O’CASEY’S A HARD ACT TO FOLLOW…
It was a (mostly) thrilling year for theatre, so what can we look forward to in 2024?
T‘Plight of tenement dwellers, their flaws, courage and their humour come out’
he highlight of 2023 was undoubtedly the brilliant DruidO’Casey marathon that had O’Casey’s great trilogy, Plough And The Stars, Shadow Of A Gunman and Juno And The Paycock, directed by Garry Hynes, performed on a single day, with occasional single performances, over 56 days, in Galway, Belfast and Dublin.
They were played in their historical order (1916 to 1922) not in the order in which they were written, which had the strongest, The Plough, performed first, not last, and Juno rounding things off. It’s the sort of performance that leaves you in awe of the all-round virtuosity involved.
In purely technical terms it might have been interesting to follow the development of O’Casey as a dramatist if the plays had followed the order in which they were written. But the plight of the tenement dwellers, their flaws, their courage and their humour come out no matter what order they’re shown in. The Shadow Of A Gunman part of that production is going on a separate tour to 11 venues from February 28 to March 24 in 2024, starting in Roscommon February 8 and continuing to Cork, Limerick, Tralee, Wexford, Ennis, Long ford, Sligo, Claremorris and Galway, ending in the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, March 21-24.
Satire, songs and surprises to the end
One of the unexpected delights of the year was Somewhere Out There You (October), Nancy Harris’s witty, imaginative new play for the Dublin Theatre Festival, that challenged all our theories about relationships and everything else we’re so sure about. It piled on satire, dance, song, a brilliantly choreographed bust-up, sparkling physical comedy and surprises right to the end.
Nowt as quare as Behan revival
The Daft Idea of The Year Award, however, must go to the Abbey’s revival of Brendan Behan’s The Quare Fellow, about capital punishment. Set in Mountjoy Prison, it has over 20 male roles. Director Tom Creed decided to have all roles performed by women. Unconvincingly. Welcome to the world of diversity, inclusion and equity.
An altogether more visceral production on the subject of capital punishment was Hangmen (Gaiety, March) with Martin McDonagh walking his usual tightrope between reality, brutality and grotesquely uncomfortable black humour.
Among other standout productions in 2023 were Ghosts (Abbey) and the ironically named Fun Home (Gate, July), a tragi-comedy based on American Alison Bechdel’s book about her family. Her father destabilised his family by his inability to accept his homosexuality. The play wasn’t about homosexuality as such, there was no LGBT preaching: it centred on the corrosive effect denial had on the people involved. Incidentally, ‘the Bechdel test’ measures any work by whether it features at least two females who have a conversation about something other than men.
Ghosts, by that great family sceptic Ibsen (April), had a remarkable performance by Cathy Belton as a mother betrayed and helpless in a world of debauchery and hypocrisy hidden behind a veneer of respectability, leaving her with ghosts she can’t escape.
Who is missing from Abbey project?
In 2016 the Abbey famously fouledup by listing just one female writer for the 1916 commemorations. For 2024, its own 120th anniversary, it’s shooting into reverse with seven plays by six females (Hilary Fannin, Elizabeth Kuti, Barbara Bergin, Mary Manning, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Marina Carr) under the heading The Gregory Project, to honour Abbey cofounder Lady Gregory.
One oddity – there appear to be no plays by Lady G herself on the menu. Here are the women writers lined up for the project:
■ Marina Carr: The playwright is back with two new works to mark her 60th birthday. The first is Audrey Or Sorrow (February 23-March 23) described as a mindbending dive into a world of family secrets, and the boundaries of love, power and desire.
She’s on favourite territory later in The Boy, a localised version of the tragic Greek Oedipus trilogy told from a mother’s perspective.
These plays come after last year’s emotionally bruising Girl On An Altar, her retelling of the family war between Agamemnon and his wife Clytemnestra that had outstanding performances from Eileen Walsh and David Walmsley.
■ Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill: This Irish translation (with surtitles) of Persians (Na Peirsigh/ Persians) by Aeschylus is about the defeat of the Persians by the Greeks at Salamis in 480 BC. Peacock (March 6-April 6).
■ Hilary Fannin: A Rough Magic and Abbey Theatre co-production, Children Of The Sun is an adaptation of the Maxim Gorky dark political comedy from 1905. Abbey Theatre (April 13-May 11). n Barbara Bergin: Dublin Gothic follows three generations through one Dublin house over a century of upheaval.
■ Mary Manning: Youth’s The Season-? is a coming-of-age tragicomedy satire depicting Dublin youths.
■ Elizabeth Kuti: The Sugar Wife highlights tensions between appearance and reality against the background of Ireland’s involvement in the sugar trade.