Yeats Project - seen anything yet?

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 4/13/09 at 12:59am

The Irish Rep has a big celebration on of all the plays of Yeats. They have two fully staged Cycle A and Cycle B performances of a total of eight of his one-acts, and all the other plays are having readings in the small theatre downstairs, plus there is poetry, open mike night, films, you name it. And there is music in about all the pieces. A pass for the whole fest is $100.

I've seen and heard some and it's so wonderful to experience his great storytelling which leans to the musical and poetic.

I liked On Baile's Strand about a king who killed a visiting stranger that turned out to be his son and then went crazy and began to fight the ocean waves and perished.

And heard The Dreaming of the Bones in staged reading, about an ancient king and queen who betrayed the Irish and caused a lot of suffering and whose ghosts try to reunite with each other but cannot do so until an Irishman forgives them. They appear to a trouble traveler and try to trick his forgiveness.

Some of the plays use masks to defy realism, taking some influence from the poetic Japanese Noh theatre, though they are not true Noh plays and do not follow the 12-step structure or other requirements in Noh. The mystical runs throughout the plays as well.
BWW Yeats Project article Updated On: 4/13/09 at 12:59 AM