This year, the end of freshers’ week marks the start of the Dublin Fringe Festival, which will host an abundance of independent and experimental theatre from all over Ireland and abroad. It will take place in a wide array of venues across the city from September 8th to 23rd.
The curatorial callout for this year’s Fringe promises a “festival of antidotes” that will encourage “joy as an act of resistance”. The theatre programme is indicative of the increasingly high profile of the festival in recent years, with 2018’s festival attracting more big names than ever. One of the most notable is PJ Gallagher, who has co-written Madhouse with Una McKevitt. Madhouse is play based on Gallagher’s true-life experience of living with a group of schizophrenic men, and will run on the Peacock Stage of the Abbey Theatre. Also on the list of big names is John Connors, winner of Best Actor at this year’s Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTA), who directs, writes, and stars in Ireland’s Call at Bewley’s Theatre. The Fringe’s growing reach is also indicated by the continuing number of foreign theatre companies that are participating, such as New York-based production company On The Quays, which will collaborate with Dublin’s Gary Duggan and Nicola Murphy to put on Stop/Over at The Chocolate Factory Arts Centre.
Trinity is well represented this Fringe season, with the very first piece of theatre being presented by Trinity’s Lir National Academy of Dramatic Art. Scripted is a showcase of new plays by Breman Rajkumar, Clare McMahon and Lauren-Shannon Jones, and will feature graduate actors from The Lir Academy (all for free). Also representing Trinity are students Fionntán Larney and Dominic O’Brien, who will be bringing their rap musical-drama Beat to Smock Alley Theatre.
The festival’s participants make creative use of theatrical space this year, with 23 indoor and outdoor venues being used. One interesting example is Kaleider Production’s The Money – an interactive play that will be staged in City Hall. The Fringe’s second outing on the Abbey Main Stage is also a novel one as it stages ?, a collaboration between alternative band Meltybrains and visual projection artists Algorithm.
For the younger theatre-folk, Young Radicals: Fringe for Kids enters its second year and steps into a comparatively darker and more introspective territory. “For children aged 6+ and story lovers of all ages” there is Susie and the Story Shredder from Bombinate Theatre at the Project Arts Centre. For the young adult there is FABLE, a “sinister dance-theatre production” from an all-male cast of high energy dancers which will tell five distinct stories and draw upon dystopian art to dissect the problems of modern life.
