Archives for the month of: September, 2008
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The International Puppet Festival, Ireland 2008: You love it, you just don’t know it yet.

September 13, 08 //
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Down a hidden laneway lies a little theatre you haven’t been to nearly enough: The International Puppet Festival 2008.
I love puppets. And so do you. The thing is, you’ve just forgotten how much you love them. Society has told you that you stopped loving puppets because you’re not a child any more. But you still love them. I guarantee it. Steer yourself over to youtube and search for ‘Lejo.’ Then hit what ever comes up. Go on, I’ll wait. The article will still be here when you get back. Done it? See? Pure magic.

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16 Candles

September 12, 08 //
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‘Fairytaleheart’ is the second of five plays in playwright Philip Ridley’s ‘Storyteller Sequence’, a series of one act dramas written for young people. The other four plays have similarly nauseating yet tantalising titles such as ‘Moonfleece’ and ‘Sparkleshrak’. The title combined with the heralding of the play as ‘by teens, for teens’ negated the need for a cynic to see it. Plot: teenagers being brought up by single parents on an inner city council estate but escaping the misery of their reality through the power of the imagination, thus liberating their ‘Fairytaleheart’.

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Burlesque: Exploitation or empowerment?

September 11, 08 //
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Burlesque is back ( actually it’s been back for a few years now, I’m just not sure we noticed). The new burlesque, while parading and shimmying around in the guise of the old style introduced by performers such as Lydia Thompson and Pauline Markham in the 1860′s and 70s, is reported to be remarkably different and closer to performance art than it is to striptease. The sine qua non of this new subversive form is the idea that the focus should be on the tease as opposed to the strip. According to its perpetrators, this performance of sexuality and the awareness the performer that goes with it, means that the burlesque performer can no longer be seen as an object for male fantasy, rather she is liberated and empowered through the expression of her sexuality, a sexuality independent of men.

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What not to miss: The Irish critic’s guide to The Dublin International Theatre Festival 2008

September 10, 08 //
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When attempting a run-down of what to see at the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival, such is the abundance of highlights, it could prove more time productive to write about what not to see.

The programme of what is fast being recognised as one of the leading theatre festivals in Europe, reads like a Michelin-star menu of theatrical titbits and sensory sweetbreads. And, like the exclusivity of a Michelin-starred restaurant the most often-uttered complaint in relation to the festival is not the quality but the price. Tickets can be expensive, but of course costs cover not only high production values, but also the cost of bringing such shows to a sea-locked nation often for their European premiere.
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Romeo and Juliet rediscovered at the Abbey

September 8, 08 //
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While it could easily be suggested that the familiar tale of Romeo and Juliet has been done to death, Jason Byrne clearly begs to differ as he brings the play into its first ever full length production at the Abbey. His difference of opinion however, does not appear to stem from the same old platitudes that we continually hear about Shakespeare’s most famous play, such as love is timeless, their love is eternal and so it never goes out of fashion. Rather his fascination with the play emerges from his assertion that there are elements of the play that have been ignored or forgotten, that have been lost in its familiarisation.
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Rocknrolla: A decent comeback for Mr Madonna

September 8, 08 //
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It says something that most of the press coverage for Guy Ritchie’s new film ‘Rocknrolla’ surrounds the fact that Madonna was late for the London premiere. While the name Madonna is somewhat synonymous with ‘show stealer’, some might argue that the vast coverage of this minor marital incident masks the fact that Ritchie’s film doesn’t merit any serious film chit chat.

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