Arts Festival features mix of the new and familiar

Playwright Enda Walsh, a regular at Galway International Arts Festival in recent times, has two shows in this year’s event, which runs from July 17-30.

The first is an opera, The Second Violinist, from Landmark Productions, developed with the aid of a €500,000 Arts Council grant – its biggest funding allocation to a single production last year

The Second Violinist will receive its world premiere in Galway, despite Festival denials to the Tribune last year that this would happen. Co-written by  Walsh and Donnacha Dennehy, and directed by Walsh, it features actor Aaron Monaghan in the title role, as well as singers Máire Flavin, Sharan Carty and Benedict Nelson, together with a 16-strong chorus and the Crash Ensemble.

This new work from Dennehy and Walsh follows the success of their previous operatic collaboration, The Last Hotel, and has the same creative team.  It’s at the Black Box Theatre from July 26-30.

The Enda Walsh installation-theatre series of ‘rooms’, which he also directs, continues this July with Bathroom. This play about fractured memory features the voice of Tom Vaughan Lawlor. The fourth in the ‘rooms’ series which also included Room 303, A Girl’s Bedroom and Kitchen, it will be at NUIG’s Bank of Ireland Theatre.

Another world premiere at this year’s Festival is Woyzeck in Winter.  This fusion of two masterpieces – Büchner’s Woyzeck and Schubert’s Die Winterreise – has been adapted and is being directed by Conall Morrison with lyrics by Stephen Clark. The co-production between Landmark Productions and the Arts Festival has a fine cast, including Patrick O’Kane, Camille O’Sullivan, Rosaleen Linehan, Stephen Brennan, Barry McGovern, Rory Nolan, Peter Coonan, Shane O Reilly and Susannah de Wrixon. Co-commissioned by London’s Barbican, it will be in the Black Box from July 13-22.

Mark O’Rowe’s Crestfall, directed by Annabelle Comyn, will be at Druid’s Mick Lally Theatre from July 14-29. This play about love in a dog-eat-dog world, focuses on Olive, Alison and Tilly whose lives are thrown together through a collision of sex, violence and drugs.

Another local company, Decadent, will present Abbie Spallen’s Pumpgirl, directed by Andrew Flynn. Set in Armagh in a world of diesel fumes, country music and misplaced desire, it’s at Nuns Island Theatre.

Dublin by Lamplight from the Corn Exchange is set in 1904 as the Abbey Theatre was being founded. This alternative version of the establishment of the national theatre was a success when it premiered 10 years ago – its most recent outing was as part of the Abbey Theatre’s 2017 Spring Programme. Directed by Annie Ryan, it is performed in the Commedia dell’arte style.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.