Ellie has been a member of Activate Youth Theatre for 3 years and has participated in a variety of workshops and productions in this time. She also has interest videography. She is thrilled to be taking part in the Young Critics Programme 2020, and can’t wait to meet new people and learn all about critiquing theatre!
Gate
Recently I saw Medea at the Gate Theatre and it has quickly set itself as one of my favourite performances.
I was unsure of the play at the beginning as it was very static as the boys ‘played dead’ for about five minutes, but I was awoken when they began to play again, their energy filling the room as they ran around the stage as they played. Medea herself only appeared for around 20 minutes of the play in total, each time appearing more frantic and distraught than the last, which greatly added to the suspense as we were not the wiser as to when she would murder them.
The two boys were the perfect embodiment of the two brothers and whilst they fought we saw not long after how much they cared for each other and really got on. The boys singing ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ brought a tear to my and many other’s eyes as we knew they would not live to be adults.
The use of set and lights also worked amazingly. As the boys passed in Medea’s arms the lights dimmed leaving a plethora of ‘stars’ behind them.
However, I did find that following Medea’s final monologue the play ended very abruptly, leaving little time for the room to breath and her last words to ring out.
Katie has been a member of Making Waves Youth Theatre for 3 years since its founding in 2017. During these years she has taken part in both of their 2 shows and taken part in many workshops focusing on improvisation, movement and script work, as well as writing. She is looking forward to seeing a large range of shows, learning more about criticism in theatre and then getting the opportunity to properly critique them.
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The Glass Menagerie by Tennesse Williams
Last year, my youth theatre viewed a play called The Glass Menagerie in the Gate Theatre. It was a very well made production with each scene not only capturing my interest but also my curiosity. Its concept was simple. A family in 1940s America but the sister was crippled, so the family had to look out for her. The accents were quite solid, sometimes their natural accents would slip through but other than that, the acting was quite good. The costumes well suited the period and there was an excellent use of music. In the end, the family has torn apart and I cannot deny that I didn’t shed a tear. Overall, it was a thoroughly enjoyable piece and I would see it again.
Marc has been a member of Explore Youth Theatre for 1 1/2 years. He has been involved in a number of productions and improvised pieces. He is looking forward to viewing more productions and improving his critique skills.
Caitlyn Morrissey is a member of County Wexford Youth Theatre and a Youth Theatre Ireland Young Critic for 2020
Rough Magic Theatre Company’s Much Ado About Nothing. Photo Credit: Ste Murray
Towards the end of last year, on the 9th of November 2019, in the Siamsa Tíre Theatre in Tralee, Co. Kerry, I saw Rough Magic’s production of Much Ado About Nothing. It was very well advertised play; with an almost full house on the night I attended, with people of various age groups filling up the seats of the theatre.
At first, I was apprehensive of going. Shakespeare plays, to me, always seemed like drab, dull affairs due to my only experience being that of my Leaving Cert and Junior Cert required Shakespeare play, but Rough Magic blew me away with their incredible performance of Much Ado About Nothing.
Rough Magic took a modern approach to the classic drama-comedy, setting it in a colourful summer caravan park, with the character’s costume and roles updated for the modern era. This was, admittedly, a strange contrast to the Shakespearean English they were using, but I felt it just added to the wonderful, absurd humour that ran throughout the play.
Absurd, loud, colourful, and humorous seemed to be the main components of this play and the talented actors in Rough Magic pulled it off brilliantly. It was a crude and wacky play, with the introduction of outfits for the male actors and a hilarious dream sequence in which a character, Benedick, looses, his *ahem* Bene-dick. The prop they used, of course, was a sausage.
With a less talented cast, the script may have come across as too corny or in-your-face, but the talented actors in Rough Magic projected well, hit their lines and were wonderful both in the comedic scenes and the scenes that carried a bit more dramatic weight.
Rough Magic Theatre Company’s Much Ado About Nothing. Photo Credit: Ste Murray
Two characters, who were both a comedic and a dramatic centrepiece, in my opinion, were Beatrice and the aforementioned Benedick. At the beginning of the play, both characters despised each other, but by the end, they were in deep love, though still bickered. The actors made this seem like a natural progression and were one of my favourite plot-threads in the play. It was hilarious and somehow, this entirely comedic play got me incredibly emotionally invested in the relationship and character dynamics.
Rough Magic’s Much Ado About Nothing was a gut-busting and surprisingly emotional play, with a highly talented cast. I would highly recommend both Rough Magic for its talented actors and clever use of modern settings, while Much Ado About Nothing for anyone looking for a feel-good play about love.
