That’s About The Size of It

Bewley’s Cafe Theatre ***

BEWLEY'S CAFE Theatre is transformed into the 10th dimension in Niamh Shaw's lecture-cum- performance piece T hat's About the Size of It.The 10th dimension, as scientist and actor Shaw explains, is the "what if?" parallel universe, where all possible lives that we could have lived co-exist: the embryonic self at one end; the present self at the other; all past and possible selves in between.

Shaw scratches out her theory in scientific equations on an orb-shaped blackboard space on the floor, while images of her alternative lives unfold on a gauzy scrim. There’s ballerina Niamh, astronaut Niamh, happily married mother Niamh, and, finally, Niamh, the scientist and artist. In a moving dance at the end, these latter two aspects of her persona merge with the three-dimensional Niamh standing in the theatre before us.

Even if the lecture elements never merge with the art, Shaw and co-creator Una Kavanagh stay true to atomic principles. The audience leaves with something new: a rational understanding of the God particle, at least, if no deeper human truths.

Runs until September 21st