Xaviers - City Arts Centre
Under the headline "Hobbies" the word "robin" looms into camera - the kids from St Xavier's estate aren't big on table-tennis. The young Drogheda company, Calipo, have experience of working with youth groups in such areas, and out of this experience comes a hard-hitting-on-the-funny-bone devised show, which bravely focusses on the hopes and fears of two youth workers sent in to save the estate through drama.
Director Darren Thornton uses video brilliantly to explore class divisions: a Xaviers youth lunges in and out of the frame, heart-breakingly waving the scan of his coming child - a newscaster pokes her head meaningfully at a politician, well-centred, in full light. The cast, including Yasmine Akram, Colin Thornton, Conor Byrne, Julie Aspell and John Finegan give hilarious, brutal life to the marginalised youths.
The cardboard edges of the government agents/powers-that-be, and the stereotype of the idealistic youth worker mar the work a little, but it is still an absolute must-see.
Victoria White
8 p.m., until Saturday, October 9th
Fragile - Civic Theatre, Tallaght
Fabulous Beast Dance Company's latest piece, Fragile, which was commissioned by the Dublin Fringe Festival and received its premiere at the Civic Theatre, Tallaght, on Wednesday, is like Waiting for Godot. That is to say it deals with life and death, is both funny and tragic about man's inhumanity to man (or, in this case, woman), says much about dependency in relationships, hope, fear and frustration. Moreover, like Beckett's masterpiece, Michael Keegan Dolan's dance/drama provides material for endless discussion, its symbolism being capable of many different interpretations.
Wonderful dancing and partnering in all permutations of duet by its trio of dedicated performers (Rachel Lopez de la Nieta, Bernadette Iglich and Simon Rice); the imposing presence of Keith Synnott; a fine score by Denis Roche which comprised attractive melodies and electrifying sound; Johanna Connor's minimalist costumes and obstacle-race of a set and Tina McHugh's lighting all help to make this Keegan Dolan's best work to date.
Carolyn Swift
8 p.m., last show tonight.
Colin Murphy - Laughter Lounge
The bulk of Downpatrick-born Colin Murphy's material is fashioned around the peculiar cultural interface between this country and Britain - the Northern Irish issue merely adding an extra dimension to proceedings. His first main set-piece of the evening was a very well worked out routine about the obnoxious proliferation of Irish pubs around the world. Cleverly and snidely deconstructing the wholly sorry spectacle of bicycles attached to roofs, he managed to work an area which could have been a comedy cul-de-sac into something a lot more resonant.
Displaying a very easy way with his audience, he moved on to tackle the Pope's visit to Ireland and, while he could have gone for something quite hard and aggressive, he settled for a more gentle treatment. He did, though, show some teeth with a routine about customs officials which was very well executed. Murphy's a very good comic, although it wouldn't do him any harm to add some more colours to his palette.
Brian Boyd
To book for the Carroll's Comedy Club at the Laughter Lounge, phone 1800 266339
Mistress of Silence - DIT, Rathmines
When Johnny Hanrahan's adaptation of Jacqueline Harpman's novel, Mistress of Silence, presented by Meridian Theatre Company, opened at the Everyman Palace, Cork in September, Mary Leland wrote this: . . . "Gina Moxley as Child invokes other inhabitants of a bunker-full of female prisoners. Her own initial dwelling is an elevated cage; when the women release themselves following a nuclear catastrophe she follows and then leads their wanderings through a weatherless and insectless landscape until they begin to die, horribly, of cancer . . . The Mistress of Silence hails from the `with one bound she was free' school of literature. But it also has a Beckettian flavour which at times is quite compelling."
8 p.m., until October 9th.
Soul Survivor - Tivoli Theatre
When Dance Theatre of Ireland's Soul Survivor opened at the Galway Arts Festival in July, Carolyn Swift wrote:
"From Robert Connor's opening solo, Soul Survivor . . . proposed that increasing speed and an overload of information technology turns humans into desk-bound, computer-dominated robots. When J.J. Formento attempts to break away from the asexual routine, in his solo to the singing of Meredith Monk, blips appear on the grid to which the world has been reduced on Tim Redfern's video projection . . .
This piece . . . shows a different choreographic vocabulary for Connor and Yurick, though still tending to repetition."
8 p.m., last performance tonight.
Fringe information on 1850 374643
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