Reviews

A Murder of Crows by Mike Kenny

Reviewed by Derek West on 26 October 2011 11 - 19 Oct, 2011 and continues in repertory. in Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny

You can learn something new every day. ‘Murder’ is the collective noun for a significant number of crows, and there is an abundance of crows associated with death and decomposition: Shakespeare filled Macbeth with carrion as sinister harbingers of fatality; Ted Hughes took his Crow to the...

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Guidelines for a Long and Happy Life by Paul Kennedy

Reviewed by Terry Blain on 24 October 2011 14 - 28 October, 2011 in Old Victor Stationery Warehouse, Belfast

“Once upon a time there was a world. And then it got fucked”. It’s a terse summary of the starting point for Paul Kennedy’s Guidelines for a Long and Happy Life, Tinderbox Theatre Company’s contribution to the 2011 Belfast Festival at Queen’s. It’s voiced by...

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Phaedra Backwards by Marina Carr

Reviewed by Tanya Dean on 23 October 2011 18 Oct – 6 Nov, 2011 in McCarter Theatre, Matthews Theatre

“I just got bored with the 'well-made play' – beginning, middle, and end, you know? We’re all kind of bored of it.” So said playwright Marina Carr on why her latest work, Phaedra Backwards, is set in “Now and Then. Then and Now. Always.” Premiering in the McCarter...

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Both Sides by Ransom

Reviewed by Jane Coyle on 22 October 2011 19 - 28 Oct, then touring until 5 Nov 2011 in Crescent Arts Centre

What does the future hold for a terrorist when the war is over? It’s not the first time that question has been asked in a play about Northern Ireland but it’s the first time that two playwrights from different generations and backgrounds have been commissioned to write interlocking pieces...

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Skullduggery by Gerard O’Shea

Reviewed by Susan Conley on 20 October 2011 18 - 29 October, 2011 in Bewley’s Café Theatre

There are any number of ‘road trip’ touchstones to be consulted when faced with a road trip play, and in this case Thelma and Louise seems most relevant, despite the gender of the characters and the reasons for the journey. In Skullduggery, we’ve got two inner city lads hopping into...

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Clann Lir & Mise, Scéal Cailín by Branar

Reviewed by Siobhán O'Gorman on 20 October 2011 17 - 23 October, 2011 in Baboró

The power of the imagination to create magic or ‘draíocht’ is central to Branar’s two recent works of puppet theatre, Clann Lir and Mise, Scéal Cailín. As the puppeteers explained before each show began, music is central to conjuring the enchanted worlds that Branar’s characters...

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Shipwrecked by eX ensemble

Reviewed by Terence Blain on 20 October 2011 19-22 October 2011 (on tour) in Solstice Arts Centre

"Renaissance Cabaret Oratorio". It's a curious tag to hang around a new piece of work, and a safe bet that it has never previously been utilised in the entire history of music theatre. It’s nonetheless a fair summary of the various strands of influence which have gone into the making...

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The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

Reviewed by Jesse Weaver on 17 October 2011 11 - 22 October, 2011 in Cork Opera House

The chill in the air is unmistakable, reinforced by the holographic image of fat snowflakes falling projected onto a progressive series of scrims stretched across the entirety of the Cork Opera House stage. Layered on top of this are washed out home movies depicting the fragmented images of childhood...

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The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien

Reviewed by Úna Kealy on 15 October 2011 14 Oct - 12 Nov, 2011 in Garter Lane Arts Centre

Edna O’Brien’s first novel, The Country Girls, originally published in the UK in 1960 was banned in Ireland for its then shocking portrayal of two young girls’ social and sexual exploits. Set in the 1950s in a parish in the West and then Dublin, the stage play expands on the novel dramatising...

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Egg by Cahoots NI

Reviewed by Derek West on 15 October 2011 1 Oct - 6 Nov, 2011 (on tour) in Draíocht

If children’s theatre is to be effective it needs to be as uncompromising in its production values as that of adults. With a backstage team of ten supporting a cast of three, Cahoots take seriously the task of making a play out of an egg, inside a black box. Directed with exacting precision by...

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