The capital city was both a backdrop and participant in the 16-day fringe festival
SIXTEEN DAYS have gone in a flash of burlesque and Borges, of backwards fairytales and manic vegetables, of ping pong pub quizzing and shopping centre shenanigans, and this year’s Absolut Fringe festival has come to a close.
But the city that has hosted it, whose street corners, parks, windowsills and bushes have all been colonised by this artistic escapade, is still recovering. This year, Dublin was both a backdrop and participant in events which explored its public and private spaces. Among the former were a photo-booth in Stephen’s Green shopping centre, a taxi cab, a urinal and a Dunnes Stores’ dressing room, all part of Veronica Dyas’ Fringe contribution, entitled YOU. Each location presented different experiences for audience members: these included an uplifting examination of body perception and consumer choices in a changing room, and a more profound look at how performance can blur the distinction between private and public in a glasshouse in Smithfield’s Lighthouse cinema.
Dyas was also a part of the ensemble of artists and theatre folk who came together en masse for Live Art Speed Date, Stoke Newington International Airport’s wacky evening of dating with a difference.
The dates were with a collection of the festival’s artists who offered up varied performances and artistic experiences, including a Skype call, a marriage proposal, a musical interlude and some whispered poetry, each from separate booths and all four minutes long. While the dates were hit and miss, as dates often are, the variety and general mayhem, abetted by the hosts, DJ and a vodka-stocked bar, ensured a diverting mix of art and alcohol.
Poetry, music and general storytelling were at work in Sleepytime’s somewhat less successful improvised evening in the close confines of the Stags Head Parlour. The four artists behind It Was a Dream I Had threaded their individual voices through stories and music in an experimental evening of performance art. Although they failed to engage an audience that slowly drifted into their drinks, the soporific promise of the title was at least fulfilled.
Not so the dynamic and affecting performances by Bruno Humberto and Borja Sagasti in 2 Divide, the first of three shows that made up the Live Collision programme of international live art performance. With bi-polarity as the starting point, these two performers managed to bring together poetry, pathos and pure comedy in a show both profound and uplifting.
Though the Live Collision shows were among the Fringe programme’s international imports, there was plenty of home grown theatre at work inside the various theatres and along the city streets. Apocalypse When transformed the Cow’s Lane’s streetscape with a dark and cloudlike installation by Irish artists Aideen Darcy and Sinead McGeeney in conjunction with Sweden’s Veronica Forsgren. The black and steely, spiderlike sculptures hanging over the street from last Friday were in fact made from balloons, and members of the public were invited to try their hand at this particular form of sculpture, with props provided.
Also to be found on Dublin’s streets were 19 window boxes containing various herbs and flowers, placed in their locations by artist Sinead Carey, with instructions to “Please look after these plants”. Those who wished could water or care for the contents, move them using the carts provided at the Fringe Headquarters on Sackville Street and even take them home. This was all part of Carey’s examination of our urban environment and how nature can be reintegrated into the cityscapes. According to Carey, all of the plants were taken within the first three days, and the whereabouts of 18 of those remains a mystery.
Dublin not only hosted such shows, but found itself the subject of others, such as Tadhg O’Sullivan’s Bow Street, a haunting portrait of one Dublin street, with its cracked pavements, huddled homeless and footprints of those who walk through. Stunningly shot by Feargal Ward, the often inaudible audio takes second place to grim and glorious images of a street observed anew. And for each of the 16 days, a magazine was produced by the folk behind Oh, Francis to be collected from their Essex Street headquarters daily. Oh! Fringe comprised hand-sewn individual editions with Fringe news, photographs, interviews and each with one panel from an illustration by Killian Dunne on the back, to be pieced together, jigsaw fashion, at the end of the festival. Absolute art.
AWARD WINNERS
BEST DESIGN
Ger Clancy for Waterworn.
OTHER NOMINEES
Sinéad Wallace for 12 Minute Dances; Aideen McDonald for Madame Butterfly; and Oh, Francis for
Oh! Fringe.
BEWLEYS CAFE THEATRE AWARD for the best Irish fringe show under an hourCirque de Legume.
OTHER NOMINEES
Manchán Magan for Broken Croí/Heart Briste; Lisa Tierney-Keogh for 4 Last Things; Leonor Bethencourt for The Legend of Zoccoro.
BEST MALE PERFORMER
Joint winners: Patrick Moffatt and
Paul Lum (Holiday).
OTHER NOMINEES
Karl Quinn for Anatomy of a Seagull (Loose Canon); Bruno Humberto and Borja Sagasti from 2 Divide; and Jamie Carswell for Cirque de Legume and The Blanch (Carpet Theatre).
BEST FEMALE PERFORMER
Maeve Fitzgerald (Basin).
OTHER NOMINEES
Caroline Simon for Stuck; Caitriona Ni Mhurchu for Anatomy of a Seagull (Loose Canon); Jane McGrath for 4 Last Things (Lisa Tierney-Keogh); and Claire Barrett for Power Point (The Performance Corporation).
SPIRIT OF THE FRINGE COMMISSIONING AWARD
The Company for Who is Fergus Kilpatrick?
OTHER NOMINEES
THEATREclub for Rough and Group Therapy for One; Úna McKevitt for Victor and Gord Cubed; Ponydance for Where did it all go right?; and Untitled Theatrics for This is Not a Drill.
BEST SPIEGELTENT SHOW
Camille O’Sullivan.
OTHER NOMINEES
Nico Muhly; Synth Eastwood Has You Surrounded; and the Vertical Rhythm Club.
FISHAMBLE NEW WRITING AWARD
to the best play by an emerging Irish playwright
Grace Dyas for Rough, presented by THEATREclub.
OTHER NOMINEES
Black Bessie – Una Kavanagh; Johnny Meister and the Stitch – Rosemary Jenkinson; 4 Last Things – Lisa Tierney- Keogh; Broken Croí/Heart Briste – Manchán Magan.
BEST PRODUCTION
Iris Brunette (Melanie Wilson and Fue).
OTHER NOMINEES
Miranda Driscoll/ Michael Flemming with The Joinery for The Enemies; Ranters Theatre for Holiday; Origamibiro and the Joy of Box Live; and Lisa Tierney-Keogh for 4 Last Things.
ABSOLUT FRINGE WILD CARD
(decided by audiences)
Paula O’Reilly, Ponydance
