Reviews

The Secret Life of Me by Fregoli Theatre Company

Reviewed by Matthew Harrison on 30 June 2011 28 June - 2 July, 2011 in Town Hall Theatre Studio

An interesting facet of a drama that denounces the falsity of vicarious living is that play-acting itself must be the most vicarious of all professions ever to have evolved. The Secret Life of Me, written by Fregoli Theatre Company’s actors, seems to gloss over this irony, at the same time that...

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Translations by Brian Friel

Reviewed by Harvey O'Brien on 29 June 2011 29 June - 13 August, 2011 in the Abbey Theatre

In a time of austerity and inexorable pressure to conform to a nominally benign but fundamentally aggressive centrism that is threatening the erasure of sovereignty, the native Irish face the challenge of holding onto their uniqueness. Education may be the key to preserving the sense of the ‘why’...

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Molly Sweeney by Brian Friel

Reviewed by Sara Keating on 28 June 2011 28 June - 23 July, 2011 in the Gate Theatre

Brian Friel’s 1994 play Molly Sweeney is rarely performed, perhaps because there are so many better Friel plays to choose from. This is not to suggest that Molly Sweeney is a bad play, but when placed alongside the radical experiments of early plays like Philadelphia, Here I Come!, the potent politics...

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Request Programme by Franz Xaver Kroetz

Reviewed by Fintan Walsh on 24 June 2011 13 - 25 June, 2011 in Apt. 109, The Elysian Tower

Just getting to the apartment where Request Programme takes place involves navigating numerous lifts, stairs, and a showy Japanese garden. We enter the modern two-bed residence at different stages, one by one. Before the central figure in this performance (Walsh) arrives home from work, we have up to...

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Man of Valour by Michael West, Annie Ryan and Paul Reid

Reviewed by Fintan Walsh on 22 June 2011 22 - 26 June, 2011 in Everyman Palace Theatre

Ashen-faced Farrell Blinks leaves home, hops on a bus to work, and takes the elevator to his office in Dublin. “Hi Farrell,” a female colleague coyly greets as he strolls to his desk, desperate to grab his attention. Switching on his computer, his mind immediately starts to wander far away...

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Francis & Frances by Brian McAvera

Reviewed by Jennifer Lee on 21 June 2011 13 - 25 June, 2011 in Focus Theatre

Almost two years after the centenary celebration of Bacon’s birth in 1909, his name(s) makes a welcome return in Brian McAvera’s latest work, Francis & Frances. In a play about the life and work of Francis Bacon (and his alter-ego Frances), one might expect to see something of the speckled...

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Iphigenia at Aulis by Euripides, in a new version by Andy Hinds

Reviewed by Fintan Walsh on 20 June 2011 20 June - 2 July, 2011 in Project Arts Centre

A parched tree, an earthy stage floor and the suggestion of a blue sky are all that signify we are in Mediterranean territory. In Classic Stage Ireland’s production of Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis, in a crisp new version by director Andy Hinds, the focus is very much reserved for the clear...

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Dockers by Martin Lynch

Reviewed by Jane Coyle on 16 June 2011 16 June - 10 July, 2011 in Lyric Theatre

The year is 1981. The economy is in a bad way, jobs are in short supply and in London there is a royal wedding. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It was also the year in which a scruffy young Belfast writer took his first faltering steps into the world of professional theatre, when his play about the...

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Breathing Water by Raymond Scannell

Reviewed by Siobhán O'Gorman on 16 June 2011 14 – 18 June 2011 in Town Hall Studio

With its rhythmic dialogue and rapid character changes, Raymond Scannell’s award-winning first play, Breathing Water, seems like it was written for Fregoli. The experimental piece is comprised of narrative fragments and dramatic vignettes which render the story of Jonah and his mysterious fear...

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The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Reviewed by Wolfgang Marx on 16 June 2011 in the Pavilion Theatre

The Magic Flute is in many ways a hybrid of an opera: as a ‘singspiel’ – a German comic opera – meant to entertain the middle and lower classes, it also highlights serious issues of enlightenment and the victory of reason over emotion (based on Masonic symbolism; Mozart himself...

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