Fringe takes over the city centre

With the Dublin Fringe Festival now fully into its stride, our reviewers get out and about in search of surprises

All Dressed Up to Go Dreaming ***

International Bar

All Dressed Up to Go Dreamingis a curious study of suspense and atmosphere. A suited, seated gentleman serenades a silent audience, then dances with the lifeless form of a loved one. The sparse text, by AM MacEachern, is a gothic meditation on the nature of art and love spoken largely through the voices of others: the pithy philosophical epithets of William Blake, James Joyce and George Bernard Shaw, and the poignant pseudo-philosophies of romantic Gershwin ballads as performed by Frank Sinatra among others (including our disturbed host).

Aoife Spillane Hicks directs with a subtle sense of mood and tone that achieves real moments of beauty, while Arlo Hill's Minister is intriguing and sympathetic as well as sinister. However, as a mere 20-minute experience, the show effects no more than a vague, unsettling feeling. But perhaps this central flaw is actually a compliment: it leaves you wondering what happens next. Until Sat SARA KEATING

All in the Timing ***

Bewley's Cafe Theatre

Actually, it's all in the delivery with this brilliantly performed, if rather heavy helping of American absurdum from Inis Theatre. Across six one-act plays (read sketches) by David Ives, quirky stage devices and metaphysical gags trace the spluttering miscommunications of a zany world.

An awkward pick-up attempt is continually replayed by Bryan Burroughs and Kelly Gough - backtracking with each bumble - until they reach a cheeringly impossible compatibility. Three monkeys race against infinity to rewrite Hamlet. And two lonely souls (Ruth McGill and Karl Quinn) turn fluent gibberish into the language of love.

Director David Horan recognises the tone as somewhere between Monty Pythonand Tom Stoppard, and the four performers bring unflagging amperage to the cerebral slapstick.

Ives always pushes his jokes too far, however - oddly, his timing is the problem - with only a spot-on Philip Glass parody nearing the sought-after emotional heft behind the mirth. The jokes don't have a perfect strike rate, but the joy here is in the way they tell 'em. Until Sept 20 PETER CRAWLEY

Appointment in Limbo **

Samuel Beckett Theatre

It is the opening night of Limbo, an implausible name for a strip club but the first indication that Pat McCabe's meandering new play is set on a border between worlds. In Zelig Theatre's production, the clientele trundle in from the ghostly reaches of Irish history, each stained by unpardonable crimes, among them one of the Shankill Butchers, a paedophile priest and two of the IRB's notorious "Invincibles".

Barmaid Mary (Sileóg O'Halloran) doesn't know what to make of this ragtag group of sinners and, frankly, neither do we. Clumsily assembled, tiresomely self-divulging, and ceaselessly moved to sing traditional ballads, they strike you less as characters than shameful emblems of the nation's past. In the absence of plot, conflict or tension, they merely await damnation, taunted along the way by Daniel Costello's creepily amusing Mickey McDiddley (one part Hannibal Lecter to three parts Daniel O'Donnell).

Director Cathal Cleary can't compensate for the play's dramatic inertia, and our appointment stretches towards the purgatorial. Until Sun PETER CRAWLEY

Chatroom ***

Smock Alley

The row of apparently bored and inattentive youngsters behind me at the opening of Enda Walsh's play for Calipo Productions was a perfect gauge for the success of the playwright's intentions. Initially, their distracting comments and restless shifting about were maddening, but as the play proceeded to its unpredictable climax, they were, like the rest of the audience, sucked into the drama.

Walsh's dialogue-laden play about a suicide chatroom and cyber-bullying among sinister, manipulative teenagers has its slow moments. The dialogue itself is not typical of teens, who are perhaps more likely to communicate in grunts, expletives and body language than in the full, elegant and well-rounded sentences of this play. But it is nonetheless an absorbing piece with an important message, and the young cast, directed by Darren Thornton, is well able to meet its demands. Until Sat NOELEEN DOWLING

Drinking Dust*****

Smock Alley

Choreographers live with the ephemeral all the time - now you see it, now you don't - but Megan and Jessica Kennedy of Junk Ensemble revel in transience and cracked memories. In Drinking Dust, they've collaborated with Brokentalkers and together harmonised a collection of images - still and moving - that gradually string threadbare connections between characters. Birthday cakes, family stories and father-daughter dancing reveal the background to the action, but they also conceal the truth because of our unreliable memories. Rather than dusting off these reminiscences, the creators leave them untouched and unmediated, letting the audience piece together the familial narrative. Lean in material, Drinking Dustis a work that is confident with its slim choices, and gradually winds up to a dust-strewn finale that provides an emotional resolution, even if many questions still remain. Until Sept 20 MICHAEL SEAVER

