My Own Personal Theatre Awards 2017

“Then the greatness of our city brings it about that all the good things from all over the world flow in to us, so that to us it seems just as natural to enjoy foreign goods as our own local products” – Pericles’ Funeral Oration, Thucydides’ The History of the Peloponnesian War.

Best Production

Waiting for Godot (Druid/The Abbey)

The Effect (Project Arts Centre)

The Dumb Waiter (The Gate)

The Pillowman (The Gaiety)

I Hear You and Rejoice (The Pavilion)

The Man in the Woman’s Shoes (The Pavilion)

Tribes (The Gate)

 

Best New Play

The Effect by Lucy Prebble (Project Arts Centre)

I Hear You and Rejoice by Mikel Murfi (The Pavilion)

Tribes by Nina Raine (The Gate)

Autumn Royal by Kevin Barry (Project Arts Centre)

Mr Burns: A Post-Electric Play by Anne Washburn (Project Arts Centre)

This isn’t my Desk by Kate Cosgrove (Smock Alley)

 

Best Director

Garry Hynes – Waiting for Godot (Druid/The Abbey)

Ronan Phelan – The Effect/Mr Burns: A Post-Electric Play (Project Arts Centre)

Joe Dowling – The Dumb Waiter (The Gate)

Andrew Flynn –  The Pillowman (The Gaiety)

Geoff O’Keefe – King Lear (The Mill Theatre)

Catriona McLaughlin – Autumn Royal (Project Arts Centre)

Best Actor

Mikel Murfi – The Man in the Woman’s Shoes/I Hear You and Rejoice (The Pavilion)

Marty Rea – Waiting for Godot/The Great Gatsby (Druid/The Abbey & The Gate)

Aaron Monaghan – Waiting for Godot (Druid/The Abbey & The Gate)

Garrett Lombard – The Dumb Waiter (The Gate)

Lorcan Cranitch – The Dumb Waiter (The Gate)

Peter Gowen – The Pillowman (The Gaiety)

Philip Judge – King Lear (The Mill Theatre)

Donal Gallery – The Effect (Project Arts Centre)

 

Best Actress

Siobhan Cullen – The Effect/Crestfall (Project Arts Centre/The Abbey)

Rachel O’Byrne – The Great Gatsby (The Gate)

Clare Dunne – Tribes (The Gate)

Charlie Murphy – Arlington (Landmark/The Abbey)

Seana Kerslake – King of the Castle (Druid/The Gaiety)

Karen McCartney – Mr Burns: A Post-Electric Play (Project Arts Centre)

Rebecca O’Mara – Private Lives (The Gate)

 

Best Supporting Actor

Mark Huberman – The Great Gatsby (The Gate)

Nick Dunning – Tribes (The Gate)

Rory Nolan – Waiting for Godot (Druid/The Abbey)

Marty Rea – King of the Castle (Druid/The Gaiety)

Garrett Lombard – Waiting for Godot (Druid/The Abbey)

Gary Lydon – The Pillowman (The Gaiety)

Conor O’Riordan – Mr Burns: A Post-Electric Play (Project Arts Centre)

Michael David McKernan – King Lear (The Mill Theatre)

Gavin Drea – Tribes (The Gate)

Ronan Leahy – The Effect (Project Arts Centre)

 

Best Supporting Actress

Aoibheann McCann – The Great Gatsby (The Gate)

Fiona Bell – Tribes (The Gate)

Ali White – The Effect (Project Arts Centre)

Sharon McCoy – King Lear (The Mill Theatre)

Maureen Rabbitt – This isn’t my Desk (Smock Alley)

Liz Fitzgibbon  – A Statue for Bill Clinton (Belvedere College)

Nessa Matthews – Mr Burns: A Post-Electric Play (Project Arts Centre)

Best Set Design

Francis O’Connor – Waiting for Godot/Private Lives/King of the Castle/The Dumb Waiter/ (Druid/The Abbey & The Gate & Druid/The Gaiety & The Gate)

Owen MacCarthaigh – The Pillowman (Gaiety Theatre)

Ciaran Bagnall – The Great Gatsby (The Gate)

Molly O’Cathain – Mr Burns: A Post-Electric Play (Project Arts Centre)

Conor Murphy – Tribes (The Gate)

Jamie Vartan – Arlington (Landmark/The Abbey)

 

Best Lighting Design

James F. Ingalls – Waiting for Godot (Druid/The Abbey)

Ciaran Bagnall – The Pillowman (The Gaiety)

Jason Taylor – The Dumb Waiter (The Gate)

Kris Mooney – King Lear (The Mill Theatre)

Adam Silverman – Arlington (Landmark/The Abbey)

 

Best Sound Design

Carl Kennedy – The Pillowman (The Gaiety)

Greg Clarke – Waiting for Godot (Druid/The Abbey)

Declan Brennan – King Lear (The Mill Theatre)

Helen Atkinson – Arlington (Landmark/The Abbey)

Ivan Birthistle – Tribes (The Gate)

 

Best Costume Design

Peter O’Brien – Private Lives/The Great Gatsby (The Gate & The Gate)

Francis O’Connor – Waiting for Godot (Druid/The Abbey)

Joan O’Clery – The Dumb Waiter (The Gate)

The Costume Room – King Lear (The Mill Theatre)

Special Mention

Bryan Cranston – Network (National Theatre)

Well here we go again, including London in these awards, but an exception must again be made.

Cranston’s multi-faceted turn was a performance that made this play better than its cinematic precursor.

 

The Pillowman

Decadent Theatre Company again took over the Gaiety stage with Martin McDonagh’s trademark blend of macabre madness, but set in Mitteleurope rather than the Wesht.