Máiréad Phelan. She is member of Free Radicals Youth Theatre and a Youth Theatre Ireland Young Critic for 2020.
Máiréad Phelan has been a member of Free Radicals Youth Theatre in Siamsa Tíre for 3 years now. During this time, she has done 6 stage performances and attended several workshops, centred on acting, writing and stage production. She immensely enjoys writing and does so in her (little) spare time. Mairead is looking forward to what she can learn from Young critics and to meet all new people who might share her interests, as well as seeing some hopefully interesting new shows.
Irene Kelleher in Gone Full Havisham
Irene Kelleher plays “one tough little nut” Emily in Regina Crowley’s eye-opening Gone Full Havisham, shown in the Garage Theatre Monaghan, based on Dickens’ renowned novel.
The startling yet memorable performance left little to the imagination and the audience in complete shock from entering the theatre where Kelleher, the ex-bride lay in a state of lunacy until the end where Kelleher walks off-stage for the first time leaving an emotional and confused audience behind, metaphorically leaving her past life behind. As the story moves along Emily describes to us the trials and tribulations of her childhood it becomes coherent how inevitable it was that Emily would eventually lose the plot.
The piece written, exquisitely by Kelleher herself strategically displays the series of tragic events leading up to Emily’s ultimate downfall into mental turmoil. Although the hour-long play left me unsatisfied with the lack of conclusion and plenty of room for deeper character development. What did Emily and the audience gain from this experience?
Irene Kelleher in Gone Full Havisham
The one-women show was pulled with style, to the extent where it felt as if there was a large cast on stage at times. The focus was on Emily for the entirety of the play. The directorial instruction to keep Kelleher centre stage was successful and had a long-lasting, profound effect on her performance, aiding my favourite climactic moment where Emily breaks all socially acceptable boundaries screaming “GET OUT!”. This worked because this moment was completely different compared to the rest of the play in terms of lighting, sound and facial expressions.
One aspect of production that stood out to me was the visual and lighting effects. The fact that Kelleher managed to take a classical, dated story and completely modernise it without ruining the plot is an art in itself. Lighting by Paul Denby and video and sound design by Cormac O’Connor really brought the production to a whole and more appealing level.
Kelleher and Crowley’s intimate bond is shown through her dignified facial expressions, body language and consistency throughout her long-lasting monologue.
It isn’t often that I would recommend a play this highly but the enthralling, captivating performance and plot opens a new world of emotions and underlying twists with each viewing.
Emma Corrigan is a member of Monaghan Youth Theatre and a Youth Theatre Ireland Young Critic for 2020
Emma Corrigan has been a member of Monaghan Youth Theatre for nearly 4 years. During this time, she has played a part in plays such as “The Patriot Game”, “Dear Chuck” and “Thirteen”. She particularly enjoys workshops based around devising and improvisation. Emma is a keen writer who looks forward to seeing and discussing shows alongside people like her looking to learn the art of theatre criticism.
The Fall Of The Second Republic. Photo Credit: Ros Kavanagh
The Fall of the Second Republic by Michael West and Annie Ryan aims to cover a lot in two hours. Created in collaboration with the award-winning Corn Exchange, the play is typical of the company’s style (picture heavy makeup, exaggerated movement, and dark eyebrows drawn in symbols resembling a Nike tick).
Set in 70s Ireland the play centres on a threat to the much loved The Theatre Royale, and a plot to destroy it to make way for the International Banking Centre (IBC). When a protester against the demolition is caught and killed inside a mysterious fire at the theatre, and the government is linked to the blaze, there’s uproar.
In the aftermath, our heroine – journalist Emer Hackett (Caitriona Ennis) – investigates Taoiseach Manny Spillane (Andrew Bennett) and his colleagues who many suspect are linked to the deadly fire.
Confused? I was, and it’s all a little busy with so many topics, as the play struggles to find its central theme, jumping around heavyweight issues including sexism, abortion, corruption and Irish/British relations.
But there are many triumphs, and The Abbey lives up to its recent promise to better reflect Irish life and culture. Meanwhile the talented cast give impressive performances and effortlessly transport us to the 70s helped by Sailéog O’Halloran’s clever costumes and Katie Davenport’s wonderful set.
There are great lines, and delicious parallels to contemporary political post-election wrangling: “A coalition with the wankers?” laments one member of the losing majority party, “It would be like marrying your cousins.”
Leo Varadkar might agree.
