Theatre News | Stage Listings, Reviews & More |The Irish Times

Karoline O’Sullivan: We all need a place to belong, something which is certainly reflected in the programme of Short+Sweet Dublin. A longing to be part of something, for connection is a recurring theme.

20 tiny plays for Ireland: we all need a place to belong

Karoline O’Sullivan
October 16, 2019

Short + Sweet Dublin’s Karoline O’Sullivan on bringing the renowned Sydney festival home

Rich palette: Hiroaki Umedia in Median

Median and Accumulated Layout review: Powerful statements about our relationships with each other and with technology

Michael Seaver
October 16, 2019

Belfast International Arts Festival: Hiroaki Umeda’s opening double bill showcased his belief in dance as the heart of a multisensory experience

Baba Yaga will take place as part of Baboró, in the Town Hall Theatre for 7-13 year olds

‘Totally different to creating work for adults’: Theatre makers on working with children

Sara Keating
October 15, 2019

Baboró arts festival in Galway will bring 14 theatre companies to perform for children

Sopro: Tiago Rodrigues has created a gentle portrait of one theatre, built in nostalgic moments

Sopro review: Memoir of an invisible woman

Peter Crawley
October 14, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: The backstage view becomes a way of seeing the world in Tiago Rodrigues’ elegant piece of metatheatre

The Haircut!: Thommas Kane Byrne (centre) with Berginald Rash, Nicola Ciccarelli and Lioba Petrie. Photograph: Ros Kavanagh

The Haircut! review: King Labhraidh Loingseach gets a makeover

Sara Keating
October 14, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: This perfectly paced production for ages eight and up retells the Irish folk tale for a new audience

Collection of Lovers: Raquel André gives not so much a performance of love as a parody of it

Collection of Lovers review: Can’t a woman can’t take a bath with a stranger any more without them getting the wrong idea?

Peter Crawley
October 14, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: Raquel André has, to date, gathered together 245 strangers to manufacture and document the illusion of intimacy. Where will it all end?

Irina Kolesnikova in St Petersburg Ballet Theatre’s staging of Swan Lake

Leg warmers and legal rows: Behind the scenes of St Petersburg’s Swan Lake

Christie Seaver
October 12, 2019

Prima ballerina Irina Kolesnikova talks about the life’s training behind her Irish shows

Burgerz: Travis Alabanza lifts the lid on our potential for empathy, alliance and complicity. Photograph: Dorothea Tuch

Burgerz review: A mordant meditation on a hurled insult

Peter Crawley
October 10, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: A wry, wounded Travis Alabanza confronts transphobia

Amy McElhatton (Maggie), Aisling Kearns (Emma), Sile Maguire (Ali) in Asking for It by Louise O’Neill, adapted for the stage by Meadhbh McHugh.Photograph: Jed Niezgoda

The week’s best plays: Asking for It and Playboy of the Western World

Peter Crawley
October 10, 2019

Louis O’Neill’s Asking for It is revived for the Gaiety, while Playboy crosses the Border

Removed: as Adam, Conor O’Donnell shows the importance of programming challenging work in community spaces

Removed review: Children on the edge, told with integrity and grit

Ciara L Murphy
October 10, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: Fionnuala Kennedy’s play stays true to the experiences of young people in care

Real Magic: canned laughter, tense music, ticking clock. Photograph: Hugo Glendinning

Real Magic review: A ludicrous Groundhog Day gameshow

Deirdre Falvey
October 9, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: This never-ending gameshow is bleak, painful, playful and sometimes funny

Us/Them: Gytha Parmentier and Roman Van Houtven give impeccable performances in Carly Wijs’s production

Us/Them review: A story for children that no child should ever have to hear

Sara Keating
October 9, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: Bronks stages a powerful, politically charged account of the Beslan massacre

Travis Alabanza in Burgerz

Processing trauma: this week’s Dublin Theatre Festival highlights

Peter Crawley
October 5, 2019

Us/Them and Burgerz take very different approaches to transforming trauma, the first through matter-of-fact playfulness, and the second through the prism of fast food

Total Immediate Collective Imminent Terrestrial Salvation: that Tim Crouch compares his fictive strategies to the darkest manipulations of politics seems bleakly grandiose. Photograph: Mihaela Bodlovic

Total Immediate Collective Imminent Terrestrial Salvation review: A read-along adventure to apocalypse

Peter Crawley
October 3, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: Tim Crouch’s new play compares playwrights to cult leaders and dictators. Are we all on the same page?

Your Words in My Mouth: the show makes us not just consider but also represent a distant stranger’s perspectives

Your Words in My Mouth review: What’s not to love?

Peter Crawley
October 3, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: Turning watchers into performers, this unusual show finds a subtle route into theatre’s fundamental aims

Pike St: Nilaja Sun portrays life in a New York tenement. Photograph: Teresa Castracane

Pike St review: A storm threatens Manhattan – and a family

Sara Keating
October 3, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: Nilaja Sun plays three generations of characters with ease

A Love Like That: the play is filled with allusions to myth and legend. Photograph: Brendan Foreman

A Love Like That review: Wistful drama teeming with myth and legend

Peter Crawley
October 2, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: Billy Roche’s new play turns modest characters into legends in their own lifetimes

Walking to Jerusalem: a fascinating story which highlights a worthy cause. Photograph: Mark Kensett

Walking to Jerusalem review: A personal and political one-man travelogue

Sara Keating
October 2, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: Justin Butcher serves as an energetic guide along the Roman roads out of Europe

Travis Alabanza calls the oppression and violence that trans people face ‘terrifying’. Anti-trans hate crimes are on the rise and suicide rates in the community are shockingly high

One man hurled a transphobic slur and a burger. Nobody did anything

Patrick Kelleher
October 2, 2019

Anti-trans violence: ‘This is a matter of life and death,’ says Travis Alabanza, whose one-person show Burgerz tackles the issue head-on

$Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster: Nicola Gunn’s performance evokes a fractured society. Photograph: Maria Baranova$ Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster review: Poirot, Maeterlinck and a stoned duck

Peter Crawley
September 30, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: Nicola Gunn brings ceaseless motion to a restless meditation

Faultline: this immersive performance is thrillingly immediate. Photograph: Pat Redmond

Faultline review: Immersive journey through a societal upheaval

Peter Crawley
September 30, 2019

Dublin Theatre Festival: This absorbing new work remembers a faultline in the early days of Irish gay rights

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