Friday, May 6, 2022
Abbey, DublinWayne Jordan directs a sombre revival of Amy Conroy’s 2015 play exploring gender identity and family dynamics
What kind of man is it possible to be? That is Amy Conroy’s pro…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:33AMMonday, May 2, 2022
Lyric, BelfastCaitríona McLaughlin’s taut new production of Friel’s colonisation drama is a timeless study of change and identity
Brian Friel’s drama of colonisation becomes a timeles…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:36AMSunday, March 27, 2022
The Pumphouse, Dublin PortAn unflinching look at the role of women is at the forefront of this gripping drama that brings hidden histories to the surface
Civil war brings devastation to one …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:33AMFriday, March 18, 2022
Abbey, DublinThe political intrigues muddy the drama of conscience but this is a sleek futuristic staging of Sophocles’ tragedy, adapted by Darren Murphy
A defiant young woman imprisoned i…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:12PMFriday, February 18, 2022
Gate theatre, DublinThe comedian turns on the roguish charm as part of a dazzling cast that inject new poignancy into the absurdist classic
One of Samuel Beckett’s most celebrated plays, E…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:33AMThursday, February 17, 2022
Abbey theatre, DublinDenise Gough plays out Portia’s bleak 30th, defined by family resentments, misogyny and the spectral presence of her dead twin, in this disturbing drama
It is not only…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:18PMFriday, January 14, 2022
Abbey theatre, DublinWith a jazzy soundtrack and heaps of audience participation, this pared-back production manages to find light in the darkness of depression
Of all the brilliant things t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:06AMMonday, December 13, 2021
Pavilion, DublinDruid theatre’s cast go all out for the ridiculous in this rarely performed triple bill, delivered with music hall flair
Druid theatre company’s triple bill by Seán O’…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:24AMThursday, December 9, 2021
Abbey theatre, DublinGillen, Niamh Cusack and Nigel Lindsay deliver haunting monologues in director Joe Dowling’s production
Frank Hardy, faith healer, was too brainy to be a true artist, …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:42PMTuesday, October 12, 2021
Various venues, DublinImmersive Irish history, unacknowledged Aids deaths and post-coital chats – this year’s festival is challenging and entertaining
Returning to live performance with…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:42AMMonday, October 11, 2021
Lyric, BelfastEx-lovers attempt to rebuild a fence in Michael Patrick and Oisín Kearney’s play marking the centenary of the partition of Ireland
An invisible line bisecting a boggy field …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:12AMMonday, October 4, 2021
Abbey, DublinSarah Hanly embodies a range of characters in her punchy debut play that explores the pressures on teenagers
“It’s a holy show,” Saoirse declares, as she comes round in ho…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:12PMThursday, September 9, 2021
With theatre for an audience of one, a whirlwind set of Kevin Barry stories and sparky songs, the Irish festival is in fine form
Adapting to Covid-19 restrictions with ingenuity, Galway inte…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:32PMMonday, September 6, 2021
Abbey, Dublin and available onlineRosaleen McDonagh’s play, an unsettling love story set in a Traveller community, has the ring of truthfulness
A love story shines through a mass of societ…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:24AMSunday, August 15, 2021
Edinburgh festival fringe, onlineDeirdre Kinahan’s play explores how culpable Máire can be for acts of cruelty, when she was brutalised as a young woman in a church-run institution
Deirdr…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:03AMThursday, August 12, 2021
Coole Park, GalwayLady Augusta Gregory’s former home is an apt backdrop for this transposition of the play to 1880s Ireland
Druid Theatre Company’s outdoor setting of Thomas Kilroy’s C…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:48AMSunday, June 27, 2021
Cork Midsummer festival onlineVirginia Woolf’s novel, centring on an Edwardian marriage and the rupture of war, is richly adapted and beautifully staged with a strong ensemble cast
Shadow…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:18AMThursday, June 24, 2021
Abbey, Dublin, and onlineUna McKevitt’s droll domestic drama shows us a day in the life of a family dealing with the ill health of an ageing father
Reopening to live audiences for the firs…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:36PMFriday, April 23, 2021
Available onlineStephen Rea and Judith Roddy give beautifully nuanced performances as a father and daughter meeting during the Covid-19 pandemic
A pane of glass is not the only thing keeping…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:12PMFriday, April 9, 2021
Available onlineGilly Campbell’s autobiographical play about searching for her absent father may be a monologue, but it tells a story much larger than one person’s
How to make sense of …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:18PMFriday, February 12, 2021
Available onlineInspired by a real incident where a woman was barged into the path of an oncoming bus, Sonya Kelly’s play explores proximity and distance
Three lives intersect for just an …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:33AMFriday, October 9, 2020
With productions staged live outdoors, livestreamed, or available online, this year’s festival fused the past with the present, and engaged an audience both present and remote
“You see m…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:24AMFriday, February 28, 2020
Black Box, GalwayContemporary themes resonate throughout Garry Hynes’s production about a debt-ridden aristocratic family on the brink of losing their estate
Something in the sombre mood o…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:12PMTuesday, February 25, 2020
A vaudeville thriller set around a Dublin newspaper in 1973 uses knockabout humour to parallel modern-day geopolitics
‘General swearing and delight” is playwright Michael West’s winnin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:54PMWednesday, February 12, 2020
Galway 2020 promises everything from Margaret Atwood to art with local asylum-seekers. Its organisers and artists talk about building bridges and creating a lasting legacy for Irish artists
…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:12PMTuesday, January 28, 2020
Project Arts Centre, DublinCracking male banter gives way to seeping sadness in John O’Donovan’s play about three men grieving for their friend
Tripping on drugs, 17-year-old Liam lies d…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:54AMThursday, November 7, 2019
Gate, DublinThe acclaimed writer’s version of the Greek tragedy focuses on her sister Ismene, with plenty of modern relevances
Colm Tóibín’s new version of the Greek tragedy Antigone d…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:18PMMonday, October 7, 2019
Marina Carr’s Hecuba probes a mother’s grief, family secrets unravel in The Beacon and audiences are immersed in 80s LGBT+ Dublin in Faultline
Questions of interpretation drive Nancy Har…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:36AMSaturday, September 7, 2019
Abbey, DublinOnly those with the most righteous anger will triumph, in this small-town play about wider societal issues.
Sexist graffiti on a suburban wall provokes blazing confrontation in …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:03AMMonday, July 22, 2019
Town Hall theatre, Galway There are echoes of Joyce and Beckett as guests gather at a dinner party and grapple with their own disconnectedness
A highly strung dinner-party host looks set for…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:12AMFriday, June 21, 2019
Various venues, CorkMini plays performed for solo festivalgoers are a hit – plus there’s a bluffer’s guide to the suburbs and a Tom Waits-esque concept album come to life
The multi-dis…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:12PM 
