Although the curtains closed on the Dublin Fringe Festival on September 22nd, fear not, as the artists behind this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival are just warming up. From September 26th to October 16th, the familiar stages of the capital will produce 18 days of jaw-dropping theatre, which are sure to challenge, entertain and astound their expectant audiences.
The Alternative, running from September 24th to 29th in the Pavillion Theatre, promises to provide a politically stimulating experience for theatregoers. Fishamble, the theatre company running the show, asks very little of incoming audiences, only to suspend their disbelief enough to imagine a modern Ireland under British rule.
The stage is set for the eve of a present-day referendum. The UK Prime Minister returns to her Dublin home to plead the “remain” case. One question hangs in the air: “Should Ireland leave the UK?” The play takes place in the no-man’s land between three eras – post-colonialism, pre-Brexit and post-Brexit. For €28 or €22 for concessions, Fishamble will ask audiences all the questions we’re too afraid to contemplate aloud.
In complete contrast to Fishamble’s political production, Sopro, directed by Tiago Rodrigues, is set to be a theatrical piece dedicated to theatre itself. In a beautiful stroke of metatheatricality, Rodrigues gives “sopro”, the Portuguese word for breath, voices from behind the black curtain. In particular, the director amplifies the voice of Cristina Vidal, a prompter who has worked for his theatre, Lisbon’s Teatro Nacional D Maria II, for 40 years. In the O’Reilly Theatre, from October 11th to 13th, Vidal will step into the light to transfix audiences with fascinating anecdotes from her unseen professional life.
For €35, audiences can witness a carefully curated combination of excerpts from classic texts and lived tales of theatrical experience. Rodrigues attempts to close the gap between those standing in the shadows and those sitting in the dark.
Acclaimed director Carly Wijs has enjoyed sellout runs at the Edinburgh Fringe and London’s National Theatre with her play, Us/Them. From October 8th to 13th, the play will take to the stage in Dún Laoghaire’s Pavillion Theatre. This international piece takes a look at childhood resilience in the face of the unimaginable. The action pivots around a 2004 terrorist attack on a school in Beslan, near the Russia and Chechnya border, in which 1,200 people were held hostage for three days. Tickets for the event are €27 or €24 for concessions, and audiences should expect humour and physicality as Wijs unravels the alternative genius of the undeveloped mind.
Nancy Harris’s new play, The Beacon, will bring audiences a little closer to home. Following her successful adaptation of The Red Shoes in 2017, Harris returns to the Gate with a story of a celebrated artist who leaves the big smoke in search of solace on an island off west Cork. But with ghosts from her past outweighing her luggage, and the arrival of an estranged son, she soon finds that solace still lies just out of reach. Tickets range from €15 to €42, and if Harris’s previous shows are anything to go by, this play is not to be missed.
From September 24th to 28th, Dead Centre Theatre Company will transform the boards of the Gate into a 20th-century Parisian apartment for their production of Beckett’s Room. In place of the corporeal presence of Beckett and his partner Suzanne, on this stage there lies only absence. Without the security of performers, audiences will journey through the story of this space auditorily, through headphones. For €15, attendees are invited to enter Beckett’s Room.
Although tutorial attendance, multiple-choice questionnaires and impending deadlines may have reared their ugly heads again, I’m accepting no excuses. Go. Immerse yourself in a wide range of world-class theatre on your very doorstep.
