Reviews

Medea Redux by Neil LaBute

Reviewed by Seona MacRéamoinn on 08 March 2010 8 March 2010 (originally premiered, Aug 2009) in Smock Alley Studio

The choice of plays by young companies honing their skills usually speaks volumes for their judgement and calculated risk taking, and on this front Bluepatch score highly for their production of Neil LaBute’s Medea Redux which was given a third airing on International Women’s Day in Smock...

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Roméo et Juliette by Charles Gounod

Reviewed by John White on 05 March 2010 27 February, 1 / 3 / 5 / 7 March, 2010 in Gaiety Theatre

As the Gaiety theatre curtain slowly rises during the overture, a chorus eyeballs us from the Stygian gloom and we know that we are going to witness a particularly dark version of this well-known story. And no better way to achieve this than to give it the Victorian Gothic treatment, with the House...

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Una Santa Oscura by Ian Wilson

Reviewed by Peter Crawley on 04 March 2010 4 - 6 March, 2010 in Project Arts Centre

Just what kind of a person was Hildegard von Bingen? Was she, as history records, a devout 12th Century anchoress and mystic, cloistered not only in her abbey, but also in her devotional music compositions and frequent ethereal visions? Or can we make the case for a tortured shut-in, expressing herself...

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The Dove and the Crow by Philip Doherty

Reviewed by Siobhán O'Gorman on 04 March 2010 3 - 6 March, 2010 in Town Hall Studio, Galway

The combined silence and stillness of actors on stage can have a profound impact, especially when such moments of calm are as rare as they were in Artemis Flow’s production of Philip Doherty's newplay,The Dove and the Crow. Following the death of his mother, the play’s protagonist, Cormac,...

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Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Christopher Hampton

Reviewed by Harvey O'Brien on 02 March 2010 2 March - 24 April 2010 in Gate Theatre

Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a delicious text. Adapted by Christopher Hampton from Choderlos de Laclos’ 18th century epistolary novel charting the correspondence between several parties involved in a set of interconnect sexual conquests aimed at destroying virtuous reputations and enhancing wicked...

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Still, the Blackbird Sings: Incidents at Ebrington Barracks by David Duggan

Reviewed by Fintan Walsh on 02 March 2010 27 February - 14th March, 2010 (on tour) in Project Cube

Francis Ledwidge was a poet and a patriot, born in Meath in 1897. As the title of the play draws to our attention, Ledwidge was also known as ‘poet of the blackbirds,’ on account of the subject matter of his verse. Duggan’s commission for the Playhouse takes Ledwidge’s time at...

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Sticks & Stones by Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan

Reviewed by Susan Conley on 26 February 2010 22 February - 13 March, 2010 in Bewley's Café Theatre

In California in 1991, Rodney King’s abuse at the hands of the LAPD was a shot of video heard round the world. The blatant use of force – in the form of repeated and relentless attack on the part of police with their batons, 56 blows all told – sparked a nationwide reaction; all the...

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Stretching Larry by Bryan Delaney

Reviewed by Patrick Brennan on 22 February 2010 15 February - 13 March, 2010 in Theatre Upstairs @ the Plough

Stretching Larry takes its title from an old anonymously composed Irish traditional ballad from the early nineteenth century called 'The Night Before Larry Was Stretched'. The tune tells the tale of a good lad by the name of Larry who faces being hanged for probably resisting the imperial British forces...

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Off Plan by Simon Doyle, an adaptation of the Oresteia

Reviewed by Patrick Lonergan on 16 February 2010 10 - 27 February, 2010 in Project Arts Centre

It’s often been noted that Irish dramatists seem to have an unusual affinity for Greek tragedy – but perhaps that reputation disguises the fact that the majority of Irish adaptations have been unsuccessful, both artistically and commercially. Marina Carr, for instance, re-imagined Medea as...

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The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht, adapted by Ralph Mannheim

Reviewed by Pádraic Whyte on 16 February 2010 16 February - 19 March, 2010 (on tour) in Waterfront Hall Studio, Belfast

In times of national economic crisis, sometimes it appears that the best option is to support powerful individuals in a blinkered fashion, placing our faith in them to get us out of this mess, despite our knowledge of their past corruptions and their tendencies to create ‘jobs for the boys’....

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