Sign up for alerts from The Irish Times

Notification wireframe

Just click on “Allow Notifications” on the message appearing on your browser to activate them.

bell-slash

We will send you a quick reminder in the future, in case you change your mind.

Dublin Theatre Festival

Glue: the reunion of John Cronin and Robbie O’Connor’s characters sets in motion a series of unexpected revelations that challenge the boundaries of recovery, friendship and power. Photograph: Ste Murray

Glue: A dark, unusual, timely play that pulls no punches

Dublin Theatre Festival: Robbie O’Connor’s debut has much to say about the insidious nature of predatory behaviour

Bang!: Impressive exploration of complex themes of gender and identity

Bang!: Impressive exploration of complex themes of gender and identity

Dublin Theatre Festival: Michelle Read’s play is nuanced and deeply attuned to character development

Night Dances: Raucous, loud and sweaty, this is a thrilling hour of relentless dancing and music

Night Dances: Raucous, loud and sweaty, this is a thrilling hour of relentless dancing and music

Dublin Theatre Festival: Emma Martin shows us that the best response to a challenge is to dance back

iGirl: Olwen Fouéré stalks the stage in Marina Carr’s multidimensional piece of theatre art

iGirl: Olwen Fouéré stalks the stage in Marina Carr’s multidimensional piece of theatre art

Dublin Theatre Festival: This deeply collaborative work asks how to make sense of our own stories in the continuum of human history

Conversations After Sex: ★★★★★ for Mark O’Halloran’s extraordinary new play

Conversations After Sex: ★★★★★ for Mark O’Halloran’s extraordinary new play

Dublin Theatre Festival: Kate Stanley Brennan is sublime in Thisispopbaby’s production

Uncle Ray: David Bolger, Donking Rongavilla and a rich meditation on fathers

Uncle Ray: David Bolger, Donking Rongavilla and a rich meditation on fathers

Dublin Theatre Festival: CoisCéim’s new show is a trio for a television set and two dancers

The Book of Names: Louise Lowe sharpens Anu’s enthralling approach to theatre

The Book of Names: Louise Lowe sharpens Anu’s enthralling approach to theatre

Dublin Theatre Festival: The terror of the War of Independence is unavoidable in this immersive experience

Stronger: A sensitive exploration of restorative justice

Stronger: A sensitive exploration of restorative justice

Dublin Theatre Festival: Geoff Power’s play delves into the psychology of victimhood and the circumstances that create criminals

Rearing Is Sparing: The complex, challenging reality of mothering in demanding circumstances

Rearing Is Sparing: The complex, challenging reality of mothering in demanding circumstances

Dublin Theatre Festival: TKB guides his audience through gangland violence, revenge and stigma in inner-city Dublin

What Did I Miss?: An authentic reflection of the complexity of its young audience’s lives

What Did I Miss?: An authentic reflection of the complexity of its young audience’s lives

Dublin Theatre Festival: Shaun Dunne’s play explores the ritual significance of school graduation

The First Child: Equal parts baffling and brilliant

The First Child: Equal parts baffling and brilliant

Dublin Theatre Festival: This is a remarkable conclusion to Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh’s partnership

Purple Snowflakes and Titty Wanks: Sarah Hanly grabs you by the balls from the start

Purple Snowflakes and Titty Wanks: Sarah Hanly grabs you by the balls from the start

Dublin Theatre Festival: In her first play, Hanly describes sexual exploration and discovery in her convent-school oratory

Duck Duck Goose: An uncomfortable, insightful portrayal of sexual violence’s social impact

Duck Duck Goose: An uncomfortable, insightful portrayal of sexual violence’s social impact

Dublin Theatre Festival: In Caitríona Daly’s play, the protagonist becomes deeply entangled in a rape allegation

Once Before I Go: Join the dance, live fully, live without judgment, live well

Once Before I Go: Join the dance, live fully, live without judgment, live well

Dublin Theatre Festival: Sean Campion and Aisling O’Sullivan star in Philip McMahon’s play

How It Is: Six hours of Samuel Beckett, and it’s hard to click pause

How It Is: Six hours of Samuel Beckett, and it’s hard to click pause

Dublin Theatre Festival: Conor Lovett leads Gare St Lazare Ireland’s filmed production

Gate Theatre reopens: ‘There’s a lovely sense of hysteria’

Gate Theatre reopens: ‘There’s a lovely sense of hysteria’

Audience returns for first time since March 12th, 2020, to attend Once Before I Go

Root: Undeniable good will prevails over occasional awkwardness

Root: Undeniable good will prevails over occasional awkwardness

Dublin Theatre Festival: Four talented actors provide good company throughout

Dublin Theatre Festival: ‘It’s about people assembling and I’m really looking forward to that’