Ruairí Phelan is a member of Dublin Youth Theatre and a Youth Theatre Ireland Young Critic for 2020.
Ruairí Phelan is a performer, writer, and proud member of Dublin Youth Theatre where he gained entry through audition two years ago.
Ruairí, 16, has been acting since he was six and acting up since he was born! His recent productions include Primo Dolce as part of DYT’s Members One-Act Festival and The Sleepwalkers — Dublin Theatre Festival and Pan Pan Theatre. As well, he is Assistant Director for two plays and recently won a week training scheme at The Abbey.
He’s a keen videographer and enjoys listening to podcasts and messing around in GarageBand. He’s a terrible dancer but gives it a lash anyway. Ruairi loves all form of theatre. He has too many favourite plays and writers to list but considers seeing any work an honour and is looking forward to analysing theatre in-depth to discover what works and what doesn’t. He hopes this will help to make his own work better.
This delightfully emotional, witty, thought-provoking play by Mark O’Rowe is truly a sight to behold.
The play centres on two dual monologues – delivered by our main characters ‘the Howie Lee’ (Stephen Jones) and ‘the Rookie Lee’ (Rex Ryan), some of Ireland’s most exciting actors – taking the audience on an adventure of two individuals fighting for survival and meaning against a Dublin City pulsing with violence.
Some of the truly incredible elements of the show come in the form of delivery, lighting and sound design and its conspiracy ending.
The delivery by each actor is truly miraculous. The authenticity and immersive-ness of the performance allows for the play to envelop the audience in all elements of the plot, themes and believability of the characters. Even the delivery of the play’s major twists and turns are done so with ease by Jones and Rex. The physicality and recall of these extraordinary actors is unbelievable as well and is certainly commendable, admired and one of the most memorable attributes of the show.
But an actor can only be as good as their tools, and in this case the writing for this theatrical piece is remarkable. The play is structured in two acts, with each act as one monologue delivered by their respective character – Act One saw the ‘larger than life’, the Howie Lee, as the storyteller with Act Two, looking toward ‘the playboy’, the Rookie Lee, to pick up the torch. With each act capping in at nearly 50 minutes, the performances of Jones and Ryan are looked on with awe and admiration by their audience.
The lighting and sound design are other elements that resulted in such an incredible play. Due to set design – or lack thereof, with nothing but an empty stage for the actors to play with – every flicker of light or hum of a note was noticed by the eagle-eyed and elephant-eared viewer. All lighting arrangements were easily recognisable and clearly helped to establish the setting in the face-paced, ever-evolving story. Even the subtle music cues of soft filler music or cheesy love songs aided in the telling of a sensual, emotional story.
Finally, the mysterious ending. This is where the debate begins. What? That’s all I can say about it. Theories range from ‘he’s obviously dead’ to ‘it’s all in his head’. Regardless of what it all means, it truly is an intriguing ending. It is one that sticks with an audience as we are left to ponder and theorise, making the play memorable. For me personally, I would have liked a little more detail or sense of what it meant – as my friends and I were left flabbergasted and longed to know what the heck we had just seen. It definitely took a turn that both no one expected or understood.
Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the play and would encourage everyone to go and see it – but be warned, prepare to leave the theatre wondering what just happened.
Heather Jones is a member of Giant Wolf Youth Theatre and one of Youth Theatre Ireland’s Young Critics for 2020.
Heather has been a member of Giant Wolf Youth Theatre for just over a year.
She has loved every second of this experience and learned so much about herself and theatre as a whole. She has been involved in physical theatre, movement, stage combat, writing and general production workshops within her time in Giant Wolf. They, as a theatre, have done one major production called ‘Eggplant’, centred around teenage sexual relationships, sexual maturity and sexual education. She has participated in a European Youth Theatre Festival called ‘Intertwined’ in Cottbus, Germany.
Heather would love to gain more expertise and understanding of theatre from the Young Critics Programme. Having in-depth discussions is something she loves to do and getting to have those discussions on plays and theatre is like a dream come true for me. She’d love to become an actor or something within the world of drama when she’s older too and feels this programme will benefit her greatly.
She would also love to make new friends to last me a lifetime also. Getting to meet like-minded people who share common interests is always exciting and seldom seen. And seeing a few shows for free doesn’t sound too bad either.
On the 30th of May 2019, I had the pleasure of seeing Crowman in the Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny. On its promotional material, this one-man show, written and directed by Katie Holly was described as “hilarious dark comedy”.
