Posted on February 3, 2012 by Darren
The Opera Theatre Company is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary by touring the country with a production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Perhaps one of the most well-known and accessible operas, I do have to praise the cast and crew for bringing it to life. The production design is lavish and the vocal talent is impressive, even if there were one or two logistical problems to do with the staging in the Sam Beckett Theatre in Trinity College Dublin.
Sing no evil...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: Freemasonry, Magic Flute, Mozart, Opera, Opera Ireland, Opera Theatre Company, Sam Beckett, Theatre, Trinity College Dublin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 2 Comments »
Posted on January 2, 2012 by Darren
Jimmy Fay’s version of The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui was one of the highlights of the past few years at the Abbey, so seeing the director handle Nokolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector is an interesting premise. While Fay handles the play wonderfully well, with a (mostly) solid cast and superb staging choices, I can’t help but feel that Roddy Doyle’s translation of the play is just a bit “on the nose”, striving for a bit of forced relevance with countless references to “brown paper envelopes.” Perhaps the best indication of the show comes from the wonderful inset in the programme, illustrated in a pleasant enough style by Irish Times cartoonist M. Turner – a mock-up cut-out selection that includes mock-up heads of Bertie Ahern and Charlie Haughey. One senses that the production might have had a bit more bite a few years back.
Family values...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: abbey theate, bertie ahern, corruption, Fianna Fáil, Government Inspector, graft, Ireland, irish, irish times, play, Roddy Doyle, the abbey theatre, The Government Inspector, Theatre | 2 Comments »
Posted on October 17, 2011 by Darren
Peer Gynt can be a daunting play to put on. Running at five hours, it’s a show that tests your audience’s bladder control at least as much as their patience. Still, it’s one of those absolutely wonderful fantasy stories that demands retelling and reimagining, with a wonderfully raw quality to it as it is passed down and filtered through countless interpretations. Rough Magic have produced a rather wonderful version of the story as part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival, playing at Belvedere College. It an impressive and engaging take on a classic story, working off a new version by writer Arthur Riordan.
Peerless?
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: arts, Belvedere College, dublin, fiction, Henrik Ibsen, humour, Peer Gynt, Theatre, Ulster Bank | Leave a comment »
Posted on September 30, 2011 by Darren
Donka: A Letter to Chekhov is a rather wonderful addition to the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival. Between this and the Absolut Fringe, theatre-lovers have been quite spoilt of late – I’m still looking forward to checking out Peer Gynt by Rough Magic in the next week or so. Donka: A Letter to Chekhov is a rather wonderful and imaginative little show loosely connected by vignettes inspired by or related to the works of Anton Chekhov, as written and directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca, who also wrote and directed Corteo for Cirque de Soliel. It’ really rather wonderful and magical.
All going accordian to plan...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: Anton Chekhov, arts, Blake Morrison, Chekhov, Cirque de Soliel, Corteo, Daniele Finzi Pasca, Donka, Donka: A Letter to Chekhov, literature, Peer Gynt, Performing Arts, Russian, Stage, Theatre, Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival, World Literature | 3 Comments »
Posted on September 17, 2011 by Darren
If you see one show at the Dublin Fringe, see Man of Valour. If you see two shows, see Man of Valour twice. If you see three shows… well, maybe you should see something else the third time, for variety’s sake. Man of Valour is easily one of the most energetic and exciting pieces of theatre I’ve seen all year, with superb direction and a fantastically impressive leading man, it really feels like the lovechild of a one-man show with a big-budget action movie.
A man-ic performance...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: absolut dublin fringe, absolut fringe, arts, dublin, Paul Reid, Performing Arts, samuel beckett theatre, the corn exhange, Theatre | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 30, 2011 by Darren
Hey, I was invited to take part in the latest movie blogger meme by the wonderful Marc over at Go, See, Talk. The idea is to pretend you run a movie theatre and schedule a week of double-bills for that cinema. There are no other rules, save for the fact that you run a triple-feature on Sunday. So I peered into an alternate universe where I was allowed any sort of responsibility, and came back with a handy brochure for Cine-Moi, the exclusive high-end movie theatre experience that my alternate self has somehow bamboozled his way into running (not into the ground… so far). Let’s see what a typical movie schedule might look like.