How to be Loved **

Bewley's Cafe Theatre

This was one of the most challenging experiences shared by this reviewer in some time. Forgiveness has to be conceded at the evident innocence and inexperience behind this original work from the new Mirari Productions company. Suffice to say, it is about one Catherine Hart, who suffers from CWY (Celebrity Worship Syndrome!) and is convinced she is the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. It might have worked if played as high farce, but not as here, as tragedy, where it frequently teeters on the risible. It is good to know the company is already working on a second production, as most assuredly they will learn valuable lessons from this one. Because, though it may be about the original "candle in the wind", this production has as much drama as the sleepy flickering flames on each table in Bewley's Cafe Theatre. Until Sat PATSY McGARRY

La Voix Humaine ****

James Joyce Centre

Jean Cocteau's 1929 drama seems effortlessly modern in the hands of Randolf SD director Wayne Jordan. Solo performer Dee Roycroft is the architect of the entire performance, addressing the audience directly with a brief programme note before dimming the lights and taking up her position: "Now I will begin."

La Voix Humaineunfolds as a phone conversation. A woman, recently abandoned by her lover, attempts to reopen the lines of communication. The interruptions of the operator disrupt the shared history that the woman is hoping to reconnect with. However, these technical glitches are metaphorical too: the telephone is an instrument of intimacy as well as one of distance, allowing the woman to hold on to her lover despite his desertion.

The repetition and gender stereotypes of La Voix Humainemay frustrate some viewers, but the studied restraint of Roycroft's performance is absorbing. Sometimes there is nothing more compelling than the mere sound of the human voice. Until Sept 17 SARA KEATING

Little Gem ***

Project Cube

Another day, another monologue play, although, to its credit, Little Gemis exploring the voices of Irish women rather than, as is usual, those of the men. Setting the lives of three generations alongside each other, writer Elaine Murphy opens the airing cupboard on the world of mother-daughter-granny relationships, where cups of tea are shared along with sexual desires and anxieties. Murphy displays an impressive ear for idiom, while her observations are astute and funny.

Hilda Fay, Anita Reeves and Aoife Duffin provide brilliant characterisations, Fay in particular exuding coy charm with conviction. Paul Meade directs with a steady hand, although some poorly integrated projections do not compensate for the static form of the play itself, which would benefit from an editor's firm hand. Gúna Nua's production is entertaining, but the lasting impression is comfortable rather than thought-provoking. There's nothing wrong with that at all - in fact it makes for a good night out - but sometimes you want a bit more. Until Sat SARA KEATING

Polaroid **

Smock Alley

That tried and tested style of Jo StrØmgren is, unfortunately, no longer delivering the goods. The wrangling over the radio that "provides" the sound, the petty rivalry and bullying in a group of catty women (this time enhanced with lesbian overtones), the weird made-up language (made slightly more intelligible by a bizarre and potentially - potentially - moving story in English) . . . it's just not cutting it any more.

The piece feels like MS's wet dream of a TV advert for athletic underwear.

Among the bizarrely pointless elements there are beautiful and lyrical moments, such as a dancer swinging a lightbulb in an increasing arc over her head, creating superb and eloqent lighting effects reminiscent of the polar seasons or the phases of the moon. Sadly, though, they're not enough to save a self-indulgent and aimless piece. Until Sat CHRISTINE MADDEN

Solo Adaptations ****

Project Cube

Deborah Hay's choreographic method imposes intrepid questions such as the one dancers Julie Lockett and Emma Fitzgerald separately consider in Solo Adaptations. They address whether "every cell in our bodies has the potential to realise the uniqueness and originality of all that there is" - and, thankfully, their responses bring some levity to the conundrum. Lockett's easy manner in The Ridgewafts from a meditative chant into a made-up language and on to gesturing that looks like a radio antenna searching for a station. In The Runner, Fitzgerald's happy, sweeping movements morph from a nightclub shimmy into a stance fit for a toreador.

Hay's painstaking process must be rewarding as so many dancers undertake it, but the pleasure in watching comes from seeing personalities emerge rather than in analysing their approach. Show concluded CHRISTIE SEAVER

Stopping by the Woods ****

International Bar

If crime is random, so too is life - "sorta . . .". At least it is for true Dub Gavin, weaned on mugging and suburban shoplifting gigs, traipsing in the shadow of yer man Frank, who dumps him in it after stealing "a funny-looking car". Gavin stuns not just his wheelchair-bound victim but himself by brutally wielding a screwdriver on his way to building sandcastles in Mountjoy. Briefly, he finds his soul behind bars, soaring on the wings of hapless praise from a creative-writing teacher - only to falter, like Icarus, simply for daring to hope.

