New Directors Festival '07

In late 2006 the Granary initiated the New Directors Festival. Working with four directors in their professional debut, the season was a resounding success. Staging works from German, French and Irish playwrights, the new directors shone in their vision and sparkled with innovation. Because of their triumphs, we are able to continue this festival on an annual basis now and we are indebted to them for this.

This year we are showcasing four new directors who are bringing youth, energy and daring to the Granary stage. These directors, like those before them, are the new face of Irish Theatre; bold, innovative & courageous. Each director has a unique voice & a burning need to tell the story of the play in a new postmodern way. The plays are eclectic & varied in style, genre & execution; from Mark O’Rowe’s delicious ‘Howie the Rookie’ to Martin Crimp’s assault on the pastoral myth and an updating and re-setting of Pam Gems 70’s classic to our ‘own’ Enda Walsh’s ‘The Small Things’ which receives it’s Irish Premiere; the New Directors Festival is unique in Irish Theatre.

Howie the Rookie

written by Mark O’Rowe
directed by Eoin Ó hAnnracháin
Granary Theatre
8pm / 9 – 13 October
€10 / €5

Mark O’Rowe’s Howie The Rookie is a journey through a nightmare Dublin, where enemies and allies are interchangeable, where the most brutal events take on a mythic significance. The events of one evening unfold through “baroque monologues climaxing in sudden, irresistible bursts of mayhem.” - Jason Zinoman, New York Times

The Country

written by Martin Crimp
directed by Adam McElderry
Granary Theatre
8pm / 16 – 20 October
€10/€5

"The more you talk, the less you say." Martin Crimp’s play is an attack on the pastoral myth of the countryside as a place of harmony and peace. Examining the darker sides of human relationships the play exposes the layered meanings within everyday conversation. In this play the audience plays the role of detective: we piece together the plot from scattered clues in a world where nothing is as it first seems.

Dusa, Fish, Stas & Vi

written by Pam Gems
directed and adapted by Sinéad Dunphy
Granary Theatre
8pm / 23 – 26 October
€10 / €5

The scene is an unpretentious Cork flat, where four young women, on their own for various reasons, are thrown together. In a series of revealing, inventive scenes, the four endeavour to help each other in pulling their lives together and in finding the sense of purpose and individuality, which can so easily elude people in contemporary society.

The Small Things

written by Enda Walsh
directed by Olan Wrynn
Granary Theatre
8pm / 30 October – 3 November
€10 / €5

The Small Things is primarily about how we use language for ourselves, to create the world about us, to communicate with others and sometimes just to break the silence. It is a grizzly tale of violence and imposed order, a tale of the steady silencing of the world. This, Enda Walsh's most abstract play, owes much to Beckett; it retains the wonderful use of language for which, he is so renowned.

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