Reviews

Alcina

Alcina by G.F. Handel

Creating a satisfying production of a Handel opera is always a difficult nut to crack for directors. For a start, there's the 'star turn' of aria after aria beloved of eighteenth-century audiences which goes against the natural arc of a modern narrative. Add to this, the economic necessity of eliminating...

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Dispersia by Shane McDermott

Where have all the flowers gone? In Fregoli Theatre Company’s offering to the 2009 Galway Theatre Festival, they’ll be sandwiched between the toasters and vinyl records and piles of lost or unwanted detritus fromthe throw-away-world of writer Shane McDermott’s purgatorial play, Dispersia....

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The Shadowmen

The Shadowmen by Debbie Caulfield and Réa Curran

Poet Debbie Caulfield works with composer and musician Réa Curran on this carefully researched fable of climate change and sustainable development. The text originated as a long poem, but the underlying science is accurate and is the fruit of the writer’s collaboration with the Northern Ireland...

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Setanta Murphy

Setanta Murphy by Garret Keogh

They do not address death directly, yet in Setanta Murphy it is there, floating over this heartwarming dialectic between youth and old age. Cream dust covers hang predatorily above a simple room of a bare wooden table and chair, telegraphing what is to come. In this two-hander, one man shuffles towards...

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Transparency

Transparency by Suzie Miller

Australian playwright Suzie Miller’s new play Transparency, developed by the National Theatre in London and premiering with Ransom Productions, explores the troubling issue of violent crimes perpetrated by children. The questions that these cases pose about the nature of evil, the limits of responsibility,...

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The Government Inspector

The Government Inspector by Nicolai Gogol, in a version by Bill Scott

The Greystones Theatre is an unlikely venue, tucked in almost obscurely behind Church Road, between the car park and Super-Valu, with a very low ceiling, a lot of wood panelling and a serviceable stage better suited to gigging or stand-up comedy than to a play – not a very promising start. Yet...

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Johnny Patterson the Singing Irish Clown

Johnny Patterson the Singing Irish Clown by Little John Nee

Mesmerising. Enchanting. Magical. Touching. Ingenious. Innovative. Quirky. Endearing. Experimental. Different and highly imaginative. All words that appropriately describe Barabbas’ latest theatrical offering. This time it’s a collaboration with Little John Nee, an inimitable and very Irish...

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The Dead School

The Dead School by Pat McCabe

Almost every second person educated in an Irish primary school up to the 1970’s has woeful stories of brutality featuring a cane, a hard duster or the twisting of an ear. It’s a far cry from whiteboards, ‘Well Done Stars’ and ‘Good Effort Robert,’ irrespective of the...

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A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

There exists in Waterford a practice by professional and non-professional arts practitioners to work together without being fixated on who is the professional and who is the volunteer. Red Kettle maximised on this collaborative tendency and responded to the current financial climate (being felt particularly...

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When the Hunter Returns

When the Hunter Returns by Lally Katz

Is there a problem when one wants to rave about the venue – the extraordinary, atmospheric Boys’ School at Smock Alley – rather than the play, the production or the acting? It’s a breathtaking, gaunt three-storey cuboid, stripped of flooring and ceiling, to make one dark, cavernous...

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