theatre

Jul 21 08:40

Eh Joe

By: Ciarán Tags:

Atom Egoyan's haunting stage production of Samuel Beckett's television play Eh Joe was one of the most striking elements of the Beckett centenary at the Gate Theatre in Dublin a couple of years ago. Well, it seems it's been brought to New York , with Liam Neeson as Joe (Joe was played by Michael Gambon in Dublin and London). You can get a small sense of the play on this New York Times slide show, but if you're in NYC you really ought to go along and see it on its own or preferably as part of a package.

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Mar 10 00:04

If these walls could talk

By: isabel Tags:

Maurice Craig's Dublin 1660 - 1860 (see below) has turned me into a bit of a buliding-spotting anorak; I now read the Dublin street atlas with equal gusto as Craig's book.

What if buildings could speak? I often remember Brendan Kennelly's lines on songs "All songs are living ghosts / and long for a living voice" when looking at old buildings in Dublin and wish the same for them.

One building with many stories to tell is the Smock Alley theatre off Blind Quay, which has existed in many incarcerations since 1670. It collapsed twice; once during a performance, and the main part of the building disappeared in 1815.

It is a church which now occupies the Smock Alley site, the SS Michael and John. The vaults of the church were easily constructed; the orchestra pit of the old theatre providing an ideal template. This marriage of entertainment and the after-life is not unique in the history of Dublin apparently. For a number of years in the 1940's the former City Morgue was the main foyer for the Abbey theatre.

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