THEATER: Inis Nua Theatre Co.'s Dublin By Lamplight

This week, Inis Nua Theatre Company opened its two-and-a-half-week run of Dublin By Lamplight, as a part of the Philadelphia Irish Theatre Festival.

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THEATER: Inis Nua Theatre Co.'s Dublin By Lamplight

POSTED: Friday, April 29, 2011, 10:00 AM

This week, Inis Nua Theatre Company opened its two-and-a-half-week run of Dublin By Lamplight. Tom Reing, Inis Nua's artistic director, was first blown away by the show when he saw it in Dublin in 2004. Back then, his theater company was basically a once-a-year fringe festival enterprise. Now they have momentum and are able to finish their 2010-11 season properly with Michael West's play as part of the Philadelphia Irish Theatre Festival.

Reing directs Dublin by Lamplight in "Corn Exchange" style, which is named for a theatre company in Dublin where artistic director Annie Ryan developed the style. "She was fascinated by Irish actors who could tell a story till the cows come home but could not physically embody it," says Reing. "So she developed a style which would increase their physical potential while retaining their storytelling elements."

The style utilizes heavy mask-like makeup which starts off with four emotional states — happiness, sadness, anger and fear — a range which doesn't sound very complex, but the actors add and subtract to those feelings like shades on a primary color wheel.

"At first this style might be very jarring," he says. "But once you know the rules it's actually quite freeing. The mantra of Corn Exchange is 'You have to dance on a razor's edge between the grotesque, the heartfelt... and anything for a cheap gag."

The show is set in Dublin 1904 at the Irish National Theatre. Its cast features Inis Nua regulars Mike Dees, Charlie DelMarcelle, Kevin Meehan and Jared Michael Delaney — and introduces Megan Bellwoar and Sarah Van Auken (Sarah is soon to graduate from Philadelphia's University of the Arts