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

Emmet Byrne, Úna Kavanagh, Aoibhínn McGinnity, Patrick Ryan and Aidan Kelly in the Corn Exchange production of ‘The Misfits’ at Smock Alley Theatre as part of Dublin Theatre Festival. Photograph: Ros Kavanagh

The Misfits: Marilyn Monroe’s swansong gets a stage reboot

Donald Clarke
September 22, 2018

Corn Exchange is tackling Arthur Miller’s play for Dublin Theatre Festival. Ghosts of John Huston’s troubled 1961 movie loom large

Näher... Closer, Nearer, Sooner: dancers appear out of nowhere, then vanish. Photograph: Luca Truffarelli

Näher... Closer, Nearer, Sooner review: A lithe interplay of recollection and retrospection

Christie Seaver
September 21, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: Liz Roche deftly celebrates the Goethe-Institut’s new building

The Fattest Dancer at St Bernadette’s: Julian La Blanc and his unpredictable sidekicks. Photograph: Ste Murray

The Fattest Dancer at St Bernadette’s review: A hilarious stage school send-up

Sara Keating
September 20, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: Thommas Kane Byrne stars in his reinvention of the one-man show

Drip Feed: Karen Cogan mixes the lyrical and the brutal. Photograph: Jonathan Birch

Drip Feed review: A giant bender, and many laughs, expose a darker reality

Deirdre Falvey
September 20, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: Karen Cogan is precise and engaging as Brenda, ‘youngish, female and queer’ in 1990s Cork

The Cat’s Mother: Erica Murray’s play is a sly moral teaser about taking responsibility

The Cat’s Mother review: A dark comedy dressed up in hot pinks

Peter Crawley
September 20, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: Sisters contemplate putting their senile mother out of her misery

Shame: Pom Boyd has been performing from an early age, in awkward fabrications before grown-ups, or flustered improvisations to cope with social anxiety and regressive gender politics. Photograph: Derek Speirs

Shame review: Strutting like a punk diva through a lifetime of self-doubt

Peter Crawley
September 20, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: Pom Boyd confronts family demons in an absorbing autobiographical show

My Dad’s Blind: Anna Shiels-McNamee and David O’Meara. Photograph: Ste Murray

My Dad’s Blind review: Singular vision of a life marred by blindness

Mick Heaney
September 20, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: Two-hander is marked by visual flair and dark comedy

For Saoirse: the tireless Eric O’Brien plays Craner in Colm Keegan’s play. Photograph: Babs Daly

For Saoirse review: Well worth travelling up Dublin’s Champs-Élysées to see

Donald Clarke
September 20, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: Colm Keegan’s Ballymun odyssey rarely takes an expected turn

Confirmation: Xnthony stages his story as a confessional coming-of-age pop concert. Photograph: Brian Teeling

Confirmation review: Xnthony’s confessional coming-of-age concert

Sara Keating
September 19, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: This musical memoir of growing up gay in rural Ireland is sonically stirring but lacks focus

Seahorse: Mara, the pregnant heroine of Christiane O’Mahony play, isn’t sure she is ready to hand over her life to a “tiny dictator”. Photograph: Engin Akyurt

Seahorse review: A one-woman play that is at its best when at its funniest

Sara Keating
September 19, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: A few tweaks could give Christiane O’Mahony’s play a deservedly long life

Trial of the Centurys illustration by Ruan van Vliet

Trial of the Centurys review: An adorably awful comedy musical

Peter Crawley
September 19, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: Trelliot, twin-brother pop stars who fell to earth, get their day in a cardboard court

Willie White, director of the Dublin Theatre Festival. Photograph: Dave Meehan/The Irish Times

Who is Dublin for? Who do we want to share it with?

Peter Crawley
September 19, 2018

Dublin Theatre Festival director Willie White on Arts Council rows and Ireland’s cultural deficits

Aaron Monaghan and Garry Hynes. ‘

Sympathy for the devil: how DruidShakespeare got to the soul of Richard III

Peter Crawley
September 17, 2018

For director Garry Hynes, the desire to portray this tortured king goes back years

Lex Talionis: the cast are subtle, birdlike without overegging it. Photograph: Aoife Cahill

Lex Talionis review: A bird’s-eye view of revenge tragedy

Peter Crawley
September 17, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: Excellent performances make Liam Heylin’s pithy new play fly

The Money: 12 players try to win the pot by agreeing how to spend it within an hour. Photograph: Steve Tanner

The Money review: Human nature on absorbing, infuriating display

Peter Crawley
September 17, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: What’s at stake in Kaleider’s ‘showgame’, cash or democracy?

Beat: Fionntán Larney’s excellent debut is a persuasive anatomy of toxic masculinity. Photograph: Ste Murray

Beat review: A sharp Dublin hip-hop drama for the ‘Hamilton’ generation

Peter Crawley
September 17, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: Fionntán Larney’s debut is spry, considered and sophisticated

Foil, Arms & Hog: long-time Dublin Fringe Festival favourites

Craicling review: A sense of the absurd – and a lot of craic

Deirdre Falvey
September 17, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: Foil, Arms & Hog are silly, inventive and genuinely very funny

Samira Elagoz’s story is an intimate one, but her performance is cool and detached. The overall effect is both very disturbing and immensely sad.

Cock Cock, Who’s There? review: The darkest parts of net dating culture

Sara Keating
September 15, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: Why should a woman need safety procedures when encountering men she doesn’t know?

Caged: articulate with just a few awkward transitions upsetting the performance energy

Caged review: A swipe at objectification and violence against women

Michael Seaver
September 14, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: Sickening testimonies of abuse set against slick aerial dance and song

Running + Walking In The Phoenix Park: doesn’t so much go nowhere fast as saunter around in circles at a gentle trot

Running + Walking In The Phoenix Park review: Offbeat jogging show runs out of breath

Mick Heaney
September 14, 2018

Dublin Fringe: Multimedia drama on traversing Dublin’s municipal space has absorbing elements but eventually wears thin

Everything Can Be Dismantled: One humble utopian vision emerged: “It’s great,” somebody said of the improvised shelter. “Rent-free.”

Everything Can Be Dismantled review: a rehearsal for change amid the housing crisis

Peter Crawley
September 14, 2018

Dublin Fringe Festival: During yet another housing flashpoint, a new collective asks us to imagine alternatives by trying out alternative structures

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