Wake-up call

THE THEATRE MACHINE TURNS YOU ON, Project Arts Centre, Dublin Tues 1st-Sat 5th 6.30pm, 7.30pm 8.30pm €5 (three shows for €12) 01-8819613

The young and indefatigable group THEATREClub have been persuading people to do things for free. It’s a business model likely to be met with equal parts thrill and terror by theatre makers. But at a time when the future looks uncertain and there’s little economic security among even the haves, the have-nots can be immensely resourceful.

Counting an abandoned wine shop among their rehearsal spaces – is there any better emblem of recession- era transformation? – THEATREclub have organised a mini-festival of new work by new artists.

Assembled on a budget that, for convenience’s sake, could be rounded down to zero, these 10 short shows are priced accordingly (a fiver a pop) and staged three a night for five days. There’s no shared agenda, but the general aesthetic seems to gravitate towards the real, the experimental and the playfully inscrutable.

You're as likely to encounter a piece of political verbatim theatre (Tara Robinson's Asylum Speakers) as you are a play using pop art devices to explore a misshapen relationship ( Andy Warhol Is Nothing Special), as well as shows with compellingly bewildering titles: Forest, Please Leave a Message Under the Oceanand The THEATREclub Stole Your CLOCK RADIO What The Fuck You Gonna Do About It?

If this brazen approach manages to transform a crisis into an opportunity, it could be the wake-up call we’ve all been waiting for.

Can't see that? Catch this

Glengarry Glen Ross

The New Theatre, Dublin