Weekend of sunshine sees Galway International Arts Festival off to a triumphant start
Compagnie Off’s parade of monumental red giraffes wending magically through the pedestrian streets on Saturday night was one of the highlights in Galway over the weekend. Picture: Andrew Downes, Xposure
Blessed with sunshine, Galway International Arts Festival 2022’s first full weekend triumphed with its packed programme of events, indoors and out. There were any number of moments in the open air to savour: the tightrope walkers crossing back and forth over the River Corrib in the Life Line project organised by Galway Community Circus; the participants in Guru Dudu’s silent disco walking tour breaking out to sing Abba’s 'Dancing Queen' to a hen night bride-to-be spotted in the upstairs window of Coyote’s on Shop Street; Compagnie Off’s parade of monumental red giraffes wending magically through the pedestrian streets on Saturday night.
Walking from one venue to another was also a pleasure. The city’s easy-going vibe is a legend in the cultural sphere, and artists always seem happy to be asked back. Several star acts have returned this year. Ana Maria Pacheco’s exhibition, Dark Night of the Soul, was a major highlight of the festival in 2017; her new show, Remember, at the Festival Gallery features several groups of macabre figures carved from wood, and is easily one of the best exhibitions in the country this year.
Enda Walsh is also back with the ninth instalment in his Rooms series. Middle Bedroom at Columban Hall on the Sea Road is set in a bedroom full of ancient furniture and a lifetime’s accumulation of clutter. It features the voice of Rory Nolan performing the roles of an aged father and his increasingly exasperated carer son. Their relationship is just as claustrophobic as the room itself. Middle Bedroom is a modest work by Walsh’s standards — this, after all, is the man called on by the late David Bowie to pen the script for his stage musical — but his other contribution to this year’s festival is an altogether more lavish affair, the opera , co-written with composer Donnacha Dennehy, which features a chorus of children and the Crash Ensemble.
Steppenwolf are also back. The legendary Chicago theatre company was last in Galway in 2007 with Cormac McCarthy’s . This year they return with Sam Shepard’s . Staged at the Town Hall Theatre, it features John Michael Hill as Austin, a writer caretaking his mother’s house while she is on holiday in Alaska, and Namir Smallwood as his older brother Lee, a petty thief and ne’er-do-well who has just blown in out of the desert. The play has any number of surprising twists and turns, not least Lee’s ability at golf, and his success in getting a visiting producer, played by director Randall Arney, to back his idea for a modern western screenplay. The play holds up remarkably well; indeed, its focus on American male rivalry is arguably more pertinent now than when it was first performed in 1982. Arney and Hill are wonderful as the feuding brothers, though Ora Jones threatens to upstage them both with her late entry as their unflappable mother.
Dónal Ryan’s 2018 novel is arguably his best, but its episodic structure suggested there would be some difficulty in adapting the book for the stage. Ryan has got around this by writing it as a series of monologues by four of the novel’s major characters: the Syrian refugee Farouk; the carer Lampy; his mother Florence; and the amoral money man, John. Each, in their own way, is broken-hearted. Aosaf Afzal’s Farouk gives a poignant account of his arrival in Ireland, following a desperate sea crossing in which he lost his wife and daughter. Lampy explains how distracted he has been since his girlfriend Chloe ended their relationship. Lorcan Cranitch’s John recalls the unlikely love affair that led him to direct the one act in his life he seems to genuinely regret. Florence proves to be the link between the three. Directed by Andrew Flynn, this world premiere production at Nuns Island Theatre is a genuinely moving drama that suggests Ryan may well become as celebrated for his writing for the stage as for the page.
Audience reaction to 'From a Low and Quiet Sea,' now playing in Galway International Arts Festival until July 24th. Get your tickets here: https://t.co/vaTjoz03u7 @GalwayIntArts pic.twitter.com/cA74wGzzM0
— Decadent Theatre Company (@DecadentTheatre) July 14, 2022
If is a low-key affair, Fibín sa Taibhdhearc’s is quite the opposite. Written and directed by Philip Doherty, the show is performed as Gaeilge (with English subtitles) on an outdoor stage, with singer Julie Feeney, a live band and zombie dancers. Based on an obscure Irish folktale, the play revolves around the competition between a mad inventor and his assistant to create the perfect prosthetic for a king who has lost one hand in battle. There is blood, gore, eye-gouging and backstabbing, and if the overall effect is far from subtle, the show is carried by its sense of anarchic fun. Indeed, the frenetic staging and black humour – and the inclusion of a motorbike — recall the heyday of the legendary French performers Archaos.
Galway International Arts Festival runs until July 24. Some upcoming highlights include Druid’s production of Sonya Kelly’s at the Mick Lally Theatre (until July 23), the Flaming Lips at the Big Top on Friday, July 22; and Seán Lynch’s exhibition What is an Apparatus at Galway Arts Centre (until July 24).
