The Arts Review​

Maria Oxley Boardman, Risteárd Cooper and Nick Dunning in Uncle Vanya. Image, Olga Kuzmenko **** How much weight can the uneventful carry? Brian Friel's adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya at Smock Alley Theatre, directed by Cathal Cleary, offers a visceral answer. The titular Vanya (Risteárd Cooper) working a rural estate alongside his solicitous niece Sonya (Eavan Gaffney), sends all profits to Alexander (Nick Dunning). Sonya’s father and Vanya’s brother-in-law, Alex

How To Catch A Star. Image, Anita Murphy ***** Before CGI and digital animation there was puppetry. A staple on TV screens for adults and children alike. Thunderbirds, The Muppets, Bosco, Sesame Street, Spitting Image ; puppetry was everywhere. Nowadays it’s harder to find, like a shooting star. So when it crosses your sky you should do everything in your power to witness its wonder. Like Branar’s delightful forty-five minutes, How To Catch A Star. A puppet show, without w

Dublin Gothic by Barbara Bergin. Image, Ros Kavanagh *** Barbara Bergin’s debut play Dublin Gothic promises a performance of ‘the epic of the everyday.’ Straight out of a People in History schoolbook, it presents hidden heroes of Dublin who struggle to adjust and survive various changes from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Over one-hundred years characters face historical crises such as rent wars, the AIDs epidemic, the questionable powers of the Catholic church, e