Jon Kenny played the role of Dan, a man living alone in rural Ireland who goes to funerals as social events. However, when he turns on the radio one day, he is shocked to hear that Sheila, a woman he loved has passed away. We watch Jon Kenny slip in and out of several characters as he reflects on his memories of Sheila. It is the interruption of the much-hated crows which brings him back to reality, due to a traumatic childhood experience involving them.
Throughout the play, Dan speaks to his unseen dog Pup. This device is cleverly used to change the subject or make small talk.
The fact that there is only one actor in this play emphasises how lonely Dan is, and this is further shown as Pup is always off stage. It was quite moving and poignant to see his loneliness portrayed in this way.
Initially, I felt detached from this play. It was as though I didn’t have much in common with Dan, and whilst of course, Dan is different to myself I definitely related to his emotions as expressed and his way of dealing with things. In a recent interview, Jon Kenny said that “there was a little bit of Dan in all of us” and I think this is why many people would identify with and enjoy some aspect of this play, as it deals with many topics including loneliness.
This was a very intimate play and I felt that as I attended it in a relatively large theatre it maybe wasn’t as moving as it could have been if it were performed in a smaller space. That said, I still found the piece a very touching experience.
The play was resolved beautifully with a definite ending that I thought suited very well and tied up the drama. I left the theatre with a lot to think about and discuss, but at the same time didn’t feel burdened or overwhelmed.
I would recommend this play, as it is quite honest in portraying loneliness and a feeling of lost opportunity.
Crowman is currently touring Ireland through 2020.
The following day, I had the pleasure of seeing The Bear Pack perform in The Village
Inn. The Bear Pack are an improv duo from Sydney, comprising of Steen Raskopoulos and Carlo Ritchie. The improvised show was inspired by suggestions from the audience and accompanied by Ange Lavoipierre on the cello. The duo also facilitated a workshop earlier that day which I attended.
During this workshop we participated in different exercises including an improvised “radio show” and creating an advertisement in two minutes, then a minute and a half, gradually reducing the time until we were just given the product and some other information by another group and went straight into the ad, without preparation.
I generally haven’t been very comfortable with improvisation mainly due to overthinking or shutting down any ideas as soon as they come to mind, but I found that the workshop helped me to get out of my comfort zone and improve my ability to think on my feet. During the improvisation of the advertisements, Raskopoulos and Ritchie encouraged us to say “yes, excellent!” no matter what was suggested, increasing the confidence of the participants and encouraging them to keep contributing ideas.
I later found that many of the techniques the duo taught us were used throughout the performance and it was interesting to see them put into practice so well.
Back on stage, later that night, the show was an hour of enjoyable, hilarious, light-hearted comedy. The duo’s wit and improvisational skills were outstanding. I was amazed by their ability to keep the plot going so smoothly and also the physical animation of the acting. The improvised cello mirrored the story very well and added to the atmosphere of the performance through the use of sustained notes and eerie scales. I found that as an audience member it was exciting that all of their shows were completely different. This performance ended up being about the Olympics, a story about a father who was a famous runner, wanting his son to follow in his footsteps, but his son wanted to walk!
Due to the nature of improvisation, some loose strings weren’t tied up, so at the end, the actors allowed 10 minutes for the audience to ask any questions they had. They would then act out a solution or ending to the part in question.
I thoroughly enjoyed this show, which was described as “the highlight of The Cat Laughs”, and also the workshop, which was very insightful, enjoyable and helpful for anyone who would like to work on getting more comfortable with improvisation. I would highly recommend The Bear Pack for an evening of light, comedic theatre and a good laugh.
Fern’s participation in the workshop and ticket for the show was free of charge.
Fern Kealy is a member of Kilkenny Youth Theatre and a Young Critic for 2019
Panel Two. Kevin Alyward, Fern Kealy, Maebh Bartley, Adam Dwyer & Óisin Tiernan
The 2019 Young Critics met on Sunday Oct 13th at Project Arts Centre, Dublin, to discuss three shows as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival.
Listen to the full panel discussion here:
Panel One. L-R, Sean Loughrey, Grace Sheehan, Clodagh Boyce, Aisling O’Leary
Panel Two, Kevin Alyward, Fern Kealy, Maebh Bartley, Adam Dwyer & Óisin Tiernan
Panel Three, Ruth Corrigan, Jessie Flynn, Sinead Mooney, Jeanette Michalopoulou & Susie Murphy Dooley
The 2018 Young Critics met on Sunday Oct 7th at Project Arts Centre, Dublin, to discuss three shows as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival.
Listen to the full panel discussion here
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