Strandline

Project Arts Centre, Dublin Until Dec 5 8pm €22/€18 01-8819613

With the premieres of two new plays this week in the same space (Abbie Spallen's Strandlineand Deirdre Kinahan's Moment), rumours of the death of new writing in Irish theatre – and new women's writing in particular – may look exaggerated. But these welcome productions at Project could be the exceptions that prove the rule.

The tenacious spirit of Fishamble has, for 21 years, made it an unswerving force for new writing. Here it cannily invests in Spallen, whose second play, Pumpgirl, was a catchfire success. That the play caught fire first in Edinburgh, then London and New York, makes it look like the Irish theatre is constantly catching up with its own writers, but Spallen's follow-up sounds like it could never have started anywhere else.

Set in a small Northern Ireland coastal village shrouded in secrets, Strandline follows the recently widowed Máirín, who gathers three local women to her home to learn more about her husband than she bargained for. With a tremendously promising cast and crew, the real mystery is why it increasingly falls to the resilience of independent companies to nurture new talent and expand our repertoire.

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