Reviews

The Danton Case by Stanisława Przybyszewska in a version by Jan Klata

Reviewed by Fíona Ní Chinnéide on 14 October 2010 13-16 Oct, 2010 in Project Arts Centre

Marat is dead in his bathtub. In case we're not sure that it's Marat, two men decked out in black frock coats and silver wigs are comparing the spectacle against print outs of the Jacques-Louis David painting. Yes, it's definitely him, and he's definitely dead. This is not a good sign. The Revolution...

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John Gabriel Borkman by Henrik Ibsen, in a new version by Frank McGuinness

Reviewed by Fintan Walsh on 13 October 2010 13 Oct - 20 Nov, 2010 in Abbey Theatre

John Gabriel Borkman, a corrupt banker who sacrifices love for the sake of his own advancement, has all the ingredients of a very urgent morality tale. First performed in Copenhagen in December 1896, the play focuses on the effects of Borkman’s embezzlement and subsequent imprisonment on the life...

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A Game of You by Ontroerend Goed

Reviewed by Harry Browne on 13 October 2010 13 - 17 Oct 2010 in Smock Alley Theatre

One inevitably comes to the third part of a trilogy with expectations. But of what? In Smile Off Your Face, Charlotte lay beside me on a bed and whispered intimately in my ear. In Internal, Aurélie gazed lovingly into my eyes, exposed her breasts and then took my contact details. (I could barely write...

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Enron by Lucy Prebble

Reviewed by Jesse Weaver on 12 October 2010 12-16 October, 2010 in Gaiety Theatre

As compared to the global financial meltdown of 2008, the story of Enron, the US-based energy-trading firm that imploded in 2001, seems like small potatoes. Of course, the past is prologue. The valuation and trading of intangibles, the creative bookkeeping and a disillusioned and defrauded public mark...

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The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane by Pan Pan, from 'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare

Reviewed by Peter Crawley on 05 October 2010 5-10 October 2010 in Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin

We all know Hamlet, William Shakespeare’s endlessly quotable, sullen procrastinator and philosopher; the prince sworn to avenge his father’s murder, but so tangled up in thought and soliloquies that he is unable. And we all know that his question is less straightforward than: a) to be, or...

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Phaedra by Hilary Fannin and Ellen Cranitch

Reviewed by Sara Keating on 03 October 2010 3 - 10 October, 2010 in Project Arts Centre

Music is a powerful theatrical tool, and Rough Magic’s radical reinterpretation of the Greek mythical story of Phaedra exploits its possibilities in a new version of Racine’s 17th century adaptation of the Greek original by writer Hilary Fannin and composer Ellen Cranitch. Cranitch’s...

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T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T. by Grzegorz Jarzyna

Reviewed by Fíona Ní Chinnéide on 01 October 2010 01-04 October, 2010 in O'Reilly Theatre, Belvedere College

The formula is this: a bourgeois family go about their hollow lives, measuring out time in brushstrokes, ledger calculations, eyeliner, church bells. They don't talk very much. A messenger – Angiolino – arrives, and with him a telegram heralding the arrival of someone. The guest arrives....

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Boston Marriage by David Mamet

Reviewed by Patrick Brennan on 30 September 2010 30 Sept - 3 Oct, 2010 in The Gate Theatre

The term a ‘Boston marriage’ was coined at the tail end of the nineteenth-century, after Henry James’ novel The Bostonians, to refer to the arrangement whereby two ladies lived together on independent means or with careers of their own in preference to a life of subservience to a male...

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565+ by Úna McKevitt

Reviewed by Fintan Walsh on 30 September 2010 Sep 30-Oct 3 in Project Arts Centre (Cube)

Marie O’Rourke sits in the front row of the theatre before her own performance begins, yapping. Not deliberately drawing attention to herself, she’s just in high spirits, spinning her head around to talk to people she knows. You can tell she’s good fun by her lively gestures and the...

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B for Baby by Carmel Winters

Reviewed by Susan Conley on 30 September 2010 30 September - 6 November 2010 in The Peacock, Dublin

Special needs characters are a section of the population rarely featured in stage plays. They get their fair share of narrative action in films, with Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal of autistic savant Raymond Babbitt in Rain Man springing immediately to mind. It’s a tricky kind of person to portray,...

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