The Irish Times

Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs) runs until Saturday. Photograph: Steve Tanner

Dead Dog in a Suitcase review: An abrasive, ragged comic opera

Stage
Peter Crawley
July 18, 2019, 12:42

Galway International Arts Festival: However crude the satire, nothing can compete with reality in 2019

Karl Shiels appeared in RTÉ’s Fair City, and in many stage productions. Photograph: RTE/PA Wire

Karl Shiels: Maybe because he had been an electrician he was aware of the capacity to shock

Stage
Peter Crawley
July 17, 2019, 09:59

A passionate advocate for originality, he knew that theatre could be electrifying

Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs) comes to Galway International Arts Festival later this month. Photograph: Steve Tanner

Dead Dog in a Suitcase: High-octane theatre for turbulent times

Stage
Deirdre Falvey
July 13, 2019, 06:00

Kneehigh’s reworking of The Beggar’s Opera tale of corruption, ineptitude and irresponsibility is coming to Galway

Kneehigh Theatre perform Dead Dog in a Suitcase at Bailey Allen Hall, NUI Galway, July 16th-20th. Photograph: Steve Tanner

Epiphany and Dead Dog in a Suitcase: theatre shows to catch this week

Stage
Peter Crawley
July 13, 2019, 05:00

Druid Theatre Company stages Brian Watkins’s new play Epiphany, a serious comedy with Joycean inspiration, Cornwall’s Kneehigh turn The Beggars Opera on its head

Bullfight on Third Avenue by Eddie Naughton

The Bull Will Come Out Tomorrow: this week's best theatre shows

Stage
Peter Crawley
July 6, 2019, 05:00

A new play imagines the fractious compatibility between Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald, while an old musical makes a comeback for the summer

Theatre for One: Eileen Walsh in Bait, by Louise Lowe. Photograph: Jed Niezgoda/venividi.ie

Thought-provoking theatre where the audience is just you

Stage
Peter Crawley
June 25, 2019, 05:00

Review: Theatre for One’s six microplays are bracing, intimate-as-a-whisper performances

The Small Things: Pauline McLynn and Peter Gowan face off on a pair of small separate stages

The Small Things: Blood and violence and love, but no chemistry

Stage
Gemma Tipton
June 20, 2019, 06:12

Review: Pauline McLynn and Peter Gowan work from an extraordinary script by Enda Walsh, but the setting leaves things out in the cold

Evening Train: its song are given beautifully graduated renderings by Kate Stanley Brennan, Ger Kelly, Ian Lloyd Anderson and Deirdre Donnelly. Photograph: Bríd O’Donovan

Evening Train review: Two young men on the edge of escape, one reckless, the other desperate

Stage
Mary Leland
June 17, 2019, 14:05

It’s the simplicity of the story that resonates in this musical based on Mick Flannery’s concept album

What are we like back there in The Stalls? Picture: Miki Barlok

The Stalls review: original, confident and hilarious

Stage
Mary Leland
June 14, 2019, 17:09

Skilful skewering as opera ensemble shows audience exactly what it’s like

The Abbey: Ireland’s national theatre. Photograph: Ros Kavanagh

Was it for this? Fintan O’Toole on the existential questions facing the Abbey Theatre

Stage
Fintan O'Toole
June 15, 2019, 05:00

If the national theatre is not world class or keen on Ireland’s dramatic canon, what is it for?

Fionn Foley as Brendan Galileo

Theatre highlights: Unmanageable Sisters returns to the stage

Stage
Peter Crawley
June 15, 2019, 05:00

Fionn Foley’s solo show Brendan Galileo for Europe onstage ahead of fringe outings

Mick Flannery: His 2005 concept album Evening Train, about small-town gamblers and strivers, has been made into a musical.

The Mick Flannery album that grew into a musical

Stage
Peter Crawley
June 8, 2019, 05:00

The characters in Ursula Rani Sarma’s first musical, a collaboration with the Cork singer-songwriter called Evening Train, yearn to escape their small-town home

Shear nostalgia: Simon Delaney in The Snapper

You’re wha? The Snapper heads up this week’s theatre highlights

Stage
Peter Crawley
June 1, 2019, 05:00

Roddy Doyle’s stage version of his Barrytown novel gets a few minor millennial tweaks

Citysong: Whatever your stage in life, wherever your home, you are reflected in Dylan Coburn Gray’s careful map. Photograph: Ros Kavanagh

Citysong review: An Irish family’s entrancing journey across generations

Stage
Peter Crawley
May 31, 2019, 09:50

Dylan Coburn Gray’s play for voices builds up a huge picture through small details

All Mod Cons: Mariah Louca and Chris McCurry in Erica Murray’s play

All Mod Cons review: A swirl of issues crowd out the heart of an overworked play

Stage
Jane Coyle
May 27, 2019, 09:30

Erica Muray’s second play is well acted and pacily directed, but it tries to do too much

Jane Brennan: ‘I feel him here in a very benign way. He is still around’

‘Tom was very good at expressing his emotions, so I always felt his love. He didn’t bottle that up’

Stage
Deirdre Falvey
May 22, 2019, 14:41

A year after his death, playwright Tom Murphy is being celebrated by actors keen to share their experience of working on his plays. His widow, actor Jane Brennan, talks about life with – and without – Murphy

Baoite: Eoin Ó Dubhghaill and Diarmuid De Faoite in Darach Mac Con Iomaire’s play

Baoite review: Boring deep into the bedrock of a bitterly divided family

Stage
Peter Crawley
May 21, 2019, 16:00

A fracking vessel that threatens a fishing community becomes a potent metaphor

A scene from ‘Baoite’

Fracking and family feuds: This week’s theatre highlights

Stage
Peter Crawley
May 25, 2019, 05:00

Environmental activism and musicals are featured in the best productions of the week

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Dublin Theatre Festival 2018 Reviews, news and interviews from Ireland’s premier theatre festival

Dublin Fringe Festival 2018 Reviews, news and interviews from the capital city's biggest and most diverse festival

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