Dublin Fringe Festival 2026: The Far Away Sun
The Far Away Sun by KT Honan. Image Eivind Hansen
***
A man crawls from twisted car wreckage in Deirdre Dwyer's compositionally unbalanced set. Slowly, he proceeds to undress down to his underwear. Meanwhile John Gunning's throbbing, orange lights echo the heartbeat from Carl Kennedy's haunting soundscape, reinforcing the connection between man and machine. You might think J.G. Ballard's Crash by way of Cronenberg's movie version. But KT Honan's exotic spectacle The Far Away Sun, directed by Luke Kernaghan, is a totally different beast. Kernaghan's daring blend of light, sound, smoke and shadow evoking the imagery and structure of a PC or console game. Including a lengthy, cinematic cutscene to deliver exposition and narrative substance. A brave and ambitious experiment that intrigues and delivers stunning visuals. Yet brave and brilliant as it is, the result falls short of its desired effect. A deeply human ending, touched by grace, redeeming the final moments and revealing Honan's real strength.
Gamers will recognise themes and tones from the Silent Hill franchise, in which a man retreats to a seaside town following a personal trauma, haunted by memories of an absent wife and child. The town transforming between real and surreal spaces where days are dull and nights are full of sinister monsters. Similarities can also be found with Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, which strives for psychological realism by utilising binaural 3D audio to simulate competing inner monologues and auditory hallucinations. The experience created through headphones as Senua battles psychosis whilst facing monsters from her past. All the above abundantly present in The Far Away Sun in which Rowan Finken's lost soul, Ralph, describes his struggle with a broken marriage, a broken mind and a broken life.
Rowan Finken in The Far Away Sun by KT Honan. Image Patricio Cassinoni
Whilst the effort is to be applauded, there are several issues. If visuals excite in gameplay, it's usually because they're the outcome of player's choices that fashion the immersive experience. Watching Finken jitter, submerge in water, or hearing him converse off stage doesn’t translate for being more akin to watching someone else play a game on Twitch. Visuals and audio might be curious or impressive, but you're forever caught up in the cold technicality of it all rather than the warmth of immersion. Dialogue, usually Honan's greatest facet, might induce momentary shivers, but mostly it's stripped back to a libretto-like stating of facts and details, as if not wanting to interfere with the visuals and audio undertaking the emotional heavy lifting. Unfortunately, they're not up to the task, reducing character to little more than a visual avatar. One without connection, or a connected gamer, whose days revolve around eating cornflakes, off-stage conversations and the walls of his mind collapsing. Generating no heat or real engagement, with no prizes for guessing where it's all going to go.
As nights and days pass, loud animal noises, materialising small cars, a nosey neighbour and a shower of soft toys see Finken's avatar revert to childhood games. Ralph's imagination not running wild so much as getting a little boisterous. Tension resolved as headphones are removed to facilitate a heavy-handed reveal; a cinematic cutscene bringing it all home. The arrival of a superbly understated Stephen Brennan shifting action from inner to outer worlds, from isolation to the relational. If waiting for a kettle to boil aims to evoke a shift towards hyperrealism, the effect is theatrical dead air. But from here on in Honan's brilliance shines in a touching examination of masculinity. Brennan's older male may not know how to express himself, but he still turns up for his wounded son. A man internalising self-loathing and a crippling sense of failure. If Brennan's heartfelt stumbling is never enough to redeem Ralph as a character, his touching tenderness ensures you begin to consider him as human. Even if the end feels tidily convenient, Honan rescues Kernaghan's visuals by injecting them with life.
Rowan Finken in The Far Away Sun by KT Honan. Image Patricio Cassinoni
In the digital, multi-disciplinary, genre blurring twenty-first century theatre is faced with many new possibilities. That doesn't mean they all work. But theatre makers have an opportunity, and responsibility, to explore new and interesting ways of making and framing theatre. In The Far Away Sun, Honan and Kernaghan do just that and are to be richly commended. If it doesn't quite come together, it still manages to break new ground, paving the way for those who follow.
The Far Away Sun by KT Honan, runs as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2026 at Project Cube till Sept 19.
For more information visit Dublin Fringe Festival 2026
