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6 TO SEE The Misfits Corn Exchange are as close a
s it comes to critic proof with their productions. Dublin by Lamplight, Man of Valour and Freefall rank as some of our favourite plays we’ve seen in the city. This time, they’re taking on Arthur Miller’s The Misfits in a ‘reimagining’ by Annie Ryan. “It shouts and sings with life…explodes with love!” said the original theatrical poster. You can be sure Ryan and her cohorts have tossed those generic words into the bin and are exploring its “intimate, visceral, elemental” language. The American Dream laid bare. Smock Alley Theatre until October 7, 7.30pm with 2.30pm matinee performances on the 4th & 6th, 1.30pm on 7th, €20-€30 Bluebeard’s Castle Enda Walsh is truly one of the most prolific writer/directors in our orbit. Since he staged the kinetic The Second Violinst at the festival last year, he’s collaborated with Cillian Murphy on the rapturously received Grief is a Thing with Feathers and created Office 33A, a new work for Galway Arts Festival. We’re sure he’s done loads of other things too. Here, he’s tackling Béla Bartók’s first stage work and only opera – a reimagining of the tale of Bluebeard. Staged with the Irish National Opera and the RTE Concert Orchestra in the pit, we’re expecting Walsh to bring his usual A-game. Gaiety Theatre, October 12-14, 7.30pm, €16-€46 Hamlet Someone somewhere told us that Ruth Negga is putting in crazy hours in preparation for her role as the Prince of Denmark. The fruits of this labour will be borne witness to on the stage of The Gate in this marquee show. Director Yaël Farber has stated that the Oscar-nominated Negga will “plunge Shakespeare’s troubled and complex prince deep into the 21st century.” Great expectations and a scramble for tickets then. The Gate Theatre, until Saturday October 27, 7pm (matinees on Wednesday and Saturday, 1.30pm), no shows on Sunday, €25€55 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Arthur Riordan casts his inventive eye across Joyce and his protagonist Stephen Dedalus in this Rough Magic production. We’re expecting him to let his anarchic wit loose also on this work which was first published 102 years ago. Ronan Phelan directs. Pavilion Theatre, until October 7, 8pm with 2.30pm matinee on the 6th, €22-€27 The Bystander The Bystander uses the murder of Kitty Genovese in New York in the spring of 1964 as its jump off point. She was stabbed to death outside her apartment and while numbers are disputed, it is claimed a number of ‘bystanders’ witnessed or heard the attack and did nothing. The ‘Bystander effect’ became a staple of American psychology textbooks and the gifted Junk Ensemble draw on the expertise of a psychologist in their dance exploration of human behaviour. Axis: Ballymun, Thursday October 4 - Saturday 6, 8pm, €18 Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo This all-male drag ballet troupe parodies the conventions of romantic and classical ballet. Founded in 1974, they mine the mannerisms and absurdities of the most twinklest of toes for comic entertainment. Words such as hammy, clichéd and superficial are worn like feathers to adorn the Swan tutus of The Trocks. Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Tuesday October 9 & Tuesday 10, 7.30pm, €25-€48.50 We don’t need to pretend that we’re somewhere else. We actually need help being in real time in real space together THE FEVER I recently saw an Instagram video involving a large group of beachgoers working together to pull a beached shark back into the water. Their task was successful, followed by cheers and applause from the group. The short clip made me smile as I watched it several times. There’s a special something about human connection. Whether it is on a night out with friends, or at a demonstration where those present are all supporting the same cause, there is a satisfaction we get from coming together. And luckily for us, the amenities of modern society make it so that the world and the people in it are forever at our fingertips; where likes, follows and comments can make us feel like we really are all in this together. However, when on the Luas if you look up from your phone and inadvertently make eye contact with another human being, often your reaction is to quickly look away. This is a subtle reminder of how disconnected we all are on a daily basis. But yet, there is a lingering something that is felt from that mistaken glance, and if you investigate a little further, you realize that not so deep down we all crave some form of palpable connection with one another. The latest offering from Obie award winning New York theatre company 600 Highwaymen aims to satisfy that craving. The Fever, which premiered last year at the Under the Radar Festival, tackles the very timely subject of togetherness by presenting a show that does not fictionalize its theatrical events. “We put a frame around the real,” says Abigal Browde, who along with husband Michael Silverstone (and an array of continuous collaborators) makes up 600 Highwaymen. “I think of theatre as a dilemma or a terrifying construct… Often as a well-trained actor, you are meant to take that energy and that dilemma and sense of terror and hide it or channel it into some other part of your performance and make it invisible. I think that we’re actually really interested in that heartbeat, in that sense of rush, that sense of electricity that happens when someone is watching you do something, that kind of magical energy.” Described by Silverstone as “a rehearsal for deep empathy,” the duo developed The Fever 46