Reviews from the Dublin Fringe Festival

At Swim Two Boys ***

Samuel Beckett Theatre

Michael Seaver

Jamie O'Neill chose the words for his novel over 10 years, but physical-theatre group Earthfall's 70-minute version has a far more limited vocabulary. While the wordless adaptation cuts straight to the visceral, we miss the book's rich historical and sociological canvas, as two boys discover love in a society so class-ridden that friendship daren't even speak its name. An impressive trickling wall seeps water on to the performing space so there's a lot of sloshing around and aquaplaning. Restricting when clothed, but exhilarating when in bathing suits (no typical Forty-foot attire here), the repetition of bodily abandonment soon tires the eye. There is also little physical characterisation - bar a few golliers from Doyler - and neither the scene-setting black-and-white footage of the first World War nor the needless encroachment onstage by the musicians can adorn the bland moves.

Double Bill ***

Project Cube

Christie Taylor

This programme felt like peering into wide-open apartment doors where the inhabitants wanted us to look inside. Youthful exuberance overshadowed substance in both places. Twin sisters Jessica and Megan Kennedy contorted themselves into, well, freaky positions during Circus Freak as a ribbon tying their necks together forced them to stay connected. Then, like an embryonic split, they took off in separate directions, putting on different outfits and personas. The pair stacked themselves on top of each other in the dance's most compelling moments. Although they have guts and ingenuity, their choreography is still taking shape.

Adaptation of a Meeting never resonated, as both dancers pressed into relationships that most of us would have little patience with in real life. The dance suggests the human body is our most familiar concept of home, but given our anatomy's complexity, more interesting ways exist for expressing that.

Raw Beef *****

The Ark

Susan Conley

Can an Irish audience see two men trapped - both in a space and by a series of repetitive actions - and not think of Beckett? Well, maybe, when they're two big, muscular bald guys sporting pink tutus. Al Seed and Ivan Marcos are Didi and Gogo for the rave generation, who, despite the seemingly inevitable push-broom, raise the bar for physical, comedic performance. The outside world interferes via crashing sounds cues and forceful lighting, inspiring demented miming that wouldn't go amiss in a mosh pit. The two are engaged in a relationship that flawlessly cycles through a pattern from which they can't escape, a pattern defined by laughter, manipulation, meanness and pain, that doesn't stop until one or other stops playing . . . kinda like life.

Resonance I & II ****

Project Cube

Christine Madden

Echo Echo Dance brings together an international cast of dancers, choreographers and technicians for two playful halves of a programme. The first, choreographed by Fringe director Wolfgang Hoffmann, humorously examines relationships as well as dance itself, as words are spoken and physically interpreted to an obsessive degree by dancers Steve Batts and Ursula Laeubli, co artistic directors of Echo Echo. Their language - body and verbal - dwindles to darkness as they hunt each other down by a single torchlight. The second half, choreographed by Ilanit Tadmor, could be titled "All About Me", as dancers squabble for space as though packed in a Monday-morning Luas (but with more animation), then spill out upon the stage in dissolution, echoing movements of a self-appointed leader or striking out sinuously and energetically on their own. Special mention for Daniel Weaver's amazing sound design, which would even alone be worth the ticket price.

Snow White ***

The Ark

Sylvia Thompson

There has been a recent trend among children's writers and theatre companies to transform some of the classic fairytales into contemporary yarns. Sandkorn Theater Berlin instead chooses to change the appearance of the characters in Snow White while remaining true to the original story. Puppeteer, Reiner Anding does this most effectively with Snow White's stepmother, who is an old coffee pot. Her strained beauty and clever disguises are expertly portrayed through Anding's adept intonation and expert handling of the coffee pot. Snow White is a little less engaging as a traditional string puppet, and the seven pointy hats on strings (as the seven dwarfs) simply aren't imbued with enough character to convince. The end result is just a little disappointing, although the story of Snow White itself held on to the enduring appeal which has made it such a classic.

Star turns

***** Excellent

**** Good

*** More good than bad

** More bad than good

* Bad