Reviews

Re-Energize by Gary Mitchell

Reviewed by Jane Coyle on 14 May 2013 13 - 18 May, 2013 in The Playhouse, Derry

There is a delicious sense of Groundhog Day at the re-emergence on stage of Dave, Pete, Humper and Alison, the central characters of Gary Mitchell's pulsating 1999 play Energy. But that sensation is far from delicious for the quartet themselves, for whom, to put it mildly, life has not been kind. Mitchell's...

Read this review

The Man in the Woman’s Shoes by Mikel Murfi

Reviewed by Christina Hunt Mahony on 08 May 2013 1 - 30 May, 2013 in Pavilion Theatre

Mikel Murfi’s one-man show, The Man in the Woman’s Shoes, is the imaginative product of his interviewing older people in the area of which he is a native. Murfi’s script gives voice to cobbler Pat Farnon, whom the town considers mute. A childhood trauma is hinted at, but Pat prefers...

Read this review

Bug by Tracy Letts

Reviewed by Liam Heylin on 06 May 2013 6 - 11 May, 2013 in Half Moon Theatre, Cork

BrokenCrow theatre company are making their mark with a decent new production that gets right under the skin of an interesting American play. It is probably a compliment to say that the experience of watching Bug gets itchier as it goes on. Tracy Letts’s play offers its own perspective on a territory...

Read this review

Bankers by Brian McAvera

Reviewed by Susan Conley on 02 May 2013 in The New Theatre

It’s pompous v. pedantic inBankers, Brian McAvera’s polemic about the general state of the financial system in recent times. The Focus Theatre production can’t be faulted for contemporary aptness, but several elements inherent in the presentation of the conflict interfered with the...

Read this review

Love, Billy by Graham Reid

Reviewed by Terence Blain on 01 May 2013 1 – 25 May, 2013 in The Lyric Theatre, Belfast

Time heals, they say. Not in the Martin family, it doesn’t: twenty-five years after leaving Belfast inexplicably, the errant Billy returns, unleashing in his father and three sisters the emotions, fears and frustrations coiled to snapping point in the quarter-century of his absence. A can of worms...

Read this review

Hang Up by Adam Wyeth

Reviewed by Rachel Andrews on 30 April 2013 28-30 April 2013 in The Oval Bar, Cork

A man stands alone in an empty room. He climbs on a chair, fixes a noose to the ceiling, tugs it to make sure it will hold. As he hesitates, struggling to muster the courage, his mobile phone rings. He lets it ring out, but the caller is insistent, and the phone rings again and again until William (played...

Read this review

Croí á Mhúscailt | Awakening a Heart by Branar

Reviewed by Helen Cusack on 24 April 2013 24 April - 7 June (on tour) in the Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire

“Lá amháin, Daideo wasn't in his chair anymore.” Branar presents a deeply moving and artistic portrayal of loss and childhood in their latest production, Croí á Mhúscailt | Awakening a Heart. Inspired by an image from Oliver Jeffers' picturebook, The Heart and the Bottle, Croí á Mhúscailt...

Read this review

The Chronicle of Oggle by Peter Gowen

Reviewed by Rachel Andrews on 24 April 2013 20 - 25 April, 2013 in Everyman Palace

Peter Gowen’s play began its touring run of County Cork in the town of Youghal. This is notable not just because it is Gowen’s hometown, but also because Youghal, which has been hit hard by the recession, is just such a place that can reap benefits from Cork’s Everyman Palace theatre’s...

Read this review

The Factory Girls by Frank McGuinness

Reviewed by Lauren Graffin on 24 April 2013 24 April - 1 June, 2013 (on tour) in City Factory, Derry

The Factory Girls, written by Frank McGuinness and directed by Catriona McLaughlin, tells the story of five women who, faced with the threat of redundancy, stage a lock-in, hoping to reclaim power from the men “upstairs”. As the audience is ushered into a disused factory in Derry/Londonderry...

Read this review

Richard II by William Shakespeare

Reviewed by Harvey O'Brien on 24 April 2013 23 April - 4 May, 2013 in the Peacock Theatre

Shakespeare didn’t really write about Ireland. It features in Richard II, yes, and there it serves a measure of narrative and contextual function. It’s a kind of tipping point in the fate of the King (Patrick Moy). Having failed to successfully mediate in a domestic dispute between his cousin...

Read this review

« First
« Previous
Page 15 of 81
Go to page:
Next ›
Last »

The content of Irish Theatre Magazine and this web site is solely the opinion of the authors and not necessarily of the editors.

Website design & development by