Reviews

Writers' Week 2010 by various

Reviewed by Nicola Depuis on 26 November 2010 23-26 November, 2010 in Cork Arts Theatre

It is often lamented that there are so few women working as playwrights and theatre directors in Ireland. However, the recent Writers' Week at the Cork Arts Theatre delivered a promising amount of female work in both areas with three of the five plays produced written by women and four of the five plays...

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Anything But Love by Mary Coll

Reviewed by Breda Shannon on 26 November 2010 26 Nov - 11 Dec, 2010 in Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick

Post Celtic Tiger and firmly rooted in a modern secular Ireland, Mary Coll’s new play and only her second reflects with acuity its time and its place. Anything But Love, the opening production of Limerick’s long-awaited and beautifully refurbished Belltable, is inspired by Kate O’Briens’...

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Tosca by Giacomo Puccini

Reviewed by John White on 19 November 2010 11-19 November, 2010 in Gaiety Theatre

First, the drama before the drama. Soprano Cara O'Sullivan was meant to share the role of Tosca with Orla Boylan for this, Opera Ireland's final production. Unfortunately, as rehearsals began, a leg injury of some kind sustained by Cara put paid to that. What a fantastic idea to get two of our own international...

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Men of Tortuga by Jason Wells

Reviewed by Harvey O'Brien on 12 November 2010 11 - 29 November, 2010 in Focus Theatre

Men of Tortuga is a sharp, pacy thriller set in an anonymous corporate suite where three executive types plot the assassination of an enemy. There’s Maxwell (Gerry O’Brien), the senior leader, ideologically opposed to the man he intends to kill and once committed to his action, inflexible....

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Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, adapted by Alan Stanford

Reviewed by Christina Mahony on 09 November 2010 9 Nov 2010 - 15 Jan 2011 in Gate Theatre

The history of stage adaptations of novels is long and illustrious, and the reworking of the writings of the Brontës includes stage, film, dance and operatic treatments, and Ireland seems to have a particular propensity for such literary theatrical versions. It is not surprising, then, that Alan Stanford’s...

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Oedipus by Seneca

Reviewed by Jesse Weaver on 09 November 2010 9 - 20 November, 2010 in Smock Alley Boys School

The difference between Sophocles Oedipus Rex and Seneca’s Oedipus are striking from the get go. In Company D’s production of Seneca’s version of the tragedy we’re introduced to Oedipus as a fearful and indecisive politician, hunkering down within the safety of a bunker as his...

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Happy Days by Samuel Beckett

Reviewed by Fintan Walsh on 09 November 2010 9 - 20 November, 2010 in Project Arts Centre

Up to her waist in crap, Winnie (Simpson) knows what it’s like to be us. Engulfed by earth, and separated from her beloved Willie (Bennett), Beckett’s protagonist refuses to give in to despair in the face of certain annihilation. “Begin your day… mustn’t complain,”...

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The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh

Reviewed by Patrick Brennan on 06 November 2010 23 Oct - 6 Nov, 2010 (on tour) in George Bernard Shaw Theatre, Carlow

One of the great achievements of Martin McDonagh’s 'Leenane Trilogy' is the mixture of consciously caricatured, stylised and silly stage-Irishness in the language and much of the behaviour and references, which is contrasted with its diametric opposite, that of a murderously brutal and cruel underbelly....

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Big Ole Piece of Cake by Sean McLoughlin

Reviewed by Sara Keating on 03 November 2010 2 - 27 November, 2010 (on tour) in Civic Theatre, Tallaght

Sean McLoughlin’s new play Big Ole Piece of Cake charts familiar territory. In the tradition of Irish naturalism, it places familial dysfunction under the microscope in a rural domestic setting; in this instance in the home of lonely bachelor Clarence, who is so desperate for company that he adopts...

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Wet Paint by Shane Casey

Reviewed by Rachel Andrews on 31 October 2010 29 - 31 October, 2010 in Granary Theatre

Actor Shane Casey developed the idea for this play about male friendship and the limits of masculine communication in order to create, among other things, “a show that his parents would enjoy seeing.” True to this ideal, this no fuss production offers a straightforward, humorous antidote...

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