The Tales of Ballycumber is playing at the Abbey Theatre - it’s opening this week in fact, as part of the 2009 Dublin Theatre Festival. I’ve was invited down to the theatre to watch the set being built. It started out in the design phase as just a model: where only certain details could be seen: and then progressed onto the main stage where it’s taken on a life of its own, including a startling 5,000 daffodils!
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 … There’s more
I attended the opening night of KAMP, part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival 2009 last night. This is what they say it’s about: An enormous model of Auschwitz takes up the whole stage with crowded huts, a railway line, and a gate with the slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei”. The model of the camp comes to life with thousands of 8cm high hand-made puppets, representing the prisoners and their executioners. The actors, like colossal war correspondents, weave through the scene with hand-held cameras. They film the atrocities. The audience becomes witness. Not a word is spoken, the audience only experiences the sights and sounds, which transcend the powerlessness of the figures into much more than a mere reporting of events. It is, quite simply, amazing. Performed by Herman Helle, Pauline Kalker and Arlène Hoornweg has three amazing attributes that make it worth seeing: The camera angles The sounds The … There’s more
When asked during his Culture Night Q&A if he was afraid of the reaction of people who had come along to see the play expecting to see a version of the movie made for the stage, playwright Conor McPherson laughed and admitted “Not until now.“ From the celebrated author of such masterworks as Rebecca, Jamaica Inn and My Cousin Rachel, comes Daphne Du Maurier’s enthralling gothic tale of mystery and suspense. Immortalised by Alfred Hitchcock in his legendary film and now re-imagined in a chilling new adaptation by acclaimed Irish playwright Conor McPherson (The Weir, Dublin Carol, Come On Over, Port Authority and Shining City), The Birds is an unrelenting and spellbinding portrait of terror and alienation. His new play, a production of Daphne DuMaurier’s short story The Birds is currently showing at the Gate Theatre as part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival and it’s as far away … There’s more
Direct from the deserts of Rajasthan, the Festival is delighted to welcome the most colourful, joyous and inspiring show likely to be seen this year. To be honest, if you’d told me what The Manganiyar Seduction at the Gaiety Theatre was going to be - or had tried to describe it to me - I’d have said “Ah, no, thanks very much though.” So I’ll describe it for you. It’s over 40 Indian males sitting in a big grid lit by light bulbs, some playing stringed instruments, some beating drums, none of them really dancing and a lot of them singing and chanting. For two hours. In Indian. What do you think? Sound like your sort of thing? I’ll tell you though - it’s fantastically brilliant. It started so so simply and basically and rises to this huge celebration of passion, of words, of music and of rhythm. Just magical.
I posted the other day about the Playhouse project as part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival. I was at the launch on Wednesday and took a short, shaky video of how it looked from the Temple Bar Gallery. It’s shaky, it’s at double speed and it’s got a dodgy tune, but Liberty Hall itself looked amazing. Part of me wished I’d known nothing about it beforehand and was just walking over O’ Connell Bridge and spotted it. Like the 100 people or so there I was mesmerised. I cannot wait to see what creativity gets broadcast from the building onto the city skyline.
If I didn’t have to work (and I do), I’d take September 24 to October 11 off this year and indulge in some world class theatre and events happening around the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival. Coincidentally around the same time as Arthurs Day and beginning not long after Dublin Fringe ends, the city is going to be awash with creativity. I picked up the brochure as soon as it came out and have been marking carefully what I’ll be going to, what I’d love to see and some of the brilliant events that are on. (Please note, I’ve had no contact with the Theatre Festival around the writing of this post - they haven’t suggested or requested it and nor did I - I’m just genuinely enthused by the line-up, and love telling people about this sort of stuff. It’s what I do.) So read on for some of … There’s more
What would you draw on one of Dublin’s most recognisable buildings? Your name in lights? A giant tetris animation? A stickman walking? A giant pen? Is that unrealistic? It’s basically filling in lots of squares! It’s your canvas and you can do as you wish with it. Daft.ie and the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival - September 24 to October 11 - are taking one of Dublin’s tallest buildings and allowing you to play with it. All you have to do is download their software and animate your thoughts to be broadcast onto the city skyline. Just head on over to here and use playhousefan as password. That’s pre-launch information, that. It’s easy enough, honest. Who knows what you could put up there! Basically Liberty Hall will be a a 50 metre, low resolution, TV screen. You can create animations with sounds and music via the website and get them … There’s more
