Dramatic times with Galway Theatre Festival
Are you there Una?, a show based on the life of Una Taaffe, which its creator Elaine Mears describes as “a reclamation and restoration picture” of the legendary Galway City woman who ran the sweater shop on William Street, is among the highlights of this year’s Galway Theatre Festival.
The Festival will take place from May 3-11 and was officially launched on Monday night by Jane Daly of the Irish Theatre Institute.
She stressed the need for “more funding, more incentives, and more infrastructural and long-term supports” for people working in theatre the West of Ireland, as part of a broader cultural strategy for the region.
Galway Theatre Festival Director, Sorcha Keane, invited audiences to “reconnect with our imagination, our sense of wonder, and explore the magic that connects us all”.
Are You there Una?, which will run from May 3-6 in Druid’s Mick Lally Theatre, incorporates live music from Anna Mullarkey and video design by artist Jennifer Cunningham as well as recorded tracks from the band, Thieves of Silence. It previously appeared at the Theatre Festival as a work-in-progress,
The Realness of Miss Representation by songwriter and storyteller Steven Sharpe (from May 7-9 in the Town Hall Studio), is an autobiographical look at being a 30-something-year-old gay man in post-equality Ireland.
It’s one of several other Galway shows in the programme.
Galway Community Circus will present 4 Elements on May 7 in St Joseph’s Community Centre, Shantalla, using circus art to explore the connections and boundaries between the four elements of earth, air, fire and water.
Behind Closed Doors from May 8-11 at Bank of Ireland Theatre, NUIG, is being devised and will be presented by actors living in direct provision in Ireland. Adults of varying ages from different countries will tell their stories of sharing rooms and living in situations that offer neither privacy nor dignity. Conflicts break out over such seemingly simple rights as using the bathroom, keeping lights on, trying to study or trying to sleep in a system that dehumanises and disempowers people while having the capacity to institutionalise them.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
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