Dramatic clash of ideas
THE curtain is down on another Dublin Theatre Festival, and in the ongoing ‘battle’ between the traditional text-based play and experimental contemporary theatre, it is the latter that appears to be winning out.
Certainly, the most resonant fare at this year’s festival fell into the experimental camp. Against the daring audience immersion of The Boys of Foley Street or the inspired visual mania of Mystery Magnet, works such as Declan Hughes’s The Last Summer and Deirdre Kinahan’s Halcyon Days just felt somewhat staid. That’s not to say that these plays were not entertaining. Both productions were funny and affecting at times, and featured some sterling performances. Yet each lapsed into an all too theatrical sentimentality. Kinahan’s piece — about two residents of a care home — was particularly culpable in this regard. Both plays, ultimately, were hampered by predictable contrivances of plot and character.
