New work and familiar faces provide Arts Festival mix

Date Published: 24-May-2012

 NEWwork and familiar faces form part of the line-up for the 2012 Galway Arts Festival which will run from July 16-29, with the programme being launched this weekend.

Festival Director Paul Fahy has reiterated his commitment to producing new Irish work with a new play, The Great Goat Bubble by Julian Gough, which is a co-production between Galway Arts Festival and Dublin’s Fishamble Theatre.

This follows the success of last year’s critically acclaimed show, Misterman, a co-production between the Festival and Landmark Theatre, which has since toured to New York and London.

The Great Goat Bubble, set on the platform of Ballinasloe train station in 1986, is an acerbic take on the Irish property boom, according to Paul. Two characters are waiting for the train to Dublin where Charlie Haughey is opening the Irish Financial Services Centre.

One is an orphan, Jude, who has previously appeared in Julian Gough’s novels, Jude – Level One and Jude in London. The other is Ethiopian Dr Ibrahim Bihi, who caused a financial meltdown in his own country as he pursued the great goat dream, which saw everybody want to own their own goat – then everybody wanted a bigger and a better one. So he flooded the market with goats . . . until it collapsed. Now he is pursuing the next big thing.

Mikel Murfi, who directs comedy of economic triumph and catastrophe, was the unanimous choice of both the Arts Festival and Fishamble for this piece, according to Paul.

Julian’s script doesn’t contain a huge amount of stage directions, which gives the director a lot of scope, so both Paul and Jim felt that Mikel – formerly of mime company Barabbas – was perfect to draw the physicality of the text. The Great Goat Bubble will be at Druid Theatre from July 12-29 and will preview in advance of the Festival.

Another co-production is The Outgoing Tide, featuring Festival favourite John Mahoney. This is being staged in conjunction with Chicago’s Northlight Theatre. The cast also includes Thomas J Cox and Rondi Reed – like Mahoney,

a Tony Award winner. Reed previously visited Galway in 2010 when she appeared in Steppenwolf’s production of Sideman.

The Outgoing Tide was first staged Chicago 18 months ago and is now being remounted as a co-production, Paul explains. It’s the story of Gunner, a man at a crisis point in his life, who gathers his family at a fishing resort to tell them of his decision for the future. But his wife and son have other plans.

“It’s poignant and light-hearted and addresses serious issues that we might all have to face at some time in our lives,” says Paul. It’s at the Town Hall Theatre, from July 17-21

Druid’s production of three Tom Murphy plays on the theme of emigration – Conversations on a Homecoming, Whistle in the Dark and Famine – is a major undertaking with the Arts Festival and NUIG both being involved.

DruidMurphy previews this week at the city’s Town Hall Theatre and opens in London’s Hampstead Theatre next month as part of that city’s Cultural Olympiad. It’s playing Galway Arts Festival from July 23-28, with the full cycle of three plays at the Town Hall Theatre on July 26 and 28.

For full previews of more theatre, music, comedy visual arts and talks see this week’s Tribune.