Dublin Fringe Festival

Reviews.

Black Snow ***
SS Michael and John

Despite Lost Trolley Production's nostalgic programme note about the crucial role of censorship, strife and oppression in the creation of great art, Mikhail Bulgakov's satirical novel, adapted here, has lost none of its pertinence. No totalitarian regime is needed to produce the timeless figures from the literary and theatrical worlds he evokes: aspiring writers, irresponsible press, exploitative publishers, opportunistic impresarios.

Of course, Bulgakov's experience under Stalin gives an extra bite to his observations of self-serving mediocrity in this "theatrical novel": when his works were banned, he was allowed a sinecure at the Moscow Arts Theatre, run by Stanislavski, where he attempted to write plays allegorically critical of the regime. Deborah Staunton's adaptation is lively and economical - though still stretching to two hours, with imaginative staging by Caroline Staunton in this expansive venue. While the cast of 28 moves easily through the space, individual performances don't manage to find the required tone of brittle comedy. (Until Sat) Helen Meany.

Duel: Sons of Liberty II  ***
Smock Alley

"We're Stina and Lisa! We do half-pornographic performance theatre!" This frantic description, delivered during yet another of the Norwegian duo's disjointed, perverse and occasionally very funny sketches, is as good an assessment as you are likely to find. Not pornographic in a sexual sense (although there is plenty of that), but rather in its tireless pursuit of absurd depravity: misanthropic therapists, careful instructions in suicide, the songs of Enrique Iglesias . . .

There is much here that may annoy - their nihilistic collapse of theatrical artifice, the anarchy of non-sequiturs and movie references - but I was won over by its relentlessly dry Scandinavian irony. Stina Kajaso and Lisa CB Lie play daring games with gender, their bold tastelessness expressed in everything from using gang rape as a punchline to matching fire-engine red stilettos with metallic silver leggings. And even if you are unmoved by their audience massages and sickeningly funny fruit fight, objectors can always stay to lob a complimentary tomato. (Until Sun) - Peter Crawley.

The Flowerbed ****
O'Reilly Theatre

This is another tale of dysfunctional self-destruction from Fabulous Beast, this time a re-worked revival from 2000. Essentials of the plot have been preserved as squatters move next door to an anal middle-class family.

They quickly breach behavioural boundaries with their boorishness and the physical boundary between the gardens with a planted flowerbed. As enmity intensifies so does the love between rival son and daughter, echoing Romeo and Juliet. Lacking the more parochial barbs of The Bull, some set-pieces, like the tennis match, feel tame, but the performers capture whatever humour is going through physical nuances. Poking truths through caricature is at the heart of Michael Keegan Dolan's craft but movement sequences - primarily fight sequences and a swinging pas de deux between the lovers - are blunter. As always, redemption is never an option as the animosity leads to the inevitable pile of bodies onstage. (Until Sun)  - Michael Seaver

Shake, Rattle and Noel ***
T36 Theatre

A late addition to the festival, Shake, Rattle and Noel is a one-man, autobiographical show about Noel Faulkner, who runs London's Comedy Café. The hour-long monologue is a fast-paced, humorous account of his life, from when he first started experiencing symptoms of Tourette's syndrome, to the time when he was finally diagnosed some three decades later.

Faulkner's life is full of incident - to put it mildly. Having grown up in Clifden, he emigrated to London and then the US, seeking out countercultures where he wouldn't stand out. Along the way, he dressed Gary Glitter, acted with Robin Williams, smuggled drugs from Columbia to the US and was on the run for seven years.

Sometimes Faulkner's pace is too frenetic, with his leaps from anecdote to anecdote leaving gaps in the narrative, and at times he lapses into a sing-song delivery. In general, however, he is an engaging storyteller, giving a light-hearted, illuminating insight into an often misunderstood condition. (Until Sun) - Eimear McKeith

Maria Tecce - Torch  ***
Spiegeltent

Maria Tecce is in love and she wants the world to know it. In the Spiegeltent, a timeless and luxurious setting for Tecce's jazz cabaret, the chanteuse gave voice to love in all its passion and impossibility.

Alternately vampish and demure, she and her fine band - Phil Ware's spacious piano, Dave Redmond's nimble bass and Kevin Brady's soft percussion with guest saxophone from Richie Buckley - evoked romance as it should be, for the launch of her album, Torch Song.

With all the slow smoulder and role-play that the title implies, Tecce slinked through her material, donning personas and revelling in cabaret's performativity. Her sultry rendition of Mi Gran Amor balanced with the sombre phrasing of No One Needs to Know and the compelling swing of One for My Baby. Often she seemed to settle on a voice appropriate to her song rather than the other way round, and the spell almost breaks, but, asking us to love well and love often, her songs enchant with their warm embrace.- Peter Crawley

The Pitchfork Disney ****
Players Theatre

We see too few productions of Philip Ridley's drama in this country. Young Irish company Shiny Red Chocolate Paper have corrected that omission with their fabulous rendition of The Pitchfork Disney, Ridley's 1991 play about a brother and sister, Presley (Bush Moukarzel) and Hayley (Aisling B O' Sullivan), who live in a parentless squalor on a diet of chocolate, sleeping pills and storytelling.

Hayley is heavily sedated to sleep by Presley when into this hopeless existence comes a glamorous, beautiful figure, Cosmo Disney (Alan Connelly). Cosmo appears to be everything Hayley and Presley are not, namely adult and menacing. However, all is never as it seems in Ridley's typically potent fusion of childhood nightmare and grown-up fantasy of calculation and ulterior motive. The arrival of a figure known as Pitchfork Cavalier in executioner's mask adds further edge to this fabulously acted and knowingly directed production that should be on your list of 'must see'. (Until Sun) - Patrick Brennan

Underneath the Lintel *****
Project Cube

American writer Glen Berger has received numerous awards for his captivating play, Underneath the Lintel, which receives its Irish premiere courtesy of the skilled and tenacious Landmark Productions.

Described as an "existential detective story", the play follows a solemnly comic Dutch librarian as he attempts to track down a miscreant reader who has returned a library book which has been overdue for 113 years. Within his search the librarian discovers that he is on the heels of a myth, even, in fact, in possession of a myth's shabby corduroy trousers.

He is also exploring the nature of time, the substance of one life, the point of a single action when set against the enormity of an infinite, relentless and often callous universe. Brilliantly and movingly played by Phillip O'Sullivan, with little more than a blackboard, a slide projector and a battered suitcase, this one-man show has to be a highlight of this year's Fringe - provocative, mournful and extremely funny, it really is unmissable. (Until Sat)  - Hilary Fannin