In 1926, when an already-censored Plough and the Stars opened at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, the crowd, taking offense at uniformed actors carrying the flag of the Irish Volunteers, rioted, throwing objects at the stage, setting off stink bombs, and fighting with the actors. Barry Fitzgerald, living up to the spirit his character, Fluther […]
Read more
The Irish Repertory Theatre continues its Seán O’Casey season with Juno and the Paycock, the second in his Dublin Trilogy. The eponymous peacock is “Captain” Jack Boyle (Irish Rep co-founder Ciarán O’Reilly), a lazy drunk who spends his days in and out of “snugs” with his buddy Joxer (John Keating) and dodging the admonitions of […]
Read more
On the eve of partition, Donal Davoren (Adam Petherbridge, the understudy, in the performance I attended) is just trying to write some verse. Living in a cramped Dublin tenement visited by a rotating cast of caricatures, Davoren is constantly interrupted by the havering of his neighbors, who are under the impression that he is an […]
Read more
Bill Irwin—who reminds us several times throughout On Beckett that he is in his “dotage”—is a member of a fading profession. In the ‘seventies, he trained at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, a defunct school named after a company that closed after over a century just last year. The vaudeville tradition he adores […]
Read more
One of Eugene O’Neill’s earliest successes, The Emperor Jones finds its title character ruling an unnamed island in the Caribbean. Having fled American justice, Brutus Jones (Obi Abili) exploits the superstitions of the local population to squeeze them dry, convincing them he can only be killed by a silver bullet. When the Cockney trader Henry Smithers (Andy Murray) […]
Read more
In his lifetime, James Joyce considered the possibility of having Ulysses adapted into a movie—and even met once with Sergei Eisenstein about it. After his death, two attempts were made in English: Joseph Strick’s 1967 Ulysses and Sean Walsh’s 2003 Bloom, both of which—like Marleen Gorris’ 1997 Mrs. Dalloway—sacrifice the spirit of the great novel […]
Read more
What better way to spend an evening than listening to stories about and poems by Harold Pinter?
Read more
Brian Friel may be the most overrated living playwright, but the Irish Repertory Theatre is making a convincing if modest case for him with their revival of The Freedom of the City. Following the deaths of three Irish protestors, the city of Londonderry tries to make sense of what happened. They are lionized by a […]
Read more
The Irish Repertory has not had a good year. First, there was Brian Friel’s stultifying, cringingly sentimental Dancing at Lughnasa, then Eugene O’Neill’s bloated, unbearable Beyond the Horizon. A Shavian comedy is just the kind of play that is needed to inject some life into this theater—and at first glance, Man and Superman seems to […]
Read more