Review: An Ideal HusbandThe Gate’s new production of Wilde’s political play struggles to marry its competing forcesWed Apr 09 2014 - 18:05
Patrick O’Kane: thoughts on acting, Belfast and a head buttThe actor is one of the most intense and intelligent performers in Irish theatre; little surprise, then, that a conversation with him starts to sound like a masterclass on actingMon Apr 07 2014 - 01:00
Stage Struck: Frankly, my dear, you gotta make ’em give a damnThere’s a fine line between compassion and comedy in theatre. Is there a formula for empathy?Thu Apr 03 2014 - 17:36
Mollser in the middle: ‘Is there anybody goin’ with a titther o’ sense?’What happens when an Abbey production for children puts Mollser, the child in O’Casey’s ‘The Plough and the Stars’, centre stage?Thu Apr 03 2014 - 01:00
Review: War HorseWhat is the easiest thing to swallow in this phenomenally successful show set during the carnage of the first World War? The horse, of courseThu Mar 27 2014 - 17:26
Review: SlippersCan a new play about the daughters of a hoarding mother avoid becoming cluttered itself?Wed Mar 26 2014 - 17:03
Culture Shock: Suicide, sorrow and the urge to explain the inexplicableThe death of L’Wren Scott, the partner of Mick Jagger, brought out the worst in the mediaSat Mar 22 2014 - 01:00
Fruit of a life’s work deciphering BeckettPriceless paper trail or total write off? That depends on what you’re looking for, says Beckett scholar Stanley E GontarskiWed Mar 19 2014 - 01:00
Review: CleanersCleaning, like politics, is a dirty business, in Colm Maher’s new comedyFri Mar 14 2014 - 16:08
Miraculous multiplicationThe stage seems densely populated. So how come the dressing rooms are so empty?Fri Mar 14 2014 - 00:00
Review: ConservatoryMichael West’s new play at the Abbey is a grimly amusing and deeply unsettling exploration of marriageThu Mar 13 2014 - 16:36
Review: FishesA new play sketches a young Irish male in a rut of loneliness, idleness and drunkenness. What’s the catch?Thu Mar 13 2014 - 16:31
Review: Little Thing, Big ThingA deceptively breezy, carefully constructed story that has a little problem with authorityTue Mar 11 2014 - 14:00
Fuerza Bruta: that could be me up thereThis part aerial spectacle, part club night, is designed to be accessible to everyone. What happens when a journalist joins in?Fri Mar 07 2014 - 01:00
Review: FaithIs this depiction of one man’s crisis in faith something we can believe in?Wed Mar 05 2014 - 17:25
The Vortex: ‘I wanted to see if you could do Coward with Irish accents’Five years ago, funding cuts sent director Annabelle Comyn spinning – but her path towards Noël Coward was an unlikely twistTue Mar 04 2014 - 01:00
Review: SiveAs the Abbey revisits John B Keane’s tragedy of lust and lucre, is it safe to go back into the kitchen?Mon Feb 24 2014 - 01:00
Review: CareWillFredd Theatre’s exploration of hospice care creatively explores systems and coping strategiesFri Feb 21 2014 - 16:10
Stage Struck: Nobody in subsidised theatre is reckless, but theatre is and should be a risky businesThe gap between commerical and subsidised theatre is shrinking. Can it be creative without a safety net?Fri Feb 21 2014 - 00:00
Review: The VortexNoël Coward’s breakthrough play depicts a downward spiral, but Annabelle Comyn’s brave production feels like progressWed Feb 19 2014 - 18:00
Set for success: the art of making ‘playgrounds for the actors’The worlds represented in the four nominations for best set in the ‘Irish Times’ Irish Theatre Awards are very different, but they all fit somewhere between pragmatism and poetryTue Feb 18 2014 - 01:00
The right direction: unravelling the roles in the theatre awardsWhen we congratulate directors on a job well done, do we know what we’re congratulating them for?Thu Feb 13 2014 - 01:00
Culture Shock: Can we love the art without loving the artist?Dylan Farrow’s open letter on a ‘New York Times’ blog last weekend, in which she claims that Woody Allen molested her when she was seven, implicates the movie fan as an apologist for this alleged sexual assaultSat Feb 08 2014 - 01:00
