Dublin Fringe Festival reviews

The latest reviews from the festival

The Convent

Project Space Upstairs

The three nuns in this isolated convent - surrounded, it seems, by a perpetually brewing storm - stand constantly on the threshold of a religious miracle or a massive deception. This combination of the acrid and the divine, where one nun may fake the stigmata to remain mother superior while food is systematically deprived from her mothers inferior, marks Norweigan choreographer Jo Strømgren's scabrously funny and oddly affecting piece of physical theatre.

Beyond poverty, chastity and obedience, the nuns appear to have taken a vow of cruelty, their nonsensical words - a Strømgren trait - used to control, bully and destroy.

Yet, while it rarely backs away from a bawdy joke or a wicked, phallic image, the exquisite physicality of the performers - Guri Glans, Gunhild Aubert Opdal and Ulla Marie Broch - and their often divinely sung harmonies never dismiss the possibility of genuine spiritual abandon. If you are looking for something that challenges expectations, balancing the physical, religious and broadly comic, then get thee to this nunnery. (Until Sat).

Peter Crawley

Grimm Jam

Smock Alley

No words are needed when there's mime, music, movement, and a battered suitcase stuffed with props that have an old familiarity: a polished red apple; a missing slipper; a little red coat. For 45

minutes at lunchtime, Monkeyshine Theatre lightly spin their black umbrellas and tales of transformation, against eerie projections of a gnarled forest. In Fraser

Hooper's vivid staging, three passengers on a train become narrators and performers, as an older and younger woman vie for the attentions of a man who's happy to please both.

The Brothers Grimm provide the raw material, from Snow White to Hansel and Gretal, The Frog Prince to Cinderella, but it's fashioned by Serena Brabazon, James Jobson and Kareen Pennefather into a theatrical whole, in which one story flows into another, like a dream sequence.

The fairytale references might be too oblique for very young children,

but they can still enjoy the pictures. (Until Sun)

Helen Meany

The Licky Rake Show

Bewley's Cafe Theatre

Tracy Martin (below) has pulled on an orange top, perched outsize spectacles on her nose and embarked on an impersonation of somebody or something. Who? What? Licky Rake, whose wavering accent only intermittently touches down in the United States, is not nearly hip enough to be a version of the person alluded to in the show's name.

She is much too blousy to be a pseudo-Oprah. No. The model seems to be the pioneer of emotional diarrhoea that went by the name of Sally Jessy Raphael. If you don't remember Sally, then never fear. Snackbox Productions' show is really just an excuse for Ms Martin to work through a series of mildly obscene monologues. Dealing, for the most part, with Rake's unhappy sex life, the stories are tolerable enough, but never quite complete the journey from camp whimsy to outright hilarity. The show might profit from a later slot and a drunker audience. (Until Sat).

Donald Clarke

Nea

Bewley's Cafe Theatre

In one of the odder scheduling decisions by the Fringe, a play about excrement is playing at lunchtimes in a cafe theatre. Nea is the bizarre story of one woman's intimate relationship with her faeces. Based on a novel, The Shit, by Croatian writer Vinko Prizmic, the narrator gives us the last moments of great historical figures (Hitler, Napoleon and Giordano Bruno) and the turds they produced before shuffling off this mortal coil. Then follows an absurd fairytale about the main character and her by-product, which she repeatedly reminds us, is "a part of me, and I'm a part of it".

The performance is delivered at bullet speed with Mirjana Sajinovic tearing breathlessly through the lines in an irrepressible, and sometimes shrill, stream in several languages. An absurd, meandering comedy, then, that left the audience giggling like school kids, but didn't quite leave its mark. (Until Sat).

Laurence Mackin

Seasick Steve and King Creosote

Support, slide guitarist Niall Lawlor plays his instrument like a death row candidate hell-bent on airing every three-chord trick in his repertoire before the death knell. Scottish folkie, King Creosote is in thrall of the sound of his own voice (either a delicate flower or a puny self-absorbed wisp, depending on your perspective), his penchant for angst-driven dirges gallantly matched by a line in piano accordion mood music that might soar on a soundtrack faster than it does in three dimensions. The wait was worth it though, because Seasick Steve packs a real punch. Part-hobo, part-raconteur, and 100 per cent con man, he straddles the delta blues of John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters with a lonesome growl and a personality that's bigger than anything else the Fringe has seen all week. A cross between Utah Phillips and Bonnie Prince Billy, Seasick Steve's charismatic, spellbinding and utterly irresistible.

Siobhán Long

Stolik

SS Michael and John

Stolik (The Table) is more musical performance than theatre. Karbido have built a rough-hewn table, implanted with all sorts of microphones, whistles and sensors, which makes all manner of noise when touched via a tangle of cables and decks of effects pedals. The show works best when it revolves around the sparse narratives; for instance, one player types a letter that the other three mimic, read and respond to. However, the sounds come via guitar effects pedal boards; the table isn't intrinsic to the sound, it is merely a trigger for the largely inorganic music. When the initial novelty passes, and the players start to sing over the table's moans, groans, thuds and kicks, it loses some of its mystery and it's hard not to wonder if four percussionists with more straightforward kits couldn't do a better job. The table is a fascinating construction, but less, perhaps, than the sum of its parts. (Until Sun).

Laurence Mackin

The Trojan Women

Empty Space, Smock Alley

Michael Scott's reclamation of the Empty Space is an exciting development for theatre in Dublin, whose potential is evident in City Theatre's production. High walls, exposed brick and rough edges lend an evocative grittiness to Euripides' tragedy of the plight of women in a war zone, well matched to the "smoke and dust" of Brendan Kennelly's blunt, earthy version of the text.

Witnesses and victims of destruction, the women of the Trojan royal family voice their pain and grief, speaking down the centuries to us as they are enslaved. With words and feelings so uncompromising and impassioned, at once internalising and railing against the relentless force of misogyny, actors have a very difficult challenge. Experience shines through here, as Catherine Byrne stirringly conveys Andromache's dignity and courage, giving up her son to be murdered by the Greeks.

Restraint and coherence are less evident generally, as performance styles seem to echo the ill-assorted costumes. (Until Sat) Helen Meany

Waiting for IKEA

Bewley's Cafe Theatre

The setting is Dublin's run-down Liberties, where Chrissie is a single mother and Jade her best friend. They cheerfully hector each other in basic English, scatology being its most creative component. Flashbacks capture them at moments in their youth, when they were euphemistically learning about life.

These snapshots lead to an imminent parting of the ways, as Jade prepares to emigrate to Australia with her guy, and Chrissie faces up to an uncertain future with resilience. There is not much in the line of plot, and much of it is cliché on the lines of rough diamonds and hearts of gold.

What saves the play is its humour, bubbling through the dialogue, and the ability of the two actresses - Jacinta Sheerin (also the author) and Georgina McKevitt - to inhabit their roles with credibility. Everyone likes to laugh, and the duo are bang on the funnybone. (Until Sat).

Gerry Colgan