Theatre review: Ulster American

With a name like David Ireland, you can imagine that the playwright who specialises in controversy-courting stories about how the Troubles have left Northern Ireland with collective PTSD might attract a certain kind of American fan. If that is part of the inspiration for his latest play, it would seem to confirm suspicions that some vocal Irish-Americans care more about appearing to belong to a culture than they do about actually knowing the first thing about Irish history. Equally under the microscope and subject to ridicule is the left-leaning British theatre establishment that's championed his brutal form of comedy in recent years, as Ulster American throws together theatre people from America, England and Northern Ireland in a violent mix of hypocrisy and misunderstanding. Ruth (Louisa Harland) is a rising Northern Irish playwright whose latest play is getting a starry London premiere from director Leigh (Andy Serkis.)

Theatre review: Dancing at Lughnasa

Five years ago the National Theatre staged Brian Friel's Translations in the Olivier, a hit production the publicity calls back to as they return to the Irish playwright for another of his best-known plays, Dancing at Lughnasa. And it's not the only thing that recalls that past hit, as Robert Jones' design for Josie Rourke's production also looks familiar - this time it's a small farmhouse kitchen that's exposed in the middle of rolling hills and vegetable gardens. This is August 1936 in the Donegal village of Ballybeg, as remembered by Michael (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor,) who was a child being raised by his unmarried mother Chris (Alison Oliver) and her four middle-aged sisters: Stern, primly Catholic schoolteacher Kate (Justine Mitchell,) joker Maggie (Siobhán McSweeney,) hard-working Agnes (Louisa Harland) and slow-witted, romantic Rose (Bláithín Mac Gabhann.)

Theatre review: Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp.

Caryl Churchill’s later career has been typified by her enviable ability to make her point incredibly succinctly – her plays tend to be short and sharp, culminating in her writing Love and Information in the format of a sketch show. Her latest premiere at the Royal Court is a more loosely connected quadruple bill of plays: Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp.’s stories are self-contained and varied in style, but all share a theme of deconstructing legends and fairytales, bringing the fantastical into an often comically banal light and finding the dark truth behind the magical fiction. Each play is slightly longer than the one before, so the first act consists of the first three stories, opening with Glass in which Kwabena Ansah, Louisa Harland, Patrick McNamee and Rebekah Murrell tell the story of a girl made of glass (Murrell,) trying to navigate her teenage years and a romance with a boy (McNamee) who may be as fragile as she is in his own way.