The Irish Times

Lauren Coe as Emma in Landmark Productions and the Everyman world premiere production of Asking for It by Louise O Neill. Photograph: Hugh O Conor

This week’s theatre highlights

Stage
Peter Crawley
November 10, 2018, 05:00

Looking out for one another: Stage highlights take dispiriting look at blame, victimhood and apathy in society, and wonder about how to rebuild trust

The School Days of Thaddeus K: the name of Blue Raincoat’s protagonist recalls the Polish director Tadeusz Kantor, whose seminal 1975 work The Dead Class made school a living hell

The School Days of Thaddeus K review: An elegant depiction of a dismal time

Stage
Peter Crawley
November 5, 2018, 12:45

Blue Raincoat use puppetry to evoke the fragility of a young boy’s hellish education

The Lyric Theatre in Belfast: ‘We were keen to imbue the new building with the spirit of the old,’ says Mark Carruthers

The Lyric Theatre at 50: a cultural bridge in a divided city

Stage
Jane Coyle
October 29, 2018, 05:00

It opened its doors on the cusp of the Troubles, but Belfast’s Lyric has survived

Rough Magic’s ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’

Back to the future: Rough Magic’s Joyce adaptation is our theatre highlight

Stage
Peter Crawley
October 27, 2018, 05:00

‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ features iconography of a modern Ireland

St Nicholas: Brendan Coyle in Conor McPherson’s play. Photograph: Helen Maybanks

St Nicholas review: What does a theatre critic know anyway?

Stage
Sara Keating
October 12, 2018, 12:14

Dublin Theatre Festival: Brendan Coyle stars in the Irish premiere of Conor McPherson’s 1997 play

Dear Arabella: Katy Tumelty as Jean, who has an engagingly authentic voice and a sardonic sense of humour. Photograph: Steffan Hill

Dear Arabella: Softer, subtler, but Marie Jones sharp-eyed as ever

Stage
Jane Coyle
October 18, 2018, 12:10

Belfast International Arts Festival review: Three lonely women gain a new sense of purpose

Home Theatre (Ireland): Elaine Murphy in Caroline’s Wedding, for Rose Emmet

Home Theatre (Ireland) review: An innovation with life-changing potential

Stage
Sara Keating
October 11, 2018, 11:52

Dublin Theatre Festival: Intimate snapshots of life in Dublin 15 pair actors with locals. The results are top-notch

The Young King by Oscar Wilde, presented by Dublin Theatre Festival and The Ark

Is this a golden age for children’s theatre? Oh, yes, it is

Stage
Sara Keating
October 10, 2018, 05:00

Work made for children used to be rare, but there's now a rich bounty of shows

The End of Eddy: Kwaku Mills and Alex Austin share their role, their faces representing other characters – Eddy’s aggressive father, his bitter mother – on four television screens

The End of Eddy review: A staggering novel brought affectingly to the stage

Stage
Peter Crawley
October 10, 2018, 11:57

Dublin Theatre Festival: Kwaku Mills and Alex Austin are engaging as Édouard Louis’s autobiographical character

Klosterhof: Janek Turkowski and Iwona Nowacka document life in the Polish city of Szczecin in minute detail

Klosterhof review: Obsessive collectors of human traces

Stage
Helen Meany
October 10, 2018, 11:32

Dublin Theatre Festival: Janek Turkowski and Iwona Nowacka assemble a time capsule

The Fever: an antidote to the era of the individual. Photograph: Waleed Shah

The Fever review: An experiment in empathy and the nature of community

Stage
Deirdre Falvey
October 10, 2018, 11:41

Dublin Theatre Festival: 600 Highwaymen respond to social and political polarisation

Eliza’s Adventures in the Uncanny Valley: Pan Pan explores the influence of artificial intelligence on our capacity to be human

Eliza’s Adventures in the Uncanny Valley review: Can a riddle keep us interested?

Stage
Sara Keating
October 5, 2018, 12:58

Dublin Theatre Festival: The audience are stuck when a piece of theatre denies its characters humanity

Company: Raymond Keane reimagines Samuel Beckett’s novella. Photograph: Futoshi Sakauchi

Company review: Sublime theatre for an audience ready to imagine

Stage
Seona Mac Réamoinn
October 5, 2018, 14:16

Dublin Theatre Festival: Raymond Keane soars in this Samuel Beckett dramatisation

The M House: using a spindly boxy frame, the cast literally hold M House together, where the powers that be would rather see them stewing in daytime TV than dancing

The M House review: An abundance of ideas in an inclusive, inventive production

Stage
Peter Crawley
October 9, 2018, 12:00

Dublin Theatre Festival: Authority, in Equinox’s witty play, is like a vertiginous ladder – there’s always someone on a higher rung

Rathmines Road: Janet Moran, Charlie Bonner, Karen Ardiff, Enda Oates and Rebecca Root in Deirdre Kinahan’s play. Photograph: Patrick Redmond

Rathmines Road review: A compassionate imagining of one woman’s private torment

Stage
Peter Crawley
October 11, 2018, 12:08

Dublin Theatre Festival: A secret survivor of sexual assault encounters her rapist years later

Nassim: Iranian writer Nassim Soleimanpour in his autobiographical play

Nassim review: Children’s story, theatrical game and language lesson

Stage
Helen Meany
October 3, 2018, 11:56

Dublin Theatre Festival: Nassim Soleimanpour’s play explores our impulse to connect

Mining Stories: Silke Huysmans and Hannes Dereere’s show about a dam collapse in Brazil in 2015 is thought-provoking and emotionally resonant

Mining Stories review: Innovative, resonant take on a dam-burst disaster

Stage
Mick Heaney
October 1, 2018, 10:17

Dublin Theatre Festival: Silke Huysmans and Hannes Dereere bring a light touch to their weighty material

Fantasia: TR Warszawa’s production invites the audience to see things differently. Photograph: Magda Hueckel

Fantasia review: A kind of inverse conjuring act

Stage
Peter Crawley
October 1, 2018, 10:38

Dublin Theatre Festival: Is Polish theatre retreating from political engagement? Anna Karasinska’s deceptively simple production treads carefully

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

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