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 2001: A Space Odyssey (film), arts, cinema, Clint Eastwood, david cronenberg, Double Feature Blog-A-Thon, Movie, Saturday morning cartoon, sergio leone, Theaters, Theatre | 25 Comments »
Posted on June 20, 2011 by Darren
Blood Brothers, as written by Willy Russell, is one of the most enduring musicals in the world. An institution on the West End since 1988 (where it is still playing to this day), the relatively simple but poignant story of two brothers separate at birth but drawn together by fate clearly has a powerful popular appeal. It’s easy to see why with the run currently playing at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre, featuring Rebecca Storm returning to the role that made her a star, giving a powerhouse performance in a top-notch production.
Blood money...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: arts, Blood Brothers, dublin, Gaiety Theatre, Performing Arts, Rebecca Storm, the gaiety theatre, Theatre, West End theatre, Willy Russell | Leave a comment »
Posted on April 11, 2011 by Darren
The Passing is one of the new plays from Paul Mercier playing at the Abbey, alternating with Mercier’s other new work, East Pier. The Passing is essentially a story about how disconnected we’ve grown as a nation, out of touch with one another, and our roots. It’s the type of reflection that one sees frequently these days, so it seems reasonable to expect any material covering the theme to try to approach it in a novel or an interesting way. Instead, The Passing is just about passable as an exploration of social isolation in 21st century Ireland.
Pass on this one?
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: abbey, abbey theatre, arts, disconnected, dublin, passing, Paul Mercier, Performing Arts, society, the abbey, the abbey theatre, the passing, Theatre | Leave a comment »
Posted on March 20, 2011 by Darren
I had a chance to talk to Grace Dyas on Friday evening during rehearsals for her show HEROIN, which will be playing at axis, Ballymun from next Thursday (you can get more info here). Grace is a third of the theatre company known as THEATREclub, which she co- founded in November 2008. The group found huge success bringing one of her earlier plays, ROUGH, to Ballymun last year. With HEROIN winning the “Spirit of the Fringe” award at ABSOLUT FRINGE last year, and Grace picking up the Fishamble New Writing Award for ROUGH the year before, I think it’s safe to say that the company’s energy is only matched by their ability.
Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: absolut fringe, arts, axis ballymun, axis theatre, Ballymun, dublin fringe, grace dyas, heroin, Performing Arts, Substance dependence, Theatre, THEATREclub, Troupes and Companies | Leave a comment »
Posted on November 6, 2010 by Darren
Jumping The Shark is the moment when an established show changes in a significant manner in an attempt to stay fresh. Ironically, that moment makes the viewers realise that the show has finally run out of ideas. It has reached its peak, it will never be the same again, and from now on it’s all downhill.
– tvtropes.org
Jumping the Sharks is a small, quirky play. Essentially a one-man one-act play following the triumph and decline of a Hollywood big shot as he waits in what must be limbo while outlining the seven core stories, it banks a lot on the central performance of Don Wycherley. Wycherley, an actor you might recognise from Perrier’s Bounty or Sweeney Todd, gives the play his all as former television executive and now dearly departed Nick Cross, managing to seem a convincing and charming conversationalist on a sparse stage. His delivery is truly impressive, inviting the audience to overlook some of the sleight of hand the play uses, and helping the hour breeze by.
Swimming with sharks...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: Aaron Sorkin, arts, blood in the alley, don wycherley, dublin, dublin theatre, Fonzie, Happy Days, Jump the Shark, jumping the sharks, nick cross, popular culture, smock alley, smock alley theatre, Theatre | Leave a comment »
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