Get Your Irish Up - St. Patrick’s Day on Saturday expected to bring in lots of green

Irish entertainment offerings are a plenty this St. Patrick's Day

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St. Patrick’s Day is almost upon us, which means its time to celebrate our Irish heritage in style. From plays to the festival stage to the big screen, it’s the best time of the year to go green.

Let’s start with some recommended theater picks. On Broadway the positive buzz surrounding the Irish-themed musical Once is literally off the charts already. Scheduled to host its gala opening on St. Patrick’s Day, the show is based on the celebrated 2007 Oscar winning Irish film of the same name.

On board for the Broadway version are the considerable skills of director John Tiffany (who’s production of Black Watch, a gripping play about Scottish soldiers in the Iraq war, wowed both critics and the public last year) and Irish playwright Enda Walsh. The talented pair have created an immensely touching new drama, fleshing out the minor characters from the film and making their stories much bigger parts of the new stage show.

Things change when you get to Broadway -- pop singers exchange places with professionally trained ones, bit part actors get replaced by barnstormers, and everything gets bigger – and for Once – genuinely better.

Some are already citing Once as a strong contender for a Tony award for Best New Musical in a season that has seen precious few of them to speak of. Alongside its already famous set list of songs, the show has two particularly dynamic leads in the almost supernaturally handsome Steve Kazee and the gifted actress Cristin Milioti. Together the pair is dazzling, threatening to redefine your memory of the classic film with the intensity of their live performances.

In an interview with the Irish Voice as the show began previews in February Milioti said, “It was important to me not to watch the film before I developed the role. I sill haven’t seen it in fact. My concern was that I might start to become to influenced or try to repeat what she had done so well.”
Fans intending to catch the blockbuster over the St. Patrick’s Day weekend should take note, Once on Broadway is absolutely its own thing. Yes it takes its cues from the original Irish film (which grossed $20 million at the box office) but now it’s something much more than the rough and raw sketch that won the hearts of countless moviegoers.

Now it’s an all singing, all dancing show. Remember that and you’ll have the time of your life.

For a nice change of pace I recommend spending 90 beguiling minutes in the company of two of Ireland’s most eminent actors, Dermot Crowley and Dearbhla Molloy, in poet Paul Durcan’s Give Me Your Hand, now playing at the Irish Repertory Theatre in the Chelsea section of the city.

The show is built around Durcan’s lofty poems which were inspired by portraits in the National Gallery in London, from artists as diverse as Van Gogh and Van Eyck, to Rubens and Gainsborough. Durcan has the skill to mine these unforgettable images to create new poetry that will make you laugh, shudder or even move you to tears.

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Nster.com