The Visiting Hour: Stephen Rea, a nursing home, the pandemic Review: Frank McGuinness’s short but meaningful new play has brought the Gate back to life
about 2 hours ago ★★★☆☆ The Gate Theatre has been dark for more than a year. With the premiere of The Visiting Hour, a new play by Frank McGuinness, the neglected auditorium is ablaze with light. From row S, just in front of the emergency exit, a camera points towards a lush red curtain, which serves as a backdrop, rather than a frame, to the proscenium stage.
A corridor of chandeliers illuminates the lone figure of a man in the distance. This is Father (Stephen Rea), a sad clown in a mismatched outfit that complements his mismatched memory and his ailing mind. With a shock of uncut curls and grizzly jowls, he looks dishevelled, neglected, confused. As the conditions for performance and the dramatic action are established (a reflective Perspex screen is screwed into the floor beside him), Daughter (Judith Roddy) en
Updated / Wednesday, 21 Apr 2021
15:00
Katie Davenport, set and costume designer for
The Visiting Hour at The Gate Theatre, writes about the challenges of designing The Gate s first online production, which streams from April 22 - 24.
There s something really captivating and significant about the scenography and the mise-en-scene of the Gate Theatre space as it stands presently, an interior landscape that carries an immense visual and textual history, and now, also the absence of people. That clearing of space like a frozen forlorn image; the stillness of an empty theatre awaiting and beckoning the return of it’s community.
I’ve had the privilege to be a part of the creative team, designing the set and costumes for
Bray man Mark O Brien has been announced as the new executive director of the Abbey Theatre. I look forward to working in partnership as co-director of our national theatre with the extraordinarily talented Caitriona McLaughlin, the new artistic director, and with the Abbey staff, board and stakeholders, said Mark. I also look forward to engaging with and learning from the work and structures that the brilliant Neil Murray and Graham McLaren leave the Abbey with as outgoing directors.
He moves from his role of director at Axis Arts Centre, Ballymun. I will be leaving a community and an organisation that I have had the privilege of working in for nearly 17 years, said Mark.
Mark is the new executive director of Abbey Theatre independent.ie - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from independent.ie Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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