THEATRE OFTEN provides the most memorable highlights of the Galway International Arts Festival, and with the final four days to go, tickets are still available for three outstanding shows.
The award winning Citysong , by Dylan Coburn Gray, is a poetic chorus of voices about the experiences of three generations of a Dublin family on a single day. Sixty characters will be played by six actors, among them Amy Conroy.
“It is an epic piece looking at the scope of the city, and of Ireland, but it really focuses on tiny, tiny moments within a family,” she told the Galway Advertiser. “These characters make up the fabric of the tiny, beautiful, and tender moments that are pinging out of the piece. It sees the beauty in these tender, even mundane, moments. Citysong is like a fusion of Ulysses and Under Milk Wood, it’s all one day and all one city and it is a very beautiful piece.”
See it in the Black Box Theatre, Dyke Road, tonight [July 25], tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday at 7pm nightly. There are also matinees today, at 2pm, and Sunday at 3pm.
From a large, multi-generational family in a big city, to a small, very isolated one, in Cleft , written by Fergal McElherron, and starring Simone Kirby and Penny Layden, which runs at the O’Donoghue Theatre, NUI Galway.
Twin sisters Fea and Caireen, live on a remote island, and are raising a boy together. Abandoned by their parents, the women have created their own emotional ecosystem. While Caireen embraces motherhood, Fea struggles as she watches the boy grow in the likeness of his father whose body lies buried beneath a nearby hawthorn tree.
The play is presented by Rough Magic and glór in association with Galway International Arts Festival and Kilkenny Arts Festival. It is on today (2pm and 6pm ), tomorrow (6pm ), and Saturday (2pm and 6pm ).
“And now for something completely different,” as John Cleese would say. From drama we move to acrobatics and physical theatre with Australia’s Gravity & Other Myths making a welcome return with its show Out Of Chaos .
Out Of Chaos promises to be a spectacular exploration of thrillingly daring acrobatics, circus skills, and physical theatre. Above all, it will show just what the human body can do - sometimes in mid air and other times with only the tiniest bit of support from another person. Prepare to be amazed. The show is in the Bailey Allen Hall, NUI Galway, today and Friday (7pm ) and Saturday (2pm and 7pm ).
For tickets see www.giaf.ie
