What do Ireland’s theatres have in store over the year ahead? Expect comebacks by Conor McPherson and Annie Ryan, an intriguing deep dive into a hidden history by Louise Lowe, plays by Tina Fey and Aaron Sorkin, and a solo performance by Jodie Comer.
A Slow Fire
Glass Mask Theatre, Dublin, January 20th to February 14th, glassmasktheatre.com
After cleaving Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya into a solo vehicle for Andrew Scott in London and New York, the renowned playwright Simon Stephens gives his latest script to Dublin’s intimately small Glass Mask Theatre. Somewhere during an apocalypse, two men trapped in a bunker perform stories from the outside world; then they receive a surprise visitor.
Prima Facie
Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, January 27th-31st, gaietytheatre.ie
Star power fuels this venture from the creative edges of London’s commercial theatre world, which banks on Jodie Comer, the actor who plays Villanelle, the gleefully sociopathic assassin, in Killing Eve. Here she gives a complex, Tony and Olivier award-winning portrayal of a high-achieving London barrister who specialises in defending men accused of sexual assault.
Eureka Day
Gate Theatre, Dublin, January 30th-March 7th, gatetheatre.ie
A run of Jonathan Spector’s play at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, was cancelled after a shake-up of the venue’s board by US president Donald Trump. Eureka Day shines an intelligent light on vaccine scepticism in a corner of the United States you might be surprised by: an incredibly liberal California, where concerned parents refuse vaccines during a mumps outbreak. The Gate Theatre’s latest in an excellent sequence of American imports, after Fun Home and Circle Mirror Transformation, features Philippa Dunne, from the Sharon Horgan comedy Motherland, and is staged by the buzzy London director Roy Alexander Weise.
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The Cunning Little Vixen
Siamsa Tíre, Tralee, Co Kerry, January 31st, then Everyman, Cork; Lime Tree, Limerick; Town Hall Theatre, Galway; Hawk’s Well, Sligo; An Grianán, Letterkenny; Solstice Arts Centre, Navan; Pavilion, Dún Laoghaire, irishnationalopera.ie
Sophie Motley, auteur of lyrical ruralism – Farm, Letters of a Country Postman, Werther – sounds like an ideal choice to direct this Czech work, with its busily inhabited forest, for Irish National Opera. Its pair of swooning canines, seen outfoxing their human captors, have been compared with opera’s greatest lovers.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin, February 10th-21st, and Grand Opera House, Belfast, February 24th-March 7th, mockingbirdplay.com
Aaron Sorkin’s script doesn’t just artfully reorder Harper Lee’s slow-burning novel into an immediate courtroom drama; it’s also trying to purge the anxieties of a 2010s United States where racism is oppressively resonant. The result resembles a kind of reassuring fantasy in which racism is to be solely blamed on a select group of impoverished and uneducated white people. But if you enjoy Sorkin’s cathedral speeches and verbal throwdowns, this is for you.
Fair Deal
Abbey Theatre, Dublin, February 11th-March 28th, abbeytheatre.ie
The title of this new play by Una McKevitt, who also gave the Abbey One Good Turn, a surprisingly reassuring comedy about long-term illness, suggests a satire of the absurd demands on home carers.
Animal Farm
Mac, Belfast, February 18th-28th, themaclive.com
Tinderbox Theatre’s next renovation of a classic – after relocating Lorca’s drama Yerma from hot, dry Spain to a remote Irish Border county, and presenting Ionesco’s absurdist Rhinoceros via the glitchy physicality of a 1980s video game – turns to George Orwell’s classic of usurpation and corruption. A group of women imprisoned during an anti-government protest come across the novella in their confinement.
The Last Moth
Ark, Dublin, March 5th-15th, ark.ie
This new work, by the visual artist Jesse Jones and her young collaborator Naomi Moonveld-Nkosi, follows an outsider moth on an adventure into the unknown. The Ark’s pairing, as cocreators, of an adult artist and a child artist is a first for the venue.
The House Must Win
Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, April 16th-May 3rd, and Everyman, Cork, May 6th-16th, thehousemustwin.com
Mick Flannery’s concept album Evening Train – a multicharacter tale set in a bar filled with poker and Tom Waitsian blues – was originally envisioned as a musical. After a decent effort a few years ago, Flannery has taken a go at the book himself – and recruited Liam Robinson, the celebrated musical arranger of the folk opera Hadestown by Anaïs Mitchell. Tommy Tiernan and the singer Tabitha Smyth are among the cast.
