Monday, April 20, 2015
The Mac, BelfastIn smalltown Northern Ireland, politicians, the media and the church all pursue self-serving agendas after a small boy is trapped in a bog hole Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:15AMTuesday, February 24, 2015
Abbey, DublinTheseus is a doctor and Puck’s potion is administered by drip in an inventive production that strikes a fine balance between comedy and pathos Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:56AMWednesday, February 18, 2015
Project arts centre, DublinWhen two sisters meet after an 11-year silence in David Ireland’s play, the racist rants that ensue push at the limits of stage performance Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:27PMThursday, January 15, 2015
Olympia, DublinThe comedy is broad and the timing wild in Brendan, Domhnall and Brian’s performance of Enda Walsh’s play, but the ending loses its power to disturb Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:40AMMonday, January 5, 2015
Abbey, DublinConall Morrison’s histrionic musical production treats Oliver Goldsmith’s subtle social comedy with too heavy a hand Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:40AMTuesday, October 7, 2014
Abbey theatre, DublinSinéad Cusack and Ciarán Hinds superbly negotiate the emotional waves in Mark ORowes tense new play about a couple whose past comes back to haunt them Sinéad Cusack: …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:24AMMonday, October 6, 2014
Project Arts Centre, DublinWhile this obtuse two-hander is cumulatively powerful, it is let down by a threadbare ending Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:17AMFriday, October 3, 2014
Olympia theatre, DublinClassical and Celtic myth converge in this tale of an anticlerical craftsman, a prequel to Tom Murphys Bailegangaire Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:52AMThursday, October 2, 2014
Oonagh Young Gallery, DublinThe final part of Anu Productions local-history cycle leads audience members through disturbing scenes featuring sex workers and stranded immigrants Continue read…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:08AMTuesday, September 30, 2014
Samuel Beckett theatre, DublinEimear McBrides award-winning novel transitions perfectly to the stage in Corn Exchanges startling and upsetting Dublin theatre festival show about the impact o…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:46AMTuesday, August 26, 2014
Abbey theatre, DublinRóisín McBrinn's inventive production accelerates the pace and plays up the dreamlike quality of this nautically inspired farce Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:56AMMonday, August 25, 2014
Lyric theatre, BelfastSimon Stephens' play of squabbling sixth-formers builds tensions to a striking climax in this finely tuned production Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:51AMThursday, July 10, 2014
Abbey theatre, DublinA sensitive revival of Brian Friel's play about a Catholic family in Donegal offers no easy answers to the problems of class and kinThe title of Brian Friel's play from …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:12AMTuesday, May 20, 2014
Abbey theatre, DublinAn imaginative production including semi-streaking brings a play full of longing and unrequited desire into the presentOpening with the semi-clad Duke Orsino blasting …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:12AMWednesday, April 23, 2014
Gate, DublinMuch has dated in Oscar Wilde's 1895 political melodrama, but his treatment of marital politics still stings todayA hall of mirrors is a well-chosen image for the stage set for O…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:01AMMonday, March 17, 2014
Peacock, DublinDespite two great central performances, the play loses its focus when it attempts to portray the fraying social fabric of Protestant IrelandThe elderly couple in Michael West'…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:02AMWednesday, March 5, 2014
Gate theatre, DublinNoël Coward's drawing room play about a 1920s socialite and her decadent son is as riveting and barbed as everIn this play that became a sensation in 1920s London, Noël…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:57AMWednesday, January 8, 2014
Abbey theatre, DublinThe possibilities for a potent work of political music-theatre are squandered in this ambitious look at the 1913 Dublin lockoutTo mark the centenary of the 1913 Dublin l…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:06AMTuesday, January 7, 2014
Black Box theatre, GalwayPathos meets farcical high jinks in this Irish tale of mistaken identities and secret passionsPlaywright and impresario Dion Boucicault made stage Irishness an inter…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:34AMSaturday, October 12, 2013
“Come out to play” is the tagline for this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival, and a great deal of the work presented in the programme manifested suitably playful exuberance. Running over …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:26PMFriday, October 11, 2013
Abbey, DublinA manipulative patriarch's decline into dementia is seen from the perspectives of his adult children in a play that isn't quite fleshed outGardens in autumnal shades are the dom…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:14PMTuesday, October 8, 2013
Culture Box, DublinAs a celebration of a rich theatre tradition, this play has fun. As a commentary on critics and the theatre, it's heavy-handedAs manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:06PMSunday, September 1, 2013
Gate, DublinLia Williams's dazzling Blanche is the highlight of this beautifully choreographed production of the Tennessee Williams classicLight is a central metaphor in Tennessee Williams's…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:30PMThursday, 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 01:30PM 
