Opening the Gate: is Irish theatre still talking to itself?The Irish Theatrical Diaspora Conference at the Gate heard illuminating talks about Edwards and Mac Liammóir, Beckett and FrielThu May 21 2015 - 01:00
Review: DruidShakespeareDruid carve four Shakespeare plays into an epic of regal succession, and drag the kings down with the people where they belongMon May 18 2015 - 17:46
Review: Famished CastleAre all the characters in Hilary Fannin’s new play toxically self-involved or has our national plummet from prosperity left everybody isolated?Thu May 14 2015 - 15:13
Review: The Shadow of a GunmanSean O’Casey’s classic play is given a fresh approach, but is that enough to shake off its shadow?Mon May 11 2015 - 18:19
Can we treat Shakespeare as one of our own? Getting the dirt on DruidShakespeareTheatre company give the Henriad an Irish flavour by tweaking the text and the terrainSat May 09 2015 - 05:30
Culture Shock: Were there any justice, ‘The Field’ would never have been writtenJohn B Keane created the fearsome Bull McCabe in response to a brutal murder. Can the dramatisation of unsolved crimes and miscarriages of justice bring closure?Fri May 08 2015 - 15:00
Sarah Greene: 'You have to be a little bit mental to be in this job'It’s a big leap from The Guard to Alice in Funderland and The Cripple of Inishmaan to the new series of Penny Dreadful, but Cork actress Sarah Greene is taking each new challenge in her strideFri May 08 2015 - 08:00
Bryce Dessner harnesses Cork’s creative potentialThe National guitarist is excited about curating the first Sounds from a Safe Harbour festival, which will be ‘like throwing a party for your friends’Thu May 07 2015 - 05:00
Theatre review: Before Monsters Were MadeThe absorbing mystery of Ross Dungan’s play is: why do we trust authority, in our families or in our stories, and what happens when it collapses?Tue May 05 2015 - 18:14
The Field review: John B Keane’s subversive streak made safeThis proud anniversary production of a play last staged just four years ago feels more familiar than heritage drama; more rote than the MassThu Apr 30 2015 - 21:15
Ben Kidd: A British master of metatheatre who found the plotInterview: Kidd is ‘doomed’ to try as many styles as possible, from the experimental Lippy to the more naturalistic Before Monsters Were MadeThu Apr 30 2015 - 06:00
Romeo and Juliet . . . and Peter: is there still such a thing as a small part?As an actor you may have only a few lines – or none at all – but you can still make the most of a role, as Dee Burke, who’s appearing in ‘Hedda Gabler’ at the Abbey, and John Doran, who features in Shakespeare’s tragedy at the Gate, are provingSat Apr 18 2015 - 09:00
What qualities should the Abbey Theatre be looking for in its new director?The director of the National Theatre must be a realist and a dreamerSat Apr 18 2015 - 01:00
Hedda Gabler review: a fluid production that lacks heatAbbey production of Ibsen’s drama feels stiltedFri Apr 17 2015 - 14:40
The Abbey Theatre’s new direction: Recruitment begins for new director(s)With the current director Fiach MacConghail due to step down in December, 2016, the National Theatre has officially begun the process of finding a new director - or twoWed Apr 15 2015 - 16:21
Culture Shock: Why Hedda Gabler ain’t messing with no broke NorwegiansMark O’Rowe, who has written a new version of Ibsen’s play, may be an unlikely feministSat Apr 11 2015 - 03:00
Review: The Man in Two PiecesStephen Brennan steals all the scenes in this study of a showmanFri Apr 10 2015 - 14:25
Review: Julie FeeneyFeeney, a singular musical talent, is barely present in this new show that is cruelly inattentive to its audienceFri Apr 03 2015 - 15:20
Culture Shock: Rage against the machine – why we don’t have to let the robots winFrom iPhones to Daft Punk, technology has made us something more than human and less than people. But there is another vision of the worldSat Mar 14 2015 - 01:00
How to be Decadent in a time of hardship for Irish theatreAndrew Flynn, Decadent Theatre Company’s director, has an unusual ability to combine artistic passion with the deal-clinching pitches of a travelling salesmanWed Mar 11 2015 - 08:00
'Villain, basterd, knave, rascal' - new production aims to rewrite Shakespeare's IrelandA new post-colonial Irish production of Shakespeare’s History Plays, performed by Druid’s ensemble, aims to go "mano a mano" with the Bard, says director Garry HynesFri Mar 06 2015 - 17:48
Review: The PillowmanMartin McDonagh’s best play is imaginatively produced by Decadent TheatreTue Mar 03 2015 - 18:20
Review: UnderneathPat Kinevane’s latest show has an ancient opulence and is almost a masterpieceMon Mar 02 2015 - 14:23
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: ‘Shakespeare may have been on magic mushrooms’The Abbey goes Pan Pan for a subversive, tender and innovative production of Shakespeare’s warped comedy, which has been relocated to a nursing homeMon Mar 02 2015 - 01:00
