ALSO PLAYING
A Midsummer’s Night Dream (Aug 9-18) looks set to be one of highlights of this year’s Kilkenny Arts Festival. Specially created for, and set in the Castle Yard, Shakespeare’s most enduring and magical comedy has been given a uniquely Irish treatment by Lynne Parker in a Rough Magic production. It’s a mix of wayward spirits, contrary country characters, narcotics and crazy mix-ups in a topsyturvy world where magic is embodied in the natural forces of electricity, magnetism, and the power of nature.
Roman Fever, Hugh Leonard’s delectable adaptation of an Edith Wharton short story is back at Bewley’s Café Theatre this week, running from Aug 8 to Sept 8, with the same cast of Karen Ardiff and Maria Tecce, which it had when I first saw it five years ago. At the time, I considered it the almost perfect lunchtime entertainment. Set in Rome in 1930, it features two wealthy American widows discussing their daughters and recalling their friendship of 20 years, while uncovering the emotional history of their lives in civilised dialogue that conceals more than it reveals.