Sl(t)áinte: An immersive body-horror journey through Ireland’s healthcare system

Sl(t)áinte

Lir Academy

★★★★☆

Imagine a waiting room. You’re new to the practice, and a nurse hands you a medical declaration form. Except now imagine that the nurse is wearing a leather animal mask and that a deep, warped voice is speaking to you over the intercom: “The doctor will be with you in a moment.”

Around the waiting room, surrounded by strange images, mannequins and fake stuffed legs, the audience looks over its declaration sheet and a list of possible pre-existing health conditions. A woman is rolled past into another room, in the foetal position under a plastic sheet, candles lighting beneath her.

We’re led into the main performance space, where red aerial silks and ropes hang from the ceiling, and a woman begins thrashing around to intense, harsh, overstimulating music.

Sl(t)áinte takes its audience on an immersive “body horror” journey, incorporating circus, theatre and installation art, to raise questions about sexuality and Ireland’s healthcare system, particularly for women and the working class.

‘I have not had contact with my siblings for many decades, nor did I attend my parents’ funerals’

---

Olivia Rodrigo in Dublin review: Watch out Taylor Swift. This bona fide pop superstar is coming for you

---

Misadventures in babysitting: ‘We trusted her. Here she was drinking and dancing as our son cried’

---

Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV+: 10 of the best new shows to watch in May

---

Kate Dunne is an excellent aerial artist and performer, keeping her audience transfixed – and unnerved – for the 60 minutes of the show.

[ Dublin Fringe Festival reviews ]

The music grows louder and the lights flash faster, pills, medical gloves and scissors strewn on the ground, until the lights go out.

The team behind Sl(t)áinte have created a unique show; its achievement is the lasting impression it leaves. Some of the audience leave the theatre looking stunned. “That was an interesting one,” one woman is overheard remarking.

Continues at the Lir Academy, as part of Dublin Fringe Festival, until Saturday, September 16th