The Madonna of Asia
New Theatre, Dublin, April 28th-May 2nd, thenewtheatre.com
After the impressive docudrama Where Are You From? and the superb installation play Window a World, Choy-Ping Ní Chléirigh-Ng’s new work is about an Irishwoman discovering a former Hong Kong film star keeping a low profile in Dublin. Ní Chléirigh-Ng is also a startlingly impressive designer: don’t be surprised if there are sublime stage displays.
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin, April 30th-May 1st, bordgaisenergytheatre.ie
The dance satirists Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, who first emerged from New York’s off-off-Broadway scene 50 years ago, bring their electrifying comedy to Ireland for Dublin Dance Festival. Expect intelligent prods at Tchaikovsky classics and American masters of modern dance.
Tea in a China Cup
Lyric Theatre, Belfast, May 2nd-30th, lyrictheatre.co.uk
How encouraging to see a revival of this breakout play by Christina Reid, who died in 2015. An impressive on-the-ground account of Belfast spanning three decades, from the second World War to the early years of the Troubles, Tea in a China Cup has always been a veiled family tree – Reid wrote it as a 40-year-old single mother, tracing the lives of her own mother and grandmother.
The Good Luck Club
National Archives of Ireland, May 27th-June 15th, anuproductions.ie
The title of this intriguing offering from Anu refers to the Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstake, the private operation set up during the early years of the State to finance the country’s medical institutions. Staged at the National Archives, Louise Lowe’s production is expected to take audiences through the murkier depths of an organisation entangled with wealthy gamblers. There was never an inquiry into the sweepstakes during its 60 years, but Anu’s play sounds as if it may have the critical approach of an investigation.
Páidín Mháire
Galway, May, brutheatre.com
Part of a year-long programme dedicated to the Galway-born writer Pádraic Ó Conaire, Brú Theatre adapt this gritty short story about a maimed fisherman who, in the dark depths of his suffering, retreats into a seaborne fantasy.
The Whiteheaded Boy
Abbey Theatre, Dublin, June 3rd-July 18th, abbeytheatre.ie
Annie Ryan’s first production for four years is a revival of Lennox Robinson’s 1916 comedy about a flunking medical student returning home. Director of the physically nimble Corn Exchange company for 30 years, Ryan will surely get Robinson’s comedy up on its feet.
Constellations
Cork Arts Theatre, June 17th-21st, corkartstheatre.com
When Gwyneth Paltrow missed a train in Sliding Doors, alternating between different versions of the same story became a piece of pop-culture psychology. Constellations, a what-if romcom, has so many parallel universes that it can be slippery to grasp its stakes, but it could be irresistibly charming in the hands of the talented young Cork director Al Dalton.
The Brightening Air
Gate Theatre, Dublin, July 17th-August 30th, gatetheatre.ie
After his tremendous musical Girl from the North Country in 2022, the playwright and director Conor McPherson returns with this rural drama about unrequited love in 1980s Sligo that begins on a path resembling Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya but then pivots into a startlingly strange expression of Haughey-era Ireland. No word yet on whether this touring production from London’s Old Vic will retain its original cast of Chris O’Dowd and Rosie Sheehy.
Mean Girls
Grand Opera House, Belfast, June 9th-20th, and Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin, August 25th-September 5th, meangirlsmusical.com
Tina Fey adapts her beloved 2004 film about girl-on-girl crime at a suburban high school into a cleverly postmodern musical, assisted by her collaborator and husband Jeff Richmond (who’s also the composer for 30 Rock, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Girls5eva). It comes with winking comments about musicals – and about our current era, mired by online bullying and social media. Mean Girls still has wisdom to share about avoiding pitfalls and staying true to ourselves.
Judy: End of the Rainbow
Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, September 8th-19th, and Grand Opera House, Belfast, September 21st-26th, gaietytheatre.ie and goh.co.uk
We eagerly await the casting for this very demanding portrait of a disintegrating Judy Garland giving her final concert performances. A joint venture from the veteran producers Breda Cashe and Pat Moylan.
Refuge
Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick, and Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, dates to be announced, fishamble.com
Connections between Limerick and southwest Germany are unearthed in Deirdre Kinahan’s new play, which traces the Palatine settlers who found refuge in Ireland in the early 18th century after fleeing war and famine.
