The Dublin Theatre Festival officially opens for business Thursday night, with 28 shows in store between now and October 11th.
The programme features 11 new Irish works, along with productions from France, Belgium, Portugal, the Netherlands, the UK and Denmark.
Among the highlights are the Irish premiere of The Night Alive by Conor McPherson, which opens on Thursday night in the Gaiety Theatre, a new version of Oedipus at the Abbey Theatre, and the UK National Theatre's adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Rough Magic's new musical The Train tells the story of the contraceptive train in 1971, TheatreClub's The Game takes a look at the sub-culture of prostitution, and Bailed Out! by Colin Murphy tells the story "of how Ireland fell into the jaws of the Troika".
For festival director Willie White, the first day is somewhat like sending a child out for the first day of school. "It's very exciting along with some trepidation. Actually, it's a bit more like if you had loads of different children going off to loads of different schools with loads of different teachers."
This year, the focus is more on Irish than foreign work, and White has eschewed any specific themes. “It is an open festival. I’ve responded to artists’ ideas rather than to any rigid themes. If you pay attention to the programme you start to notice things.”
Ticket sales at this stage are up roughly 20 per cent on last year. "I hope that it's indicative of a wider trend. Every year it's about what you have on offer and how appealing that is. We made our own luck this year because I wanted people to see The Night Alive, so we did our own co-production with the Lyric Theatre in Belfast."
The programme is not shy of tackling current issues. “For theatre to be worthwhile, yes it has to be entertaining and yes it can be diverting, but it also has to respond to contemporary events and problems.
"It's one of the quickest art forms (to respond to contemporary events) but it is also able to respond in very different forms: The Train is a musical, Bailed Out! is a piece of documentary theatre, and The Game has turned "the game" into a game."