Review: Sea WallSimons Stephens’ Sea Wall is built on the awesome power of the unknown, and in Andrew Scott’s mercurial hands it will seduce and destroy youWed Feb 25 2015 - 16:46
A thrillingly intimate 30 minutes with Andrew ScottHe stole the show in Sherlock and is about to break into Bond – but it’s Sea Wall that has had the biggest impact on his workMon Feb 23 2015 - 10:45
Calling the shots: A life in the day of a stage managerIt’s not actors whose way you need to stay out of behind the scenes at a theatre but stage managers, the key crew who subtly crack the whip from the wingsSat Feb 21 2015 - 01:00
Review: A Midsummer Night’s DreamShakespeare isn’t getting any younger, and here his Midsummer action finds itself wandering the halls of a nursing homeWed Feb 18 2015 - 17:43
Review: Everything Between UsDavid Ireland drops more than a few depth charges in one of the best pieces about conflict in “post conflict” Northern Ireland yet writtenWed Feb 18 2015 - 14:15
Theatre review: Death of a ComedianIn Owen McCafferty’s new play, four stand-up routines form an anatomy of a sell-outTue Feb 17 2015 - 15:07
Marty Rea: ‘Actors aren’t just puppets to be moved around the stage’Rea grew up painfully shy in west Belfast before training at Rada. He cuts a confident figure now, an actor for whom ‘grand’ is never good enoughTue Feb 17 2015 - 06:00
Culture Shock: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler walk into a bar. Fill in the punchline yourselfSun Feb 15 2015 - 10:05
Theatre review: The CaretakerToby Frow’s production of Pinter’s 1960 play sticks too scrupulously to the textThu Feb 12 2015 - 14:58
Theatre review: Pals – The Irish at GallipoliThings fall apart in Anu’s latest show, a profund look at Irish soldiers in the first World War – and that’s exactly what’s intendedThu Feb 12 2015 - 14:56
Irish Theatre Awards: the show that shaped mePeter Crawley asks nominees for this year’s ‘Irish Times’ Irish Theatre Awards about a key performance or piece of theatre that influenced their artistic outlookSat Feb 07 2015 - 06:00
A madcap drama that needs the cold eye of a director and some further investmentThere is a good show in Emerald Germs and some marvellous performances. But can it shake off its lethargy?Fri Feb 06 2015 - 18:14
Lucy Hutson’s show about Britney Spears, cynicism and killer chat-up linesHutson is a politically ambiguous performance artist who canvasses her audience for causes. Is she a cynic, a polemicist or a model of the times?Thu Feb 05 2015 - 01:00
Aoife Duffin: ‘There was a lot of curiosity about whether I was a normal person’When she was approached for the only role in the distressing stage adaptation of A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, the actor had refused, saying she couldn’t do ‘another play about rape’ after a string of draining parts. What changed her mind?Tue Feb 03 2015 - 04:00
Four things we wondered at Theatre MachineThe festival of theatre-in-progress projects from new artists treats plays as lambs. But will they get slaughtered?Mon Feb 02 2015 - 01:00
Dylan Quinn takes us to Ireland’s ‘fifth province’In doing so, he hopes to chip away at our ‘monolithic ideas of identity’Thu Jan 29 2015 - 10:00
Review: Oh My Sweet LandAmir Nizar Zuabi’s play is set against the civil war in Syria, but the writer/director is more aesthete than provocateurWed Jan 28 2015 - 17:17
Backstage at The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards12 months, 138 productions and three judges - we take you behind the scenes of the Irish Theatre Awards nominationsSat Jan 17 2015 - 08:00
Culture Shock: the nightmare from which we are trying to awake‘Take Me to Church’ could be seen as blasphemous, but is anyone ready to sue Hozier?Sat Jan 17 2015 - 01:00
Review: Weighing InThere are plenty of obvious flavours in this show, which is as edgy as a marshmallowFri Jan 16 2015 - 16:27
Gleeson family values put to the test in this fantastical farceIn Enda Walsh’s turbo-charged tragicomedy, an Irish family are horribly condemned to live out their lives in endless performances. Any similarity to the Gleeson family is entirely coincidentalThu Jan 15 2015 - 13:31
The Devil’s Spine Band: ‘a Mariachi bar in Mullingar’ crossed with Oscar Wilde’s westThe group’s latest performance is inspired by Wilde’s 1882 trip to lawless LeadvilleMon Jan 12 2015 - 01:00
Review: the power and the fury of Run the Jewels liveEl-P and Killer Mike have an awful lot to live up to in concert, and the Run the Jewels pair don’t disappointTue Dec 30 2014 - 14:26
Review: Looking for WorkThe anti-style of Martin Sharry’s severely minimal new play takes a hatchet to both bourgeois conformity and representational theatre. But does it work?Sun Dec 28 2014 - 11:50
Peter Crawley’s cultural highs and lows of 2014The harrowing ’A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing’ is hard to shake offSat Dec 27 2014 - 01:00
Culture Shock: Awestruck by Krystian Lupa, a grand master of theatrePolish director is not so much respected as reveredSat Dec 20 2014 - 01:00