 

Katurian (Diarmuid Noyes) is in deep trouble. Somebody in this unnamed (and semi-mythical) totalitarian state has been acting out particularly horrible short stories by a writer, and he’s the writer so he’s the prime suspect. Abrasive policeman Tupolski (Peter Gowen) and his thuggish underling Ariel (Gary Lydon) have Katurian prisoner in their Spartan barracks. And by Lenin if they have to beat the eyes out of his head and unsettle him with asinine nonsense they are going to make him confess. Unless of course he didn’t do it, but if not him then who; could his brain-damaged brother Michael (Owen Sharpe) really have done such horrible things? Would Tupolski really torture innocent Michael just to make Katurian confess? Why does Katurian write such horrible stories in the first place? And what does horrible parenting have to do with it all?

Owen MacCarthaigh’s deceptively simple set; almost a bare stage with desk, seats, cabinet, and furnace in a circle; spectacularly splits to reveal a house or woodland behind, dependent on which of Katurian’s tales is being silently played out (very broadly) by Jarlath Tivnan, Kate Murray, Peter Shine, Tara Finn, and Rose Makela. Ciaran Bagnall’s lights and Carl Kennedy’s sounds combine to create tableau during the most disturbing of these glimpses into Katurian’s dark imagination, the origin of his creativity. I saw The Pillowman in UCD Dramsoc in 2006 as a spare four-hander, so director Andrew Flynn’s visual extravagance here took me aback. It amuses and horrifies effectively, but also leaves the audience with less work to do. Sharpe’s sometimes camp mannerisms were also in stark contrast to Michael’s defeated stillness back in 2006, akin to Marty Rea’s recent Aston.

Pinter is a strong presence in this play. The first act is comedy of menace as Katurian is bewildered and intimidated by Tupolski’s odd interrogation. The second act is arguably McDonagh’s most soulful material ever, as the two brothers share a cell. The dark and comic invention of Katurian’s reimagining of fairy tales throughout remains astonishing, a highlight being the Pied Piper of Hamlein. And then there’s the third act where McDonagh seems to mash together Pinter and Orton; “I’m sick of everyone blaming their behaviour on someone else. My father was a violent alcoholic. Am I a violent alcoholic? Yes. … But that was entirely my choice”; but then deliver a tour-de-force entirely his own, Tupolski’s short story – which I still remembered chunks of 11 years later. It is outrageously offensive, and sadly it was clear the audience in the Gaiety was self-censoring itself, whereas in Dramsoc we had recognised it was of a part with Tupolski’s character and, having made that recognition, thereafter stopped tut-tutting and let out ears back to fully enjoy the verbal marvel McDonagh was constructing. Cruelty and callousness are part of comedy, perhaps inextricably so; it’s hard to imagine Swift or Waugh without them.

I still prefer some of the notes struck by Andrew Nolan’s Tupolski in 2006, but Noyes’ sincerity, Gowen’s swagger, and Lydon’s hidden decency make for an impressive central trio.

4.5/5

The Weir

Decadent Theatre Company revive Conor McPherson’s all-conquering 1997 play of ghost stories in an isolated Leitrim pub to chilling and cathartic effect.

PIC DARRAGH KANE

Jack (Gary Lydon) arrives into a small pub to find the tap for his chosen tipple isn’t working. So it goes with laidback barman Brendan (Patrick Ryan), who gives Jack a bottle instead. They are soon joined by the quiet but sharp Jim (Frankie McCafferty), and anxiously await the arrival of local tycoon Finbarr (Garrett Keogh), who is bringing Dublin blow-in Valerie (Janet Moran) to the bar. The men are concerned that Finbarr, a married man, is being unseemly in his attentions towards Valerie, and are equally concerned that he is turning them into dancing bears as a show of local colour for Valerie. But in the end the unseemliness comes from the concerned locals, as a number of local ghost stories pour forth, becoming progressively darker as the night draws in and the beers and short ones mount up.

Director Andrew Flynn’s handling of The Weir is riveting. You could hear a pin drop during the multiple monologues, and I cannot have been the only one to have a chill run down my spine while listening to the first two ghost stories told by Finbarr and Jack. An eerie atmosphere was greatly aided by the terrific whistling wind effects of Carl Kennedy’s sound design. Owen MacCarthaigh’s set design is a world away from the spectacular cut-aways he rendered for Decadent’s A Skull in Connemara, and in this simple naturalistic setting McPherson’s place in a continuum is apparent. The menace of possible drunken violence between the arrogant Finbarr and the prickly Jack is reminiscent of Tom Murphy, while everyone’s resentful mockery of Finbarr’s wealth recalls similar attitudes to the Shah in John McGahern’s That They May Face the Rising Sun.

Lydon brings Jack to cantankerous life, making his closing monologue particularly affecting, while Keogh is a world away from his put-upon turn in A Skull in Connemara with his infuriatingly patronising Finbarr (“Oh! Good girl”). This is the first time I’ve seen the play since Patrick Doyle parsed the script for me as a Mametian series of power-plays. Seen in that light the stories have suspicious similarities of theme, to say nothing of the escalation; Jack narrates a historic haunting, Finbarr narrates feeling a ghost behind him, Jim interacts directly with a paedophile’s ghost, and Valerie’s daughter returns via a ghostly phone call. The fact that Valerie unleashes her trumping story after a trip to the toilet supports the idea that she’s had enough of these strangers trying to unnerve her and has decided to beat them at their game.

Such cynicism is far removed from regarding the play as communal catharsis, but it says much for its deceptive depth that one can suspect Valerie and yet still sincerely feel Jack’s cri-de-couer.

4/5

The Weir continues its run at the Pavilion Theatre until the 30^th of July.