Dublin Theatre Festival

Various venues, Dublin dublintheatrefestival.com01-6778899

In its 55th year, the Dublin Theatre Festival seems to be going back to basics. That’s one way of interpreting the tagline “Your city, your stories”, which finds its keenest expression in Corn Exchange’s new adaptation of James Joyce’s Dubliners, the festival’s opening production (above). But the expanse of festival director Willie White’s first programme suggests that it’s a much more generous rubric.

Old stories are being re-examined under a revealing new light, such as Druid’s searing cycle of three Tom Murphy plays, to form a psychological narrative of emigration and dispossession. Meanwhile, legendary New York experimental company The Wooster Group is chasign the ghosts of performance by reassembling Richard Burton’s famous production of Hamlet.

Literary resonances abound in Landmark and Hatch Theatre’s co-production Talk of The Town, Neil Bartlett’s adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray for the Abbey, and the return of New York’s Elevator Repair Service with their Hemmingway adaptation The Select (The Sun Also Rises).

With stories, however, form is as crucial as content. The influential Forced Entertainment is busily taking apart conventional narratives in The Coming Storm. Anticipated new work from Anu Productions (The Boys of Foley Street), The Company (Politik), Dylan Tighe (Record) and Pan Pan (Everyone Is King Lear in His Own Home) will all attest that it’s not just the story that’s important – it’s the way that you tell them.

Can't see that? Catch this:Don't even go there, pal

PETER CRAWLEY