Reunion by Mark O’Rowe is one of the highlights of Galway Arts Festival
Leonard Buckley, Robert Sheehan, Simone Collins and Stephen Brennan in Reunion at Galway International Arts Festival. Picture: Marcin Lewandowski
There are just a few days left to sample this year’s Galway International Arts Festival. Top theatre offerings include the premiere run of Reunion by Mark O’Rowe (reviewed below) and Druid’s take on Beckett’s Endgame; while the visual arts programme includes the bizarre creatures of Patricia Piccinini’s ‘We Travel Together’, likely to be one of the best exhibitions you’ll see anywhere this year.
With free entry to see the Australian’s creations, it’s also an example of this festival’s ability to mix top-quality fare with fun and accessibility. Bring the kids… and your arty aunty.
Music highlights over the next few days include a homecoming of sorts for The Sawdoctors, while Kneecap take to the stage of the Heineken Big Top as anticipation builds around the Irish release of their much-anticipated film.
Even if you didn’t attend any venues, you can’t escape the festival in the city. A Silent Disco, the parade of the giant Pegasus horse, and other spectacles bring the fun right onto the crowded streets, with Eyre Square doubling as an ideal city-centre performance space. Galway is buzzing - get there if you can.
★★★★☆
There is no shortage of family gatherings in holiday homes on the west coast at the moment, and that classic Irish summer scenario has provided fertile material for Mark O’Rowe’s hugely enjoyable new work.
The entire play takes place in a kitchen-dining room on an island where Elaine (Cathy Belton) is hosting a family gathering in honour of her deceased husband at their favourite holiday spot. She’s in Irish Mammy mode as members of the clan and some of their partners arrive - chatting, mediating between her offspring, and generally making sure everyone is ok, all-the-while whipping up a meal for the nine of them.
As the evening progresses, however, old wounds are edged open, and new cuts are made. Outside, the once-calm waters have been replaced by huge waves. It’s clear we’re in for a night of reckonings.
And what fun it is for an audience. This is a gripping family drama that also provides plenty laugh-out-loud moments over an hour and 40 minutes. It all zips along on O’Rowe’s whipsmart dialogue, the stylised language of his previous work eschewed here for a more natural approach.
At times, there are ten people on stage, layers of conversations taking place and lines being fired from all angles. But it still feels remarkably uncluttered. The audience is never is doubt as to where their focus should be, even when it’s on a silent character who could easily be subsumed by the chatter.
O’Rowe gets the plaudits again here as he’s also on directing duties. His intimacy with his own text allows for subtle gestures and seemingly throw-away comments to land with perfect weight.
As well as Belton, other familiar faces in the impressive ensemble include screen star Robert Sheehan as the favoured son who isn’t quite the dote his mammy believes him to be. Stephen Brennan is also a stand-out as the superbly-hewn Felix, the doleful old dad who was dragged along to visit his in-laws.
A co-production between Landmark and Galway International Arts Festival, Reunion lives up to its billing as one of the top attractions at this year’s event, and also burnishes O'Rowe's reputation as one of our greatest living playwrights.
- Reunion is at Black Box Theatre until Saturday, July 27, with evening performances and several matinees. Galway International Arts Festival runs until Sunday, July 28. See giaf.ie
★★★★☆
Billed as an “exuberant take on Swan Lake”, the title of this show contains a big hint that there’s plenty of the Ugly Duckling story here too, as well as a healthy amount of Aussie irreverence.
In the hands of Circa Contemporary Circus, the classic ballet and Hans Christian Andersen’s tale are blended together in an acrobatic reworking at the converted gym on Galway’s university campus.
The wide-ranging age mix in the audience probably varied in how much they dipped in and out of the narrative thread, but all were likely impressed by the incredible feats of the Brisbane-based troupe.
Over 70 minutes and three acts, the performers writhe, spin, contort, flip, tumble, and generally challenge reviewers to describe all sorts of other movements that push the limits of what a human body should be capable of.
All through, Tchaikovsky’s familiar score is given a contemporary percussion-heavy remix on Jethro Woodward’s superb soundtrack.
The audience responds with gasps, titters and spontaneous applause through the 70 minutes. Blushes are spared when a burlesque sequence teeters but never quite topples beyond the fun side of the line.
Some present may be tempted to run away and join this particular circus, but the rest of us waddling ducks can only imagine the work it must take to become that good.
