Macnas looms large in Fringe

Even in these hard times when everybody seems to be downsizing, Macnas is looking up.

The Galway-based theatre group has never lacked ambition in good times or bad and it will open the Absolut Fringe festival tonight with a typically bold and imaginative production.

Collins Barracks’ square will a suitably expansive forum for the unnamed eight-year-old boy explorer, the star of the company’s latest production.

He will awake to a dream that comes alive, chase after a butterfly, embark on a wild hunt, encounter palaeolithic creatures, ghosts ships, totem animals based on characters in the poetry of Seamus Heaney, W.B Yeats and Federico García Lorca in the guise of a horse, a hare and a stag, and all played out with outsized characters and a cast of hundreds which have been Macnas’ style since its inception.

It is Macnas first show in Dublin for eight years and a major challenge for its artistic director Noeleen Kavanagh who started her role just as the recession began to bite.

“I came in at an absolutely brilliant time (not!) the whole country is in depression and there was no money,” she said. “You have to be a pathological optimist in this business.”

A sense of optimism does pervade the festival now its 16th year. Festival director Róise Goan said she expects 5,000 people to attend tonight’s free event and 50,000 over the duration of the festival which runs until September 26th.

Prices for the 460 different performances range from €5 for smaller events to €29.50 to see the singer Camille O’Sullivan.

The hub of the festival will be the Absolut Fringe Factory located in the old Pravda bar in Lower Liffey Street near O'Connell Street.

It will be the main location for the Fringe's music programme which this weekend features American artists Taylor Mac and Miranda Sings.

They will be followed next weekend by Camille O'Sullivan and Irish singers and the last weekend will have an Icelandic themed weekend of music featuring Amiina, Ólöf Arnalds and FM Belfast.

“Apart from being broke, we wanted to show we have a lot in common with Iceland in terms of our contemporary eclectic musical heritage,” Ms Goan said.

A new adaptation of the Euripides' Medea will be one of the highlights of the theatre festival.

Jerk, a puppet-based drama about the Texan serial killer of more than 20 boys in the 1970s, and Trilogy, a celebration of modern feminism which was a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe and involves 50 naked women, are also likely to be two of the best attended events at the festival.

Though most of the theatre companies are from Dublin, Wish I Were Here, which will be playing at the Smock Alley Theatre, will feature a collaboration between IT Sligo's first graduates from their Performance Arts Programme and The Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon.

It is set against a mountain of suitcases and examines our sense of home and belonging.

The Fringe Factory will also play host to American comedy duo Pajama Men and the festival club which will be held during night while the festival is continuing.

Many of the events are free and visual artist Fergal McCarthy has created Liffeytown, an installation which will float in the river of the same name for the duration of the festival.