Stage Struck: It’s been a bleak midwinter of artistic battles. Are they useful?Even as dismal months go, January was a horrible one for the arts - Is it possible to sum up without reheating any grievances?Fri Jan 31 2014 - 13:19
The Shed: a splash of colour in London’s theatrical landscapeThe Shed, an intimate space at home to experimental theatre, seems like a venue designed to suit the times. At the heart of its success is Ben Power, a dramaturg, ‘shadowy figure’ and Shakespeare’s ‘remixer’Fri Jan 31 2014 - 01:00
Seven new Abbey productions announcedExtra Peacock shows possible if theatre revenues improveFri Jan 31 2014 - 00:59
Stage struck: curtain rises on 2014What can 2013 tell us about the year ahead in theatre? That we can expect more of the sameMon Jan 13 2014 - 11:28
The best of Irish theatre: this year’s nomineesAnnouncing the ’Irish Times’ Irish Theatre Awards shortlist for 2013. Terrible financial circumstances did not limit the diversity of productions, from knockout operas to one-man showsSat Jan 11 2014 - 13:00
Ballybeg birthday: Brian Friel turns 85With work of such consistent quality, it is difficult to settle on a single masterpiece: Friel has given us some incredible memoriesThu Jan 09 2014 - 01:00
Making HistoryIn TheatreClub’s ambitious new production, a Dublin housing estate plays the role of the nationFri Dec 20 2013 - 14:04
Theatre of and for the massesBlending the best qualities of Irish and Polish theatreFri Dec 20 2013 - 00:00
The Risen PeopleIn a year of 1913 memorials, can a play this derivative, or a production this earnest, be taken seriously?Thu Dec 05 2013 - 15:30
The rise and rise of Mahagonny: Sky brings Irish opera to the boxRough Magic and Opera Theatre Company have been awarded €230,000 from Sky Arts to stage a Marxist opera. Are Brecht and Weill camera-ready, and what’s in it for Sky?Wed Dec 04 2013 - 01:00
The Oedipal predicament: ‘It doesn’t have a plot’Sam Shepard is going back to the source with his new take on Oedipus. Like his hero, does he know what he’s looking for?Tue Dec 03 2013 - 01:00
A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations)Sam Shepard’s brilliant new version of Oedipus Rex for Derry’s Field Day folds Greek myth into an ageless AmericanaMon Dec 02 2013 - 14:53
Rough Magic and OTC win €230,000 Sky Arts awardTheatre companies to stage a Brecht and Weill play in large-scale immersive productionFri Nov 29 2013 - 10:32
Tomorrow’s PartiesA production that engages in endless speculation about the future becomes repetitive – this should have been foreseenFri Nov 22 2013 - 12:21
The bank guarantee: a farce restaged as a tragedyColin Murphy’s play of the events leading up to the 2008 bank guarantee contains the tensions of his dual identities as journalist and dramatist, and a new run introduces the coarse voices of the Anglo tapesWed Nov 13 2013 - 01:00
First CosmonautIn Blue Raincoat’s retelling of the space race, Yuri Gagarin makes for a reluctant starWed Oct 30 2013 - 17:30
Belfast Festival hits its targets‘Bullet Catch’ asked loaded questions of its audience members, and such co-operation seemed to define this year’s festivalWed Oct 30 2013 - 01:00
Stage Struck: Could it be magic?Nobody likes being manipulated, but there’s a delight in being dumfounded by a well-staged illusionFri Oct 18 2013 - 00:00
Neutral HeroRichard Maxwell takes the individuality, drama, poetry, mimesis, emphasis and virtuosity out of the story of a hero . . . so what’s left?Thu Oct 10 2013 - 12:20
TaramandalDelhi’s Tadpole Repertory, a company of modest means in one of the most populous cities on earth, tells the story of a face in the crowdWed Oct 09 2013 - 17:59
Desire Under the ElmsNineteenth-century New England comes closer to home in Corn Exchange’s austerely beautiful production of Eugene O’Neill’s tragedySun Oct 06 2013 - 15:07
Waiting for GodotGare St Lazare Players take Beckett’s masterpiece away from more earthly concerns. Does Godot need more gravity?Fri Oct 04 2013 - 13:22
