Tiny Plays For Ireland

Project Arts Centre, Dublin Previews until Mar 19 €15 Opens Mar 20-31 8pm €22/€18 01-8819613 projectartscentre.ie

There’s no such thing as a small part, only small actors, goes the old saying. When it comes to plays and writers, though, the reverse now seems to be true. Fishamble: The New Play Company here stages 25 plays of 600 words length each (about four minutes of stage time), all of which come from writers who – whether established or first timers – seem to be of significant stature.

Some of these scripts were commissioned from well- known writers such as Dermot Bolger, Joe O’Connor, Tom Swift and Michael West, but the vast majority came from an open call for nanoscribes, which resulted in 1,700 submissions.

There is, of course, an obvious question to follow this charming experiment in miniaturisation. What’s the big deal? For Fishamble it seems to be a modest variation on the Mass Observation Movement – the playwrights are each addressing themselves to the subject of contemporary Ireland, individually providing one pixel in a national jpeg.

For an audience, if the unified voice of a play cedes to a disjointed polyphony, it may appear more like a sketch show. There’s another saying that seems appropriate to that production challenge: size doesn’t matter. It’s what you do with it that counts.

Can’t See That? Catch This

An Oak Tree The Lir, Dublin