A look at what is happenning at the Dublin Fringe Festival
Teatro Delusio
Pavilion Theatre,
Dún Laoghaire
All the drama is backstage in Teatro Delusio, as three stage-hands are stalked by the ghost of the theatre, who helps them fulfil their fantasies. Using mime, masks and breath-taking physical dexterity, an ensemble cast of three transform themselves into multiple characters, both fictional and "real". However, this is not theatre of illusion, but theatre of delusion, and in this fantasy world we see the techies upstage the divas, oust the director, and try to seduce the prima ballerina. In the real world of the theatre, meanwhile, the sense of illusion created by the Familie Flöz is an incredible feat. The masks themselves are characters - eerily naturalistic at key moments, the grotesque visage of a nightmare at others - while the lighting design subtly creates the shifts between their reveries and the real life on stage. Even the real curtain call at the end of the play becomes a performance in the hands of the inventive members of the company. As an enchanted audience of adults and children watch spellbound, the techies are transformed into actors and they take their bows. But the spell is broken for only a moment before the three performers turn to clear the stage - becoming, again, the characters that they had left behind. (Ends tonight)
Sara Keating
Beauté Plastique, Efecto Mariposa, Silvery Snot
Project Upstairs
Dance provided an evening of exploration with the French Compagnie Etant-donné leading the discovery. Dancers Frédérike Unger and Emily Mezieres probed the feminine ideal by unpacking a suitcase full of Barbies and lining them up in rows on the stage, showing how women can become trapped in roles and almost appear plastic. The dancers first wore leafy costumes that looked like Eve in the Garden of Eden and ended up with stockings on their heads, painted like dolls. But their movement seemed least inhibited with costumes removed. Spanish dancer Blanca Arrieta's compelling solo kept rhythm with a metronome, then unwound to Bach. Her quick arms did a dance of their own, drawing intricate patterns in the air and eventually slowing down to a satisfying stillness.
The three men in Irish Modern Dance Theatre's Silvery Snot embarked on an exploration of their own involving language, body parts and other unintelligible musings. Their openness was endearing but the journey felt like a long and winding road. (Ends tonight)
Christie Taylor
The Imposter
Samuel Beckett Theatre
A loose adaptation of Molière's comic and controversial Tartuffe, British company Hoipolloi's version retains the amperage of farce but loses the jolt of satire. Where the original exposed religious hypocrisy among the ruling classes - and was banned for its efforts - here writer/director Shôn Dale-Jones shies away from social critique, asking us instead to revel in the ensemble's boisterous stagecraft.
Relocated to an English manor in the 1920s, Dale-Jones's impostor is Kristiansen, a phony Norwegian self-help guru, who attempts to swindle the gullible Edward out of wife and home. As a gallery of eccentrics leap in and out of cupboards, break character, flash suspenders, and puncture scenes with absurd dances, the performers drip with a desire to entertain. They do this nicely for almost an hour, but with so much energy expended over so little it becomes exhausting to endure for two. Isn't it funny how people can be hoodwinked by an overwrought performance, the production asks. Who's conning who? (Until tomorrow)
Peter Crawley
