Thursday, August 15, 2013
Beckett, DublinWe step inside the head of a frustrated writer in this riveting staging of Beckett's 1959 radio playDoes staging a radio play reduce its impact, or expand it? If it is written…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:50AMWednesday, July 3, 2013
Abbey theatre, DublinFriendships are strained to breaking point in Elaine Murphy's new comedy, in which four Dublin women rally around their depressed pal on her birthday. Breda, in her late…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:50PMSunday, March 17, 2013
Project, DublinFour minutes, 600 words, 25 plays – last year, Fishamble theatre company held an open call for mini-plays portraying aspects of contemporary Ireland. Submissions poured in, …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:39PMSunday, January 6, 2013
Abbey, DublinNow that James Joyce's work is out of copyright, a number of attempts have been made to dramatise his celebrated short story, The Dead. While beautifully transposed to the scree…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:03PMWednesday, November 28, 2012
Peacock, DublinA Belfast pub, a man drinking pints, and a barman staring vacantly at a television screen: the opening scene of Owen McCafferty's new play is deceptively downbeat. There is so…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:18AMMonday, October 29, 2012
The Mac, BelfastIn Stacey Gregg's new play for Belfast festival at Queen's, four would-be rock stars spend so much time bickering that it is astonishing their band, Huzzies, ever performs in…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:41PMSunday, October 21, 2012
Irish theatre generates high expectations. So much so, that if there isn’t a premiere of a play by one of Ireland’s leading playwrights – Sebastian Barry, Enda Walsh, Marina Carr, Fran…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:00AMTuesday, October 16, 2012
Peacock, DublinWith a title that refers to the art of Japanese bondage, Gary Duggan's new play looks at contemporary Dublin through a multi-ethnic lens. An abstract set in the form of a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PMMonday, October 1, 2012
Gaiety, DublinThe release of James Joyce's work from copyright this year opens up new theatrical possibilities, which the Corn Exchange theatre company has seized in its adaptation…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:14PMSunday, August 26, 2012
Ardhowen, EnniskillenWhite-faced, open-mouthed, and spattered with shards of white light, Robert Wilson's Krapp might already have passed over to the other side. His performance, in his own …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PMSunday, July 1, 2012
Abbey, DublinA double-edge runs through Tom Murphy's penetrating portrayal of exile and return, set in 1950s Ireland. On an annual summer visit to their hometown, a group of returned emigran…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:01PMThursday, June 7, 2012
Peacock, DublinSilent screen idol Rudolph Valentino may be the inspiration for this one-man show, but there is nothing quiet about it. Playwright and performer Pat Kinevane brings extravagan…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:46AMWednesday, May 2, 2012
The MAC, Belfast Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:52AMSunday, April 15, 2012
Smock Alley, DublinPan Pan theatre company's production of Ibsen's classic is an uncomfortable experience. Director Gavin Quinn and designer Aedín Cosgrove seem to be x-raying rather than r…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:06PMThursday, March 22, 2012
Project, DublinWhat can 25 short plays tells us about Ireland? Fishamble Theatre Company held an open submission last year for mini-plays that address aspects of contemporary Ireland in 600 …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:00PMWednesday, October 5, 2011
Project, DublinIt is not surprising that the Dublin theatre festival was reluctant to announce the subject of Colm Tóibín's new play in advance. The possibility of headlines claiming "Virg…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:03AMTuesday, October 4, 2011
O'Reilly Theatre, DublinWho is Peer Gynt? In Rough Magic theatre company's ambitious production of Ibsen's verse drama, he is a pyjama-clad patient in a psychiatric clinic, drifting between …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:00PMSunday, October 2, 2011
Lyric, BelfastThe star voltage of Kenneth Branagh and Rob Brydon is the essential ingredient in Sean Foley's new adaptation of a French farce by Francis Veber. Best known as the author of Le…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:45AMLyric, Belfast Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:45AMWednesday, August 31, 2011
Abbey, DublinA dream of escape is all that sustains the characters in Sam Shepard's bleak play from the 1970s, in which home and family are words that leave a sour taste for the Tate family.…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:34PMTuesday, August 30, 2011
Project Arts Centre, DublinIt is hardly a surprise that a radio play by Samuel Beckett should be concerned with the bleak, monotonous business of being alive. But in the hands of Pan Pan the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:37PMTuesday, July 19, 2011
Abbey, DublinBrian Friel's great achievement in Translations is to play with audience expectations as easily as he plays with words. A drama of colonisation based on the mapping of Ireland's…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:00PMThursday, July 14, 2011
Black Box, GalwayA day in the life of the small town of Inishfree becomes a season in hell in the hands of playwright Enda Walsh. In the character of Thomas Magill, he has created a tormente…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:15PMTuesday, June 21, 2011
Lyric, BelfastAs part of its reopening celebrations, the Lyric is reviving a play that made a huge impact in Belfast when it premiered 30 years ago. Martin Lynch brought class politics into …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:08PMMonday, June 6, 2011
Peacock, DublinIn her first full-length play, Stacey Gregg tackles very current concerns about the sexualisation of children and loss of innocence. The pressure on teenage girls to have sex …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:06PMTuesday, May 10, 2011
Lyric, BelfastAnyone looking for contemporary parallels in Arthur Miller's play based on the 1692 Salem witch trials will invariably find them. The fundamentalism, repression and prejudice t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:26PMTuesday, March 29, 2011
Abbey, DublinMemories of young love trouble two characters in middle age in Paul Mercier's new play – his second opening at the Abbey this month, along with The Passing, with which it will…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:58PMMonday, March 21, 2011
Abbey, DublinMemories of childhood make it difficult for three middle-aged siblings to sell their family home in this new play written and directed by Paul Mercier. On the eve of the auction…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:27PMWednesday, February 2, 2011
Peacock, DublinTowers of cardboard boxes, a bare stage and four actors in search of a script: this show has the abstraction of a dance piece or an art installation, as bodies and boxes move …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:35PMTuesday, January 11, 2011
Abbey, DublinDion Boucicault's stage-Irishry and mastery of spectacle brought him fame in the 19th century, but can be a tricky proposition today. With its noble Irish rebels and gormless pe…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:00PMTuesday, July 6, 2010
Mermaid, WicklowFootball has been a gift to Irish playwrights in recent decades, with the snakes-and-ladders fortunes of the Irish soccer team providing ready-made melodrama. Metaphors of th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:45PM 