Dublin Theatre Festival: ‘It’s about people assembling and I’m really looking forward to that’

Festival director Willie White emphasises the positives as audiences return to theatres

Dublin Theatre Festival 2020

The Party to End All Parties: There is a lot going on in one-and-a-half smallish packages

Dublin Theatre Festival review: Summoning the despair of an urban space in the time of Covid

Federico Julián González in Looking for América

Looking for América review: Memory tells a different kind of truth

Federico Julián González’s effortlessly engaging solo performance is personal but also has deep political resonance

Cora Venus Lunny, Caimin Gilmore and Olesya Zdorovetska in the Abbey Theatre’s production of The Great Hunger by Patrick Kavanagh at IMMA. Photograph: Ros Kavanagh

The Great Hunger review: ambitiously staged, with scenes of rare beauty

The setting at IMMA – the scope of sky and the breadth of landscape – brings to life a new theatrical version of Kavanagh’s poem

Cora Venus Lunny, Caimin Gilmore and Olesya Zdorovetska in the Abbey Theatre’s production of The Great Hunger by Patrick Kavanagh at IMMA. Photograph: Ros Kavanagh

To be a Machine review: Experimental format well-suited to play’s core theme

Self-conscious experiments complement the exploration of transhumanism

Óró:‘Periodically performers turn on taps; the sound of the water behind the music is enveloping, and the pools that build up evoke flooding and climate crisis’

Óró…: This immersive production is a feast for the senses

Galway 2020 production defies categories, incorporating music, dance and theatre

Matthew Malone in Fishamble’s Embargo, part of the Dublin Theatre Festival

‘This image of a man tarred and feathered, driving a train out of rage, just haunted me’

Deirdre Kinahan on her site-specific play about the 1920 munitions strike

Matthew Malone in Fishamble’s Embargo, part of the Dublin Theatre Festival

A Thousand Ways – A Phone Call review: An experience for two strangers

Dublin Theatre Festival: Audience members meet through a guided phone call about their lives

People celebrating the independence of Ireland on O’Connell bridge before midnight on Easter Sunday, 1949. Photograph: Larry Burrows/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images

Experience O’Connell Bridge: A Focal point for revolution and change

The Party To End All Parties is an interactive piece created against the backdrop of Covid-19

Ronan Leahy and Naomi Louisa O’Connell in Irish National Opera’s Least Like The Other, Searching for Rosemary Kennedy in association with Galway International Arts Festival in the Black Box Theatre. Photograph: Pat Redmond

Irish National Opera returning to stage after summer of shifting sands

Pandemic forced young company to revamp plans and find ways of performing online

Dublin Theatre Festival 2019

Sopro review: Memoir of an invisible woman

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

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?

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster review: Poirot, Maeterlinck and a stoned duck

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

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

Hecuba: a compelling staging of the Greek myth. Photograph: Ste Murray

Hecuba review: Perspective and psychology brought to an ancient tale

Dublin Theatre Festival: In Marina Carr’s version of Hecuba, the scale of tragedy is made rivetingly intimate

Hecuba: a compelling staging of the Greek myth. Photograph: Ste Murray

Pasolini’s Salò Redubbed review: Aims for greatness but falls significantly short

Dublin Theatre Festival: Despite the talented ensemble, neat staging and challenging concept, this production appears unconsidered

Mám: Ellie Poirier-Dolan and Kirk Patrick in Teac Damsa’s new dance production. Photograph: Ros Kavanagh

Mám review: Stirring, sensuous showcase of the physical form

Dublin Theatre Festival: Michael Keegan-Dolan’s new dance production is 90 minutes of ritualised ecstasy

Using chalk and string, the actors reconstruct the school gymnasium as though they are playing a demented game of hopscotch or Double Dutch.

Carly Wijs: ‘You can’t turn away from the horror. You keep watching’

Brussels-based playwright hopes Us/Them about Beslan siege will enlighten children

Using chalk and string, the actors reconstruct the school gymnasium as though they are playing a demented game of hopscotch or Double Dutch.

