The programme for this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival includes an ambitious 30 productions, with an overwhelming majority planned in person.
Organised in line with the current coronavirus regulations, all in-person shows can only accommodate 50 spectators. Despite these measures, the festival proves itself to be an impressive part of the re-opening of the arts. With this exciting programme announcement, Radius has rounded up the five most intriguing productions to look out for throughout the festival.
The First Child by Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh
The First Child is the final instalment of Dennehy and Walsh’s suburban horror opera trilogy, following The Last Hotel and The Second Violinist. Described as a “terrifying story of lost innocence”, the key features of the production include an abandoned baby washed up on a beach and the sea. Marking the third collaboration between the composer and playwright, The First Child promises to be one of the highlights of the festival, with the opera mingling elements of opera and theatre combined with its eerie thematic scope.
The First Child runs from October 2nd to 9th at the O’Reilly Theatre, Belvedere College.
Once Before I Go by Phillip McMahon
McMahon’s vibrant Once Before I Go promises to be one of the most dynamic productions of the festival, if only due to the reconfiguration of the Gate theatre’s auditorium hall into a “hybrid cabaret-style setting” – ensuring an immersive experience for the audience and maximising the excitement of the slow return to in person theatre. The show, centred on three close friends, explores the Irish LGTBQ+ community across four decades between Dublin, London and Paris, juxtaposing the young days of the Irish gay rights movement and the AIDS epidemic with the comparably liberal contemporary backdrop of equal rights. Once Before I Go guarantees to be an entertaining yet deeply moving ode to those lost in the fight for equality while dancing between the lines of comedy and tragedy.
Once Before I Go runs from October 1st to 23rd October at the Gate theatre.
Conversations After Sex by Mark O’Halloran
Ten years after the hit Trade, which was awarded Best New Play at the Irish Times Theatre Awards 2011, Conversations After Sex marks the second collaboration between scriptwriter Mark O’Halloran, director Tom Creed and theatre company THISISPOPBABY. Consisting of conversations a woman has following anonymous sexual encounters with various men, the production explores the human need for connection and communication in light of the isolation experience of the modern city. These conversations lead the woman to find reciprocity in her yearning for connection in her partners, creating what promises to be an endearing and brutally honest play.
Conversations After Sex runs from October 7th to 17th at the Project Arts Centre.
The Application by Gina Moxley
The Application marks The New Theatre’s response to the suffocating experience of lockdown on theatre artists. The documentary chronicles six artists’ reaction to making applications and theatre proposals in the stressful time of scarce work throughout lockdown. The result promises to put a refreshingly comic spin on the dire consequences of venue closures for artists, while cataloguing the often overlooked process of creating a production combined with the added complications of the extenuating coronavirus circumstances.
The Application runs from October 5th to 16th at The New Theatre.
Purple Snowflakes and Titty Wanks by Sarah Hanly
As the winner of the 2019 Pinter Commission, Sarah Hanly’s debut play Purple Snowflakes and Titty Wanks is a co-production between the Royal Court Theatre and the Abbey. The one-woman play follows Saoirse Murphy as she moves between her conservative and religious home in Dublin and the freedom she finds in her new life in London. Amid these conflicting environments she struggles with her sexual identity and mental health issues. This promising debut guarantees a deeply entertaining yet intriguing production, standing in line with its witty title, from an exciting young emerging playwright.
Purple Snowflakes and Titty Wanks runs from October 2nd to 16th at the Abbey theatre, on the Peacock stage.
