The Peacock Theatre currently hosts Enda Walsh’s The New Electric Ballroom as part of The Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival.
The Druid production has received much critical acclaim and accolades including The Irish Time Theatre Awards for Best New Play and Best Supporting Actor and it’s easy to see why.
A story of three middle-aged sisters living in a remote fishing village in rural Ireland, the women having taken to a life of near hermitage after a tragic night many years ago. The story of the fateful night at “The New Electric Ballroom” has haunted the sisters throughout their adult lives so much so that the story is replayed in vivid detail each and every day.
Walsh portrays a frighteningly grim scenario of how life can become so warped if you allow yourself to become isolated from the world at large. Despite the sad undertones of the play it manages to be funny, sweet and just a little bit wicked filled with imaginatively witty word play.
A reasonably short piece with no interlude The New Electric Ballroom is thoroughly enjoyable and I have spent many a moment since considering the unanswered questions which have lingered. Questions which only add to the charm of the play as a whole.
I can’t recommend this one highly enough and will be doing my best to get back to see it for a second time before the end of the run.
I reviewed it here: http://www.culch.ie/2009/04/24/review-the-new-electric-ballroom-town-hall-theatre-galway/
Did Darren go?
Oh Allan, can I plead that it’s part of a diferent run?
Everyone who has seen it seems to have taken a similar view (although you worded it better than I). It’s a stunning play.
And the language, oh the language “For all his miracles and great creation , you’d imagine our Lord could have created a more dignified point of arival”.
Listen, if we had every contributor doing their own take on the plays of Enda Walsh every week I’d be more than happy. Good theatre needs to be talked up as much as possible. And I’ve a tenner on with Midnight Court that Enda Walsh will be considered as important to the canon as Friel in twenty years.
The language is stunning. See the Walsworth Farce too if it’s going to be anywhere near you. I went on Monday night and it’s such a great piece of theatre, hilarious and sinister at the same time.
Bless me father for I have sinned.
I have a confession to make: This is the first of Enda Walsh’s plays I’ve ever seen. I now have a feeling akin to the first time I saw Bette Davis on screen, I want to see everything.
The Peacock have the full screen play in book form as the programme so it’s a nice little memento to come away with. I think The Peacock & The Abbey do this with most plays.
They made it into a film? ;P
From this description, it actually sounds a little like the Walworth Farce. Allan, is it? Thematically it sounds quite similar… I saw it in Galway years ago, and t’was utterly utterly fantastic.
Also, I’d LOVE to’ve seen Disco Pigs as a play, but the film’s ace also.
@froodie, it’s thematically very similar, but it’s much more abstract. It doesn’t have an easily identifiable temporal or geographical setting like the …Farce, and I actually preferred it.