The 24 Hour Plays

Abbey Theatre, Dublin Sun 7.30pm 30-100 abbeytheatre.ie

There’s something exhilarating and slightly sadistic about The 24 Hour Plays, a New York-originated project that, for 17 years now, has been fraying the nerves of theatre-makers for our amusement.

Bringing together a number of playwrights, directors, actors and heroically unsung stage managers and technicians, the event is a high-wire act without a safety net: six 10-minute plays are scripted overnight (according to a theme), learned and rehearsed throughout the day (no scripts or improvisation allowed), and costumed, lit and designed (however sparsely) in any available pocket of time.

Telescoping the entire theatrical process into an impossibly short stretch of time, the event doesn’t expect perfection. Yet the accomplishment of Semper Fi’s Within 24 Hour series in the early aughts, or Dublin Youth Theatre’s first foray into this form of extreme-theatre last year, illuminates the little miracle of any good piece of theatre.

It’s always a race against time and steep odds where artists and audience will each other on. That, and the good grace that DYT commands, explains why this latest iteration has attracted such high- profile talent, including writers Michael West and Gina Moxley, performers Sarah Greene and half the cast of Love/Hate, and directors Annabelle Comyn, Louise Lowe and Garry Hynes, the latter directing for the Abbey stage for the first time since 2001, for one night only.

Can't see that? Catch this:The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle, Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin

PETER CRAWLEY