irelandsNew Yorker Taylor Mac played on Sunday at the Project, a benefit for Belong2, in a wonderfully life-affirming performance art piece – or, as he would describe it, a play. This was entertainment using play in all its meanings: child’s play, theatrical play, sex play, wordplay. Highly intelligent and fluidly articulate, musically gifted and haunting, [...]
My perception of the world often feels like I’m trudging through the swirling mud of my emotions, and sometimes I would much rather it wasn’t so, that I could get over myself. Last night, for example, I spent two full hours fuming at the organisation behind the Barbra Streisand concert in Castletown House, that [...]
8th June 2007
They’ve ordered me to be cheerful this week. Put out the party streamers. Be Happy and Gay. Callou, Callay, Oh Happy Day. A three-line whip, no slouching, chin up, ass in, tits out, don’t let the side down. Celebrate thirty years. Don’t rain on the parade. Smile and wave, smile and wave.
Yes, but [...]
I am away in my beloved Tuscany on holiday, and it’s wonderful to be here, especially to be back in the beautiful Chiusure where I spent my sabbatical. I consider myself blessed to have a sense of having two places that feel like home, and realise that, even though I’m only ten months back in [...]
There’s a moment described in Mark O’Rowe’s new play Terminus, where a woman has been battered over the head with a chair. As she comes to, she realises that a man is wanking over her comatose body. That comes as close as I can get to describing the experience of watching this production, the moment [...]
I was forwarded this letter today, about Ian Paisley Jr’s comments on homosexuality in Hot Press, suggesting that people write in to The Irish Times to respond. I would point out that in October 2006, 84% of people in the Republic support legal recognition for same-sex relationships. And that the majority support gay marriage in [...]
If you enjoy Irish theatre as much as I do, I hope you’ll appreciate my Dublin Theatre Reviews. I was an actor in the eighties, and, at one point in time, I had played on every professional stage in Dublin, from the Project to the Abbey, the Gate to the Gaiety, the Peacock to the [...]
The Crucible is a big play about big themes. It addresses weighty issues such as faith and superstition, collective hysteria and paranoia, the price of integrity, the explosive anarchic power of repressed sexuality, the cost of infidelity, and the way scapegoats serve to maintain social order and bolster shaky notions of piety. Not having seen [...]
Strolling through the Liberties, in good form with the weather. Getting over a chesty cold, so on the up, spring in my step, cock of the walk. Letter through the door that morning, confirming no nasty virus floats through the veins. Evidently one can lay with dogs and escape lingering fleas; London barrel-scraping can finally [...]
One of the most exciting things about theatre is the immediacy of the experience, the creative tension between performers and audience. It’s a double-edged sword, though, compared to other artistic endeavours – while we may relish the exhilaration of being pinned to our seats and having our senses stimulated, it can also backfire, and a [...]
Interesting
