. Katie Davenport’s divinely wild costumes and Jamie Vartan’s superb set hinting at a Mad Hatter’s tea party at times. Vartan’s stairway to hell, or some liminal limbo, echoing A Matter of Life and Death with stairs suggesting a portal between worlds. Darkness descending as a child’s coffin is carried downstairs followed by a woman in black, and not for the last time. Patrick Martin’s beautifully realised David, a troubled father having lost two children, becoming estranged from his wife Maria, a hard working Zara Devlin making compelling a half baked character who claims she’s being haunted by the ghost of her dead sister, Audrey. But is Audrey a menacing memory, or a deadly demon? Marina Carr’s Audrey or Sorrow. Photo by Ros Kavanagh To Carr’s immense credit not only does she manage to craft a dark comedy from a tale of dead children, she also juxtaposes the maternal instinct to clutch a stillborn child and will it back to life with the less maternal desire to be rid of the same child, even unto death. Both Maria and her Mother, a superb Aislín McGuckin, speaking to the dark as well as the bright side of motherhood. Devlin’s Maria spending less time thinking about her dead child so much as fearing what others think of her. Is she a child killer? Were her children’s deaths natural? Were they caused by the ghost of her dead sister, Audrey, fulfilling an ancient curse? The sins of the sister being visited on their children? A static dinner party serving up expositional hindsight only muddies what are already opaque supernatural waters as Father, a convincing Howard Teale, tries make sense of the confusingly nonsensical. Not helped by the play’s tone, which makes its attempts at terror hard to take seriously. Patrick Martins and Zara Devlin in Marina Carr’s Audrey or Sorrow. Photo by Ros Kavanagh With Carr’s convoluted tale presenting ghosts before we ever meet people, it suggests their existence independent of Maria’s imagination. Ruling out possibilities like schizophrenia as causes for her children’s deaths. Ghostly possibilities enlivened by the eponymous Audrey, who first enters like an abused Cinderella being victimised by her three ugly siblings only to confusingly flip into a wicked stepmother role, all rage and hate and overbearing bitterness. Aisling O’Sullivan strutting with sound and fury as the sultry demon-child become demonic ghost, harnessing the soul’s dark energies in a breathtakingly brilliant performance. Sinéad Wallace’s evocative lights and Sinéad Diskin’s gorgeously cinematic score adding the finishing touches to this ambitious and brave production. Marie Mullen, Anna Healy and Nick Dunning in Marina Carr’s Audrey or Sorrow. Photo by Ros Kavanagh If Audrey or Sorrow can confuse even as it coheres, Carr is to be admired for taking the risk into what, in many ways, is not new territory so much as old territory explored in a new way. More unsettled than unsettling, lacking in emotional punch, it compensates by allowing glimpses of a playfulness not usually associated with Carr. Like Wednesday Addams telling jokes. Yet the darkness, the grief, the guilt, the hauntings are all still there. They’re just not the whole story. One quick aside. At the risk of stating the obvious, with Audrey or Sorrow Marie Mullen reminds us why she is a national treasure. In a superlative cast, Mullen leads the way with an extraordinary performance honed from decades of detailed performances. Looking as if she sips from the fountain of youth, the energised Mullen shows just why she is a living legend. Audrey or Sorrow by Marina Carr, a Landmark Productions and Abbey Theatre co-production, runs at the Abbey Theatre until runs until March 30. For more information visit The Abbey Theatre or Landmark Productions

Niamh McAllister and Ashleigh Dorrell in The Making of Mollie. Image by Ros Kavanagh *** Stories for children. Once a once upon a time of carefree summers. Gambolling through the countryside solving mysteries with friends. Or befriending freakish grumps with hearts of gold who share your innocent loneliness. Free from responsibility, from political, philosophical or existential angst, the only pains endured were those of coming of age. Writers like Enid Blyton and Laura Ingalls Wilder offering adult versions of the ideal childhood. So too Anna Carey with her didactic The Making of Mollie, despite its overt political overtones. Its tale of suffragettes aimed at contemporary eight year olds or older. Many of whom won’t be able to spell suffragette let alone understand what it means. Throw in Fenian rebels, Home Rule and the force feeding of women hunger strikers and it quickly becomes clear even the most precocious young child will need help with this tale for children. Designed to entertain, educate and prepare the next generation for political activism, The Making of Mollie conceals a multitude of sins under its comic stylings. Set in Dublin in 1912, Mollie, a fourteen year old straight from the Pippi Longstocking school of fourteen year olds, hates her brother, likes chicken legs, playing with chalk and with her best friend Nora. Both refusing to play second fiddle to boys. Just like Mollie's older sister Phyllis, who’s become very mysterious recently, sneaking out through the window so her parents can’t see her. All standard children’s story fare until Mollie follows Phyllis to a suffragette meeting and hears a woman speak on votes for women. Politically enlightened, Mollie decides she too must become a suffragette, along with Nora, who undertake modest adventures like secret agents despite Phyllis's protestations. Their guerrilla warfare soon escalating from writing songs and messages in chalk to breaking the law by defacing post boxes. Paving the way for the many who soon follow. The Making of Mollie. Image by Ros Kavanagh Adapted from her historical novel of the same name, The Making of Mollie is proof positive that writing for the page doesn’t always translate easily to the stage. Carey’s overwrought language and undercooked structure emphasising politics over character. Lecturing overtones and laboured points ensure zoning out is a constant risk for young or old. Fortunately, a stellar cast and first rate direction salvage proceedings, and if they can’t save Carey’s tale from being dramatically weak, they rescue it theatrically at least. Beginning with Rowan Finken as the juggling good boy, and apple of Mollie’s eye Frank. Best friend to the irresistible Ian Toner’s Harry, the spoilt big brother enjoying bratty tantrums, male privilege and making his sister's lives miserable. Including his older sister Phyllis, a hard working Eyum Pricilla getting few breaks playing parental straight person to her childishly comic siblings. Playfulness capitalised on by a superb Ashleigh Dorrell as the magnificent Mollie, rendering Mollie lifelike and likeable from a flimsy pretext and a collection of cliches. Accompanied by the scene stealing revelation that is Niamh McAllister as her best friend Nora. Under Sarah Baxter’s confident direction all parade around like demented presenters in a Seventies children’s show, relying on high jinx, high energy and physical exaggerations to tell their story. Set against Deirdre Dwyer’s sign-post set evoking turn of the century Dublin, along with Laura Ingalls Wilder styled period costumes. Elevating Carey’s lacklustre offering into a theatrical treat of more than modest proportions. If fourteen was quite a grown up age in 1912 it’s impossible to tell as Mollie and Nora usually behave like four year olds. Even so, allowing that The Making of Mollie should prompt adult/child discussion, there’s enough to suggest greater maturity than eight years old is advisable. Votes for women might be a thematic safe bet, but a quick look at Dublin’s streets reveals protest has an ugly side. One person’s activist is often another person’s racist, fascist or populist. What made Mollie can make monsters too. Not that you’d ever know it here. The Making of Mollie by Anna Carey runs at The Ark Centre until March 16, For more information visit The Ark .

Amanda Coogan in Possession. Image by Patricio Cassinoni **** Even Possession ’s pre-show announcement sounds hollowed by the ghosts of our Celtic past. Complimented by a haunting, musical dissonance composed by Linda Buckley, played and sung live throughout. Against which a huddle of writhing arms gradually assemble in the centre of the traverse. At one end of which a mobile of white, motionless clothes-hangers hover over a woman sitting at her desk writing incessantly. From the Artspeak programme you gather guidance, or tunnel vision. Possession is inspired by deaf playwright Teresa Deevy ’s play of the same name which Deevy described as a ballet based on the mythological story of Queen Meabh from The Táin . Who was fuelled by a desire to posses the brown bull of Cooley. Created and performed by internationally renowned performance artist Amanda Coogan , performed with collaborating artists Alvean Jones, Lianne Quigley and the Dublin Theatre of the Deaf, Possession also claims to speak to the expressive potential of ISL (Irish Sign Language). The programme claims a lot of other things too. But we’re not here for the programme. What stands out most through all the justifying jargon are two words: Amanda Coogan. Who, like a conductor, transforms the space the moment she enters it. Parading towards the writhing mass with strutting confidence, Coogan owns the space, her body, and everyone else’s as they follow her articulate lead, trying to emulate it. Throughout, no words are said. No words are necessary. Yet nothing is silent, nothing is still. Like some mystical coral, arms undulate without touching, which, over time, evolve into shared gestures and patterns. As the group opens up, turning to face a three headed being, gestures and expression no longer flow aimlessly. Rather, they cohere to become language, communicating in silence across distance. Similarity, not synchronicity, underscoring a shared vocabulary in which voices are individual and distinct. Some whispering, some declaiming, others annunciating, some too fast, too slow, or not clear enough. A language belonging to the initiated from which outsiders try to piece together meaning. Often an everyday experience for deaf people which is here reversed. Possession. Image by Patricio Cassinoni Throughout, Coogan’s signature trademarks are much in evidence. Durational extracts see coloured cords flailed with intensity. One of many images that touches on ritual. Echoed in cultural references grounding the past, and the ancient past, in the present as when two bulls prowl the stage preparing to fight. A neat subversion courtesy of some noticeboards allows a modicum of text into the mix, as playful as it is helpful. The result might not be visually groundbreaking, even allowing for Coogan’s encompassing set, like a refugee tent with clothes littering the wall, but it has its own quiet power. As does movement and gesture. Part of a programme begun ten years ago to reclaim Teresa Deevy from obscurity, Possession proves double edged in that regard. To call Deevy’s contribution a libretto is to play fast and loose with what constitutes a libretto. Also, its grounding in The Táin tends to muddy the authorship waters. What emerges most is Coogan’s passion for Deevy and, therefore, Coogan herself, along with her passion for ISL. If, as Marina Abramovich claimed, there’s a distinction between performance art and theatre, in Possession Coogan seems happy to subvert both. If theatre is at least one body performing in a space to at least one other body, Coogan is less about the performing body so much as the body as performance. Present. Sensual. Distinct. Communicating with other bodies without speaking. The body as immediate as now and as ancient as myth. Ensuring that if multiple interpretations of Possession exist, many more will come into existence with each new performance. And each new spectator. Possession , created by performed by Amanda Coogan, performed with collaborating artists Alvean Jones and Lianne Quigley, composer Linda Buckley and the Dublin Theatre of the Deaf, runs at The Project Arts Centre until Feb 24. For more information visit The Project Arts Centre

Fiona Keenan O'Brien and Leah Rossiter in Belfast Girls. Image by Sean McMahon *** There’s no overstating the importance of regional venues like Dundalk’s An Táin Arts Centre . Both to their community and to the wider arts community. Offering opportunities to meet up and engage with a myriad of diverse performances, several directly assist in the development of local artists by offering significant practical support. Like An Táin Arts Centre’s resident Quintessence Theatre , who get to hone their craft through practice and experimentation. To celebrate ten proud years, An Táin Arts Centre recently presented their biggest production to date, the Irish premiere of Belfast Girls by award winning Dundalk writer, Jaki McCarrick . A tale of five women in 1850 aboard the Inchinnan as it sets sail for Australia. Each eager to escape Ireland for the imagined freedoms, and food, of the new Promised Land. Which, like Belfast Girls , isn’t quite all it promises to be. The cast of Belfast Girls. Image by Sean McMahon Topical, with overt feminist leanings, Belfast Girl has enjoyed several productions internationally. Begging the question, why not here? Well perhaps because, despite its good intentions, its front loaded political messaging undermines its dramatic medium, despite some spirited work by its five strong cast. Or rather, its six strong cast. True, there’s only five bodies onstage, but there’s six distinct voices. The dominant one being McCarrick, determined to hammer home her politics often at the expense of everyone and everything onstage. Unapologetically Marxist, McCarrick divines an astute connection between the banking crisis and Ireland during the Famine. Both being times when women and children suffered severely under austerity measures, the guilty were let walk free, and the victims were penalised with many forced to leave home. Her characters trying to serve two competing mistresses; their story which they’re trying to tell, and McCarrick’s political grandstanding. Which often reduces them to ventriloquist dummies offering commentary, or declaiming mouthpieces for an unchallenged Marxist manifesto. Undermining story, its power, and its people, all in the name of power to the people. The cast of Belfast Girls. Image by Sean McMahon How so? Narratively, nothing much happens. Five Irish women pressed into a hull of a ship undertake a three month journey to Australia. Over time secrets emerge, one leading to injury, till all arrive at their destination a little older, a little wiser, and a little more politically aware. Dramatically, there’s little onstage action, less real conflict, and hardly anything at stake till near the end. The bulk of the play’s concerns having happened before the play started. Instead, the past is recounted when the future is not being divined like a party political broadcast. Tales of fathers selling their daughters, of sexual and emotional abuse, of dead and dying children are all reduced to political fodder, like babies in a politician’s photo op. Even a burgeoning lesbian relationship proves more political than personal, being all about the points being made. And so it goes, more or less, for the guts of two and three quarter hours. As the end arrives, it’s less a case of gears finally clicking into place so much as a house of cards toppling as it all makes a mad dash for the finish line. Working hard and fast to try bring its characters safely to land. Which it does by allowing their humanity shine through. Carla Foley and the cast of Belfast Girls. Image by Sean McMahon Whilst director Anna Simpson is conscious of the dichotomy between medium and message, she compounds rather than resolves the disconnect. Indeed, talk of Quintessence’s unique style of physical theatre raises its own issues. While Simpson is often brilliant at creating movement onstage, an effort to speak to something beyond words via choreographed musical moments, looking straight from the ANU playbook, ranges from the genuinely interesting to showing an unforgivable lack of rigour (a scene in which all characters sway during a storm suggests they’re each standing on separate ships). Compositionally, while Simpson can be strong on intimacy, too often she resorts to actors cheating (placing actors facing the audience when they talk rather than the characters they should be speaking to). Her cast frequently positioned like opera singers undermining their own power. The visual image compounding the experience of Belfast Girls as essentially one long, laboured lecture trampling all over the interesting play that’s trying to get out. The cast of Belfast Girls. Image by Sean McMahon Indeed, the less characters have to say politically, the far greater they, and their stories, are realised. Placing a hard working Donna Anita Nikolaisen as the rebellious Judith at a serious disadvantage. Spending much of her time as one of McCarrick’s mouthpieces, playing the lines so the points get made rather than the scene in which Judith lives and breathes, Nikolaisen frequently compensates with an animated performance in an effort to express something more than a diatribe, or else to enliven it. Resorting to, or encouraged to perform too large gestures when less would have been so much more is something Simpson should have addressed. A tendency that also afflicts Siobhan Kelly’s secretive maid Molly, whose schoolmarmish tone and mannerisms reinforce a lecturing trope. Yet Nikolaisen and Kelly are both utterly sublime when their characters are allowed to breathe rather than being corseted inside someone else’s borrowed ideas. Equally sublime is a terrific Carla Foley as the duplicitous Sarah, who conveys guilt, spite, pride, and jitteriness that speak far more eloquently than Belfast Girls political rallying call. Similarly a superb Fiona Keenan O’Brien as the will of iron Ellen, and an outstanding Leah Rossiter as the brash, loudmouth, whiskey swilling Hanna. Frenemies whose comic duelling and front and centre personalities are a joy to watch. No surprise that the character most removed from political lecturing, Hanna, proves the most enlivened and memorable, with Rossiter announcing herself as a serious talent. Simpson shining when her direction leans into the story instead of back burning it to accommodate McCarrick’s overt political posturing. Donna Anita Nikolaisen and Siobhan Kelly in Belfast Girls. Image by Sean McMahon Which is not to discount anyone’s political beliefs, but rather the belief that the writer’s political ideas can take precedence over the play they’re grounded in, making it a vehicle for a dressed up pamphlet at the expense of the people whose politics it’s meant to represent. If that’s the way you want to go, go Brechtian. Having characters perched on McCarrick's soapbox, Belfast Girls divides them against themselves. Never clearer than when they slip free of their reins and are allowed speak rather than recite. McCarrick’s humanity, which underscores everything, made beautifully evident in her humans being human. Trapped in the confines of Sinéad O’Donnell-Carey’s stunning set and costumes, which suggest a serious talent in the making. The cleverly tiered and angled frame, basked beautifully in Sophie Cassidy’s majestic lights, sees both contributing to the richness of the experience. O’Donnell-Carey and Cassidy two artists you’re sure to hear more of. The cast of Belfast Girls. Image by Sean McMahon If Belfast Girls often gets in its own way, An Táin Arts Centre are to be applauded for allowing young artists experiment, fail better, and find their feet. If the experiment doesn’t entirely come off this time, always a risk with experiments, there’s still much to admire and enjoy here. Especially when performances are unencumbered by an excess of political baggage. For having the courage to take such risks, allow artists on and off stage to experiment, and introducing us to works like Belfast Girls, An Táin Arts Centre deserve every congratulations. As well as thanks for nurturing rising talents and promising companies like Quintessence Theatre. Here’s wishing An Táin Arts Centre many more years of continued success to come. For more information visit An Táin Arts Centre This review refers to the production at Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, February 16, as part of Belfast Girls tour which also visited Lyric Theatre, Belfast, the Droichead Arts Centre Drogheda, following its premiere at An Táin Arts Centre, Dundalk on January 24.

Rachael Dowling and Sorcha Furlong in Elizabeth Moynahan's Happiness Then... Image by Al Craig *** Misery loves company in Elizabeth’s Moynihan’s delightful two hander, Happiness Then… even if misery might be better off without the company. Like snuggling up to a wire brush, estranged sisters Frances and Bridget are more likely to cut each other to shreds than dish out sibling consolation. Meeting in a wine bar, the two sisters try to talk about their mother’s death, her will, an ex-husband, a vanished son and the new woke normal that is modern life for the older woman. In which Happiness Then… serves up lightweight meditations on transitioning from male to female along with questions about alcohol and addiction. Yet what it lacks in depth it makes up for in heart, it’s touching portrayal of two warring sisters striving for connection full of tender moments. In a story about binary opposites, Happiness Then… relies heavily on binary opposites. It’s odd couple of straight-laced, uptight, control freak Bridget and wine swilling, mad aunt, devil may care Frances being a format as old as the hills and as recent as Grace and Frankie . Indeed, like Grace and Frankie it commences with a former husband coming out. This time as female; Frances’ former husband looking to be addressed as she/her. A lengthy argument on drinking, transitioning, and fidelity in marriage flips midway to facilitate Bridget’s concerns. Namely her missing son and why he ran away. No lead in, just a contrived switch that comes out of nowhere to switch character focus. Not for the first time will Happiness Then… reveal itself as structurally contrived, even as Moynihan crafts lines and scenes brimming with charm. Rachael Dowling and Sorcha Furlong in Elizabeth Moynihan's Happiness Then... Image by Al Craig If there’s little at stake, and if it doesn’t end so much as run out of road leaving too many questions unanswered, director Liam Halligan sensitively negotiates all this to emphasise the generosity in Moynihan’s undercooked script. We may not quite believe that these women want to be around each other in what they say, but we glimpse why they might in how they behave. Due, in no small measure, to two riveting performances. A ying yang dynamic of dark and light (those opposites again) with Rachael Dowling’s suffocating, green tea drinking Bridget, looking exaggeratedly high strung on occasion, enough to turn anyone to drink. Yet when Dowling beautifully evokes the pain of women trying endlessly to be perfect you glimpse the source of the rage that fuels her. Sorcha Furlong grounding it all with a captivatingly brilliant performance. The world weary Frances delightfully understated, adding calm to Dowling’s distress. Throughout, Moynihan's “let’s talk it all better” approach skims the surface of its heavier issues. Yet its exploration of two sisters whose loneliness reminds them there just might be someone in the world who gets them is genuinely heartfelt. An estrangement reflected in Toni Bailey’s clashing costumes. If Eoin Lennon’s set looks like a cáfe closer to home than a wine bar, it adds to a sense of eavesdropping. In which Dowling and Furlong shine. In the end Happiness Then… is a snack, not a meal. But it makes for a tasty lunchtime treat none the less. Happiness Then… by Elizabeth Moynihan, runs at Bewley’s Cáfe Theatre until March 9. For more information visit Bewley’s Cáfe Theatre

Sister Act. Image uncredited. **** How do you solve a problem like Delores? A big dream, big voiced wannabe singer who’s just witnessed a murder. Disguised as a nun she is sequestered away to a convent as part of a witness protection program. The worldly Delores a disruptive influence on the resident sisters, all oblivious to her secret. Whipping the ten strong church choir into shape, she turns them into national celebrities. Leaving Mother Superior at her wits end. Proving be careful what you pray for, you just might get it. In Sister Act, A Divine Musical Comedy , based on the Whoopee Goldberg 1992 movie of the same name, a nun on the run serves up tonnes of fun, but it’s the songs and singing that prove heavenly. Sister Act. Image Mark Senior Set in the late Seventies and heavily referencing The Sound of Music at times, Sister Act is not the equivalent of musical fine dining. Clunkily finding its feet, with Bill Buckhurst’s direction doing just enough, as does Alastair David's choreography, and with Morgan Large’s set looking distractingly like the portal in Stargate SG1, spectacle leaves a little to be desired. Book by Cheri and Bill Steinkellner, with additional book material by Douglas Carter Beane a bare bag of narrative bolts you don’t want to think too much about. Narratively and visually it just about holds together. But Sister Act was never intended as musical fine dining. Rather it’s the musical theatre equivalent of street food. Relying less on presentation and more on strong, tasty flavours, Sister Act’s songs and singing serve up some sumptuous treats. Sister Act. Image Mark Senior While it's the energised nuns who run the show, aided by a terrific Ruth Jones as Mother Superior and an excellent Landi Oshinowo as streetwise, disco diva Delores, the men also have their moments. A scene stealing Alfie Parker as Steady Eddie Souther, the cop responsible for protecting Delores, near brings the house down with I Could Be That Guy , channelling Village People , disco balls, and more glitz and glamour than any one person should be allowed. If its gangsters look like pantomime clowns, making Ron Burgundy and his crew look like geniuses, leader Curtis Jackson (Ian Gareth-Jones), along with henchmen TJ (Elliot Gooch), Joey (Callum Martin) and Paolo (Michalis Antoniou) turn on the style like an overdose of cheap cologne. Channelling heavy Seventies vibes, including referencing The Floaters , they set out to prove why no woman can resist them, and fail to make their case. If some men struggle in the upper register, it’s more than compensated for by its ten strong women's choir showing hugely impressive range. Most notably the exquisite Eloise Runnette making her professional debut as postulate Sister Mary Robert. Runnette’s sensational voice, especially her show stopping rendition of The Life I Never Led , living proof of the existence of angels. Sister Act. Image Mark Senior It’ll come as no surprise that all’s well that ends well, with Jones and Oshinowo shining during the great, big, glittery kitsch finish. Wherein lies the secret of Sister Act ; it throws all its eggs into its singing and song basket. Staging might look average and story patched together, but songs and singing are simply sensational. Given they’re built from music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Glenn Slater, you shouldn’t be too surprised. Let your heart and soul go with it, and you will find Sister Act joyously uplifting. Go, be part of this terrific Sister Act . It does the soul a power of good. Sister Act, A Divine Musical Comedy presented by Jamie Wilson, Kevin McCollum, Gavin Karin, Robbie Wilson and Curve, runs at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre until February 24. For more information visit Bord Gáis Energy Theatre