The Alternative review: Sly thought experiment which unpicks threads of history

Dublin Theatre Festival: In Fishamble’s new production, all of Ireland remains in the UK and now faces a referendum on whether to stay

How to Win Against History: Historical research, speculation and fantasy. Photograph: Damien Frost

How to Win Against History review: Glittery musical cabaret full of energy and irony

Dublin Theatre Festival: A celebration of theatrical conventions that reclaims the hidden history of a cross-dressing aristocrat

Last Orders at the Dockside: the music ranges from Irish ballads to 1980s socialist anthems. Photograph: Ros Kavanagh

Last Orders at the Dockside review: Celebration of a way of life no longer with us

Dublin Theatre Festival: Dermot Bolger’s social drama offers a window into history, but may struggle with contemporary audiences

Last Orders at the Dockside: the music ranges from Irish ballads to 1980s socialist anthems. Photograph: Ros Kavanagh

The Bluffer’s Guide to Suburbia review: Returning emigrant dissects his home in sprawling style

Dublin Theatre Festival: Ray Scannell’s ambitious musical drama is performed with aplomb but lacks focus

Mary Merritt’s baby was taken from her to be adopted. This picture shows the only time she held her baby daughter

Magdalene survivor: ‘I was raped by a priest. I want to tell my story. It is with me always’

Mary Merritt still wakes up crying at night and is now telling her story in You Can Leave at Any Time

Eloïse Stevenson as Pegeen Mike and Michael Shea as Christy Mahon in The Playboy of the Western World. Photograph: Mark Stedman

The Playboy of the Western World review: A freshly unsettling journey

Dublin Theatre Festival: It seems like a game that has spun out of control, where murder can be applauded if it is told well enough

Eloïse Stevenson as Pegeen Mike and Michael Shea as Christy Mahon in The Playboy of the Western World. Photograph: Mark Stedman

The Beacon review: Absorbing, intelligent and grimly funny

Fascinated with ideas of art and ambiguity, Nancy Harris’s play sees long hidden secrets dredged up

Beckett’s Room: no performers in this Dead Centre and Gate Theatre co-production. Photograph: Kyle Tunney

Beckett’s Room review: A play with no performers and plenty of magic

Dublin Theatre Festival: Dead Centre’s ambitious new work depicts Beckett’s formative years in Nazi-occupied Paris

Oonagh Murphy: ‘I grew up doing musical theatre so I’m not allergic in the same way that other people are’

Oonagh Murphy: On My Culture Radar

The director on Aisling Bea, the renewed relevance of Cabaret, and the joys of a Dyson fan

Oonagh Murphy: ‘I grew up doing musical theatre so I’m not allergic in the same way that other people are’

Dublin Theatre Festival gets its history on

Whether it’s looking back or casting forward, this year’s event is rooted firmly in the now

Playwright Nancy Harris: Her new play The Beacon opens at the Gate Theatre as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw/The Irish Times

Nancy Harris: ‘Plays are kind of cool now’

With two new plays opening simultaneously in Dublin and London, the playwright lays bare both a family and a political drama, full of art and ambiguity

Aislín McGuckin

Aislín McGuckin: On My Culture Radar

The actor on Azurmendi in Bilbao, Mark Ruffalo’s talent, and sources of inspiration

Aislín McGuckin

The play with no performers: Beckett’s Room is something between a conjuring act and a weird dream

As the world that made Samuel Beckett who he was becomes magically apparent, the point of Dead Centre’s unusual approach begins to makes sense

Marina Carr: ‘There’s a whole world of women’s work that isn’t being seen’

The playwright comes full circle with the Irish premiere of Hecuba at Project Arts Centre

Director of the Dublin Theatre Festival Willie White: ‘It is getting more and more difficult to make art in the city. . . There are fewer theatres in Dublin than 20 years ago, studios are closing and clubnights are disappearing. Photograph: Dave Meehan/The Irish Times

Theatre festival director calls for diverse, creative city, and more venues

New Playboy, bunch of world premieres lined up for this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival

From the archive

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

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

Subscriber Only

Dublin Theatre Festival 2021 Reviews, news and interviews from Ireland’s premier theatre festival

Stage Reviews

The Books Podcast

Most Read in Culture

1 The 50 best films on Netflix right now: From classics to new Oscar contenders

2 He shouted: ‘Help! This wee boy’s dying.’ The soldiers started clapping

3 The 100-year-old ‘it girl’: ‘Picasso took the cigarette and touched it to my right cheek’

4 Burnout nation: how has breaking point become normal?

5 Mrs Brown and Madea: A meeting of culturally reviled phenomena

6 Eoin Ó Broin: I want to live in Frank McDonald’s Dublin

7 Documenting Bloody Sunday: ‘I saw people alive, no gun, and then dead’

8 Fintan O’Toole: Bloody Sunday, the 10-minute massacre that lasted decades

9 Hugh Linehan: Bono and I finally have something in common – we both find U2 cringeworthy

10 Four new films to see in cinemas this week

Real news has value

Sign In

Forgot Password?

Sign Out