From Brazil to Temple Bar: Theatre of the Oppressed

The theatre director was a young idealist, and he wanted to change the world.

He brought his theatre group to a rural village, where the people were mired in poverty. In the village square, they put on a play.

It was a simple fable of how the rich oppressed the poor. The village audience was roused and inspired by it. And then came the play’s turning point. The hero – a poor man – was being beaten down by the rich man. The director stopped the play, and turned to the crowd.

On David Hare’s The Power of Yes

I’ve been neglecting this site of late but am straining to catch up now. This is a piece on David Hare’s latest play at the National for Le Monde Diplomatique.

At the start of David Hare’s play on the financial crisis, The Power of Yes, a character called the Author says: “This isn’t a play”. The obvious question then is: so what is it?…

The Power of Yes may not be a play, and perhaps the material would more obviously make for a powerful article. But in the hands of David Hare, a playwright, it is well-marshalled rhetoric. At the end of the day, there’s something surprisingly theatrical about that.

Abuse, institutions, and plays: Michael Kennedy’s ‘Skinners’

“I was a convicted criminal at the age of two.” Michael Kennedy, a costumier by trade, has a story to tell.

“I was found wandering in Killenaule, Tipperary.”

Soft-spoken and gentle mannered, Kennedy spent his working life backstage at the best theatres and opera houses. But that’s not the story.

“My mother had died, and my father went to England. I know nothing of that.”

Kennedy has costumed stars from Jose Carreras to Leonardo DiCaprio. Peter O’Toole was a good friend. But despite a career in the theatre, he never wrote. Now, with that career behind him, he has returned to the story of his childhood, and sought to put it front of stage.

David Hare: putting the banks on trial, on stage

Do you believe Brian Lenihan or David McWilliams? IBEC or the Unions? Were the bankers gangsters, or simply suffering from hubris?

If conflict is at the heart of drama, then the collapse of the Irish economy should have proved a goldmine for dramatists. A society swept up by irrational exuberance; lone voices shouting stop; pantomime villains; and as many different interpretations of the crisis as there were characters: all the ingredients of good drama were there.

We’ll see the social effects of the downturn on the Irish stage soon, no doubt: Irish theatre has always been good at documenting the intimate minutiae of Irish lives and communities. But it has rarely risen to the challenge of responding rapidly to great political and cultural events.

From Michael Collins to pastiche Charlie

A great, but tragic, Irish leader struggles with his fate. He is the foremost Irishman of his day, though he divides the country. He is confronted by treachery, and distracted by beautiful women. And as chaos threatens to consume his world, he replies… with a song.

Plays dealing with Irish politicians are rare, and Irish musicals are rarer still. So it’s a striking coincidence that not one, but two leading Irish historical figures are currently to be found on the Dublin stage, singing.

Tom Mac Intyre’s ‘Only an Apple’ (at the Peacock Theatre) tells a twisted tale of political excess, centred on a pale imitation of Charles Haughey. It is not actually a musical (though it is difficult to say what precisely it is), but at its theatrical heart is an outré and quite bizarre showtune.