Fringe Reviews

Irish Timeswriters review a selection of Fringe events

WE ARE ALL IN THE GUTTER **

Smock Alley

A director once said to me: “If the shows put themselves out there in a professional context, they have to be judged that way”. Regrettably, We Are All in the Gutter is not ready to place itself in this context. It has a laudable and promising intention: to explore, with humour, the sense of anger and disappointment of those who grew up during the Celtic Tiger only to have the rug pulled out from under them by greedy, myopic, ill-informed adults. It attempts this in a series of sketch-like elements that could play off each other to maximum dramatic effect. Yet the quality of each element varies widely, and the sum of all the parts adds to a high-spirited but sadly ineffectual romp. Great at a dorm party, but not here. The production badly needs dramaturgical or directorial guidance. In the meantime, there’s one good quote in this review they can use for PR.

Runs until Saturday

– Christine Madden

FAT **

Players Theatre

FAT, as one member of Talking Shop Ensemble confesses, is “making theatre about being looked at, but we can’t take our eyes off ourselves”: welcome to the relentlessly self-referential narcissism of a generation that “dream in images and think in 140 characters”.

It is largely a protest about cultural expectations, but sadly it only confirms that the imaginations of these young theatre-makers are irreparably colonised.

The performance skims lightly across the landscape of the poisoned legacy of globalised postmodern life, combining a visual and verbal collage of quotations from ads and pop songs with a barrage of Youtube clips and caricatures of contemporary “icons” (Tyra Banks, Kerry Katona, Gok Wan).

FAT, they tell us, is a metaphor for how contemporary reality is just a poor imitation of reality TV, but what they really leave us with is nothing more than a thin and superficial performance of imitable signifiers with nothing underneath.

Runs until Saturday

– Sara Keating

THE TRUTH OF THE MOON ***

The New Theatre

Armed with little more than a rickety overhead projector, tape recordings of her late father's discoveries, and a laser pointer she has yet to master, the evocatively-named lunar expert Felicia Umbral (Sonya Kelly) has a devastating secret to share. Or so she says.

But when an endearingly gauche Kelly has talked us through diagrams, lovingly recited crater names and scoffed amusingly at various inconclusive hypotheses, it's slightly unsatisfying she should end on a crackpot conspiracy theory.

The deeper truth of Simon Doyle's play for Anú Productions is the orbit of obsession, and director Sophie Motley finds touching moments here to demonstrate its gravity. When Felecia cradles the tape recorder for her father's last bewildered words, we see a daughter satelliting her father's madness. The moon, we learn, has the reflectivity of coal dust, which may explain why Doyle is careful not to overexpose his metaphor. But for all the show's sly humour it leaves Felicia's more absorbing tale obscured; a truth witnessed through a partial eclipse.

Runs until Saturday

– Peter Crawley

THE ROOM IN THE TOWER ****

National Concert Hall

Roger Doyle describes his unusual piece of audio theatre, The Room in the Tower, as “cinema for the ear”. Essentially, it is a live performance of a pre-recorded ghost story. As the performance begins, Doyle pads silently into the dimly lit environs of the National Concert Hall’s Kevin Barry room and takes a seat at the piano. The shock of his white hair, the musty dressing gown, and his dazed movements conspire in the most understated way to set the spectral atmosphere that is so crucial to The Room in the Tower’s hypnotic effect.

Carlo Gebler’s script is suggestive more than literal, and it is the music itself that communicates the strange happenings at the heart of EF Benson’s excellent Edwardian ghost story. The different textures of sound – some assail us through speakers, some startle us to life by appearing embodied in the room – only heighten the uncanny atmosphere. A real treat.

Runs until Saturday

– Sara Keating