Paul Kennedy's tragi-comic play conveys the pathos and amoral desperation of the drug-addicted adolescent chomping on fast-food chicken and dreams of making out. Gavin is valiantly played by Steve Neeson. The humour lies in the irreverence, the terror in the innocence. Until Sat MARY MOLONEY

The Common Will ***

Bewley's Cafe Theatre

Phil Kingston wrote and performs in this one-man play about William Shakespeare. The great playwright talks about his youth, his family, his sexual penchant for boys and, naturally, his writing. His account ends just when he has created Hamlet.

Although the word "interesting" is faint praise when applied to the theatre, it may accurately be applied to this 50-minute piece. There is a mild frisson in hearing the great man comment on his contemporaries such as Christopher (Kit) Marlowe (a good writer) and Ben Jonson ( a turn-off). He has things to say, too, about the politics of his day, its royalty and lords.

We are offered more of a soliloquy than a monologue, a complex meditation that often taxes the concentration. Kingston's script tends to cater for the acting rather than the story, but he is certainly worth his thespian keep. Until Sat GERRY COLGAN

The Fall*****

Spiegeltent, Iveagh Gardens

"I'm a 50-year-old man and I like it!" Mark E Smith, singer and sole constant of The Fall, screeched at a receptive audience in the Spiegeltent. Of course he does. For the past three decades, Smith, a weasel-faced Mancunian with a voice like a faulty food processor, has constructed elaborate, reactionary whinges more appropriate for a man many times his actual age. A tent is the correct place for a revivalist meeting and, following an excellent supporting set by RSAG, a sort of one-man Pere Ubu, the Hip Priest thrilled his acolytes with a characteristically incandescent combination of incessant riffs and imaginative bile. As is often the case, the youthful, disciplined musicians - most, surely, not born when The Fall first formed - looked faintly terrified, but some members of the audience were confident enough to accept the proffered microphone and deliver mighty vocal support. Incomparable. Unbeatable. I'm a 44-year- old man and I liked it. Show concluded DONALD CLARKE

The Show About the Show ***

Filmbase

After being welcomed with a glass of wine, audience members are asked to sit closer to the stage for the arrival of performer Priscilla Robinson, who then sustains the easygoing charade by asking for a hand with her slide projector and clipping her performance notes on a board so everyone can see her plans for the next hour. This show, she explains, is based on her experience at last year's Fringe festival, when she opened up her Dublin flat to her public in KuddelMuddel(German for "clutter"), regaling them with pictures of her strict Baptist childhood and stories of her years in therapy.

In this further attempt to blur the boundaries between life and art, the comedy and games are gentle rather than provocative, though Robinson's interaction with the audience plays cannily on their slight unease. The darker themes implied in the material are kept at bay, and even the appearance of Robinson's self-assured mother on stage, helping in a recreation of 1970s family life, is not used to instigate conflict.

Aptly, it all feels a little like a congenial non-conformist church service with an original and offbeat preacher. Until Sat GILES NEWINGTON

Those Powerful Machines **

New Theatre

Roddy, shuffling about his apartment on crutches, powered by impotent rage, has arranged an evening of bondage with Trace, a hostess from a nightclub. Their evening is interrupted by Clanger, an old ally of Roddy's in the struggle against capitalism, consumerism and whatever it is you're not having yourself, who rakes the embers of their shared past to get what he needs in the present.

This is a dark and twisted play from Arnold Thomas Fanning that struggles to find its place between gallows humour and plain unpleasantness. Steve Gunn is assured as the meddling Clanger, wheedling what he wants out of those around him with a nonchalant deftness, and Rachel Rath delivers the fragility of Trace, a woman trying to piece herself back together, while the other two conspire to blow bits of their world apart. As Roddy, Thomas Farrell is a ball of vicious anger, roaring his way around a stage as he rages against the machine.

The script seems to take a long time to reach its payoff, and the dynamic between the actors is somewhat disjointed, but if you like your humour pitch-black, this could be just the ticket. Until Sept 21 LAURENCE MACKIN

What's in the Stars?

***** Brilliant **** Good *** More good than bad ** More bad than good * Bad

• The Dublin Fringe Festival runs until Sun, Sept 21. For details, see www.fringefest.com

• Fiona McCann's blog on the Dublin Fringe Festival is at www.irishtimes.com/blogs/onthefringe