There is always great anticipation around any new creation to emerge from Micheal Keegan-Dolan’s Teac Damsa, his house of dance in west Kerry. The 2022 festival saw him in retrospective mode, with How to Be a Dancer, an uplifting joyous journey through his career. Now, the creator of Mam and Loch na hEalla is back to that larger-scale, teaming up with Sam Amidon and a company of nine dancers for a work that takes its name from William Blake, but promises to be an ode to peacemakers.
Already with a run in Galway under its belt, The House comes to the festival as certainly one of the best things seen on an Irish stage this year. Garry Hynes is in top form directing this revival of Tom Murphy’s late, great work, and there is quality everywhere you look, where it’s a hilarious Donncha O’Dea stealing scenes as the publican Bunty, a compelling Marty Rea as Christy, or an enchanting Marie Mullen as as Mrs de Burca. Practically unmissable.
Cork couple Judy Hegarty Lovett and Conor Lovett have long been the premier stage interpreters of the works of Samuel Beckett. Here, the starting point is Belacqua, Beckett’s alter ego in his early collection of comic short stories, More Pricks Than Kicks. This production takes us from there, to the origin of Belacqua, a minor character of notably laziness in Dante’s Purgatorio. Combined with original music and artwork, this promises to be a rich experience.
Owen McCafferty’s dramatisation of the Good Friday Agreement was widely acclaimed when it was first staged in Belfast, 25 years on from the historic events of 1998. Here, all the main players in those seismic days are cast. John Hume, David Trimble, Gerry Adams, Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern and the US senator George Mitchell. Andrea Irvine appears as the only woman, and a sort of guide through the negotiations: a terminally ill, fourth-wall-breaking Mo Mowlam. Perhaps, in our time of black-and-white, algorithmically manipulated extremes, Agreement is all the more necessary, as a reminder that compromise works.
Playwright Enda Walsh and composer Anna Mullarkey are given equal billing as the creators of this new play, suggesting music will be central. That would be familiar enough territory for Walsh, then, who has worked on such projects as Lazarus, with David Bowie, and several outstanding operas with Donnacha Dennehy. Described as a “song cycle”, Safe House takes us into the mind and memory of Grace, a young woman played by Kate Gilmore who lives in an abandoned handball alley.
This year marks the final year as festival director for Willie White. It’s fitting then that Forced Entertainment make their third return, as they appeared at the festival in White’s first year, 2012, and are symbolic of the good job he did bringing international works to Dublin audiences. Known for testing the patience of their audiences to extremes, Signal to Noise sees the company once more challenging our notions of theatre and audience expectations in a work marking the company’s 40th year. But don’t worry, it’s only 90 minutes long. Unlike the early epic works by which Forced Entertainment truly earned their name.
Cork director Tom Creed brings to his burgeoning portfolio of operatic productions this intriguing double bill of modern Irish works. It’s something of a family affair, as the composer Emma O’Halloran, has adapted to of her uncle Mark O’Halloran’s plays. Audiences might be familiar with the film Rialto, which itself was based on Trade, O’Halloran’s play about a young rent-boy’s encounter with a client in a Dublin guesthouse. Mary Mary Motorhead dates from 2011 and takes us into the prison cell of a woman who murdered her husband.
A new play from Mark O’Rowe is always something to look forward to, and Reunion comes to Dublin after an acclaimed run in Galway during the summer. It’s a classic scenario: a family gathering at which an unexpected visitor upturns the expected dynamics, and brings old antagonisms to the surface. A good, old-fashioned play then? Perhaps. But what’s wrong with that when you have a case including the likes of Ian-Lloyd Anderson, Cathy Belton,Stephen Brennan and Catherine Walker?
A regular feature of the festival, Pan Pan never succeed in being boring. Last year’s fun was recruiting real-life historians to help us interrogate ideas about that field. This year, the veteran team of director Gaving Quinn and designer Aedin Cosgrove give us a response to Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. Pan Pan’s take on Hamlet, Playing the Dane, was one of its greatest moments, so we could be in for something special here. As an added novelty, the Whyte Recital Hall is Dublin’s most handsome new performance space.
Photographer, dancer and theatreaker Benji Reid’s work is festival director Willie White’s personal tip for this year. In it, Reid live-photographs three dancers to create images from the flow of choreography. These are projected onto two large screens, as Reid uses them to spark his narration of episodes from his life that have inspired his art.
