Act Without Words II ****
Christ Church Lane The nine o'clock bells of Christ Church Cathedral peal as stark white light throws sleeping bags, one red, one blue, into sudden relief in an ancient nearby alley: director Sarah Jane Scaife has taken Beckett's short mime play outdoors.
Prodded into life by a pole, worked by an unseen hand, Man A (Barabbas’s Raymond Keane) and Man B (Bryan Burroughs) emerge from their cauls in turn, go through what seems an oft-repeated routine of getting dressed, taking a bite of a carrot and moving the other’s inert form nearer the pole before returning to their own prone position.
The frail, gaunt Keane's tremulous routine (a masterclass in achingly slow control) involves pills and spewing while the more burly Burroughs is all business, brushing his teeth, anxiously checking his watch, doing press-ups, more like an everyday commuter to his companion's addict – one barely conscious, the other unbearably so. A powerful, poignant vignette of human existence, in all its endless, pointless repetition. Ends tonight. Paula Shields
A Moment of Suitable Silence **
CHQ Building
A Moment of Suitable Silenceattempts to piece together the enigma of the Piano Man; a young German man who was found on a beach in England in 2005 unable to speak, but able to play the piano. Combining extracts from the international press with devised sequences, the company probes the reality behind the media coverage of the sensational story.
In the bowels of the CHQ building, Kevin Wallace and Marilena Zaroulia direct the three cast members through a series of games: the dice roll of snakes and ladders alluding to chance; the actors’ movements and occassional disappearance becoming a game of hide and seek; the several beginnings making a game of the performance.
However, as the fragmentary form of the piece mirrors the unknowable truth behind the Piano Man's tragedy, so Monsters and Players struggle to find coherence. While designer Eoghan Carrick leaves a trail of clues for the audience to follow – a string of pebbles, lettered messages like a visual morse code – A Moment of Suitable Silenceremains, like the Piano Man, a mystery. Ends tonight. Sara Keating
A Spoonful of Silence ***
11 Capel Street
Rose petal tea, hot water bottles, warm hand towels and grandma’s cake and cream, accompany our Chekhovian peasant host, Mandana, as she invites us into her cosy kitchen to hear her meticulous story about the care her village attends to when they cultivate the letters they eat that nourish the words they speak with.
Winters, when nothing grows, are snowfalls of resonant silence until, one day, someone invents a chemical additive to sprout vowels and consonants in the cold months, and all is utterly changed. Suddenly, there's a surplus of words. Where once expression was precious now it's wasteful and meaningless. A Spoonful of Silencehas a Zen-like emphasis on taking your time and not doing a million things at once. It's a kitchen-table drama not so much about language as it is about the destructive folly of busy bee Capitalism.
Words, you see, can't really be eaten but care and consideration can be nurtured. A soupçon of very digestible wisdom, indeed. Ends tonight. Patrick Brennan
The Enemies ****
The Joinery
This is what a fringe festival is about: experimentation and taking risks that repay. Miranda Driscoll and Michael Fleming's compelling production blurs the boundaries between art installation and performance. The Enemiesis an abstract interpretation of The Secret Miracle, a Borges story, where a condemned man is given respite to complete his cello masterpiece. A man lies folded and still on a bed, and above him, a series of haunting images flashes like the process of memory recalling a life and an uncompleted journey. The audience then journey on with the memory of him in their heads, passing through a series of empty and darkened interconnecting rooms, where hypnotic projected images and cello music finally fuse beautifully. Whether it's art installation or theatre, the cumulative effect is both visceral and moving. Rosita Boland
The Absolut Fringe festival runs in Dublin until Sept 20. For details, see fringefest.com