THE FIRST Galway Theatre Festival got underway last night with Zelig Theatre Co’s premiere of Cathal Cleary’s Birds Birds Birds and continues until Sunday with a lively programme showcasing the best of local theatrical talent.
Birds Birds Birds is repeated at 1pm today in Nuns Island Theatre (which hosts all the plays ), and at 4pm Fregoli present a double bill of Producing Playmates and Savage/Love.
Producing Playmates - written by Shane McDermott and directed by Tracy Bruen - deals with the writer’s struggle to step outside the comfort of his own fantasies. Witty and moving, it features Maria Tivnan, Daragh Finn, and Shane McDermott.
Written by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin, Savage/Love depicts universally recognisable moments in love relationships. Directed by Lucia Smyth, Fregoli’s production brings elements of humour, physicality, and originality to this short but powerful work.
At 8pm this evening, and again at 1pm tomorrow Dragonfly stage Shona McCarthy’s new play, Reptilian, fresh from its acclaimed run at the Dublin Fringe Festival. In Reptilian, housewife Dorothy believes her 63rd birthday will mirror every other day: cleaning the house and reciting poetry to her beloved turtles while her husband works late with his young secretary. Past and present events however collide with catastrophic consequences, even the turtles.
In the 10.30pm late slot, tonight and tomorrow, Aindrias de Staic performs his hit show The Year That I Got Younger which was nominated for the coveted Malcom Hardee Award at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.
Aindrias’s forté is truly live performance where he fuses music, magic, story telling and comedy to delightful effect. The Year That I Got Younger portrays a 12 month stint in Australia which, for one young backpacker, becomes a coming of age experience.
On Friday at 8pm, and Saturday at 1pm, Mephisto present Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife. Female figures from the worlds of myths, fairy-tales and history finally get their say in this playful stage show that drags overlooked characters from the past into modern contexts, World’s Wife is an accessible, fun-filled frolic featuring characters such as Mrs Freud, Medusa, Queen Kong, and Mrs Darwin. The cast features Caroline Lynch, Zita Monaghan, and Emma O’Grady.
Blue Selkie are in action on Friday and Saturday, at 4pm, with their staging of Patrick Collins’ fine debut play, Goodwill. Set against the backdrop of the 1988 All-Ireland Hurling final, this is a sensitive family drama revolving around the reading of their father’s will.
Completing the line-up of plays is Moonfish Theatre Co with the Irish premiere of Dennis Kelly’s intense psychological thriller, After The End. Two work colleagues, Mark and Louise, seek shelter from disaster in a nuclear bunker. Can they survive the attack? Can they survive each other?
As they try to survive at close quarters, personal relationships, desires, and truths all slowly disintegrate. Mairead Ní Chróinín directs John Rogers and Ionia Ní Chróinín in this award-winning play which is on Saturday at 8pm.
The festival also includes readings, workshops, a festival club in the Town Hall and, as a finale on Sunday at 10.30pm, an hour of ‘Stand Up Theatre’ in which actors present short excerpts from their favourite plays and speeches. Performers include Rod Goodall, Eamonn Draper, Jane Talbot, Little John Nee, Eileen Gibbons and Helen Gregg. The evening will also feature a short play by John O’Dowd.
For tickets contact the Town Hall on 091 - 569777. For more information contact the Galway Arts Centre on 091 - 565886 or [email protected]
