A MAN trapped in a giant tube of water, a ballet involving a JCB, a "flash-mob" opera where the score is on the internet and anyone can perform, and a play directed by a serving Midlands Prison inmate are among the 100 shows and spectacles of this year's Dublin Fringe Festival.
Unlike mainstream theatre festivals, the fringe incorporates a number of genres including music, dance, visual arts, outdoor events and theatre, running over 16 days from September 6th-21st.
It also makes use of some esoteric venues including a car park in the Docklands, a disused school in Ballymun, the Unitarian Church on St Stephen's Green, and the Iveagh Gardens off Harcourt Street.
The Iveagh Gardens are the hub of this year's festival and will host the Spiegeltent, which will hold some of the more established acts such as La Clique, the burlesque/cabaret/circus, which sold out in the 2007 festival.
The Spiegeltent will also feature many of the larger musical acts including the Sugarhill Gang, Cathy Davy performing "songs that scare children", and Duke Special, who is performing under the title of the Silhouette Old Time Mystery Radio show.
New Irish plays in the Fringe include Appointment in Limbo, a comedy by Patrick McCabe set in a strip club, Reptilianby Shona McCarthy, winner of the Fishamble New Writing Award 2007, and Two Houses by Belinda McKeon.
Comedian Tommy Tiernan makes his directorial debut with Help!, a play starring his cousin Eleanor Tiernan as a struggling comedian and described as Samuel Beckett meets Jerry Seinfeld. An unnamed inmate of the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise is also directing his first fringe play, Thicker than Water, a crime story that the programme says is fictional, centring around paranoia and "male mind-games".
Genre-defying works, which combine music, dance, theatre or visual arts, have been grouped under the title "Pushing the Envelope". These include Cat Lady/Human Jukebox, where a living room is transformed into a "psychological theatre" using cats as actors, and Performance Research Experiment #1, described as an audience-participation cabaret, where enjoyment is assessed throughout the performance of 11 "micro-pieces", one of which involves "anal broom-balancing".
A purer dance experience is offered in the "In Motion" category with Drinking Dustby the Junk Ensemble Ireland, which examines abandonment; Mobile, a solo piece by Claire Cunningham exploring the possibilities of dancing on crutches; and Day of Dance, which features a number of performances followed by an open discussion with choreographers.
Dance of a different kind will take place outdoors in Grand Canal Square, Docklands, with the JCB ballet Transport Exceptionnels, described as a love duet between a dancer and a mechanical digger.
Other outdoor events include Les Étoiles, a ballet on tightropes; NousTube, underwater dance in a giant tube; and Bastien and Bastienne, Ireland's first flash-mob opera. Professionals from the Opera Theatre Company Ireland will lead the Mozart opera, but the audience is invited to "sing along" by downloading scores and practice videos.
