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 (!964) 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, 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 a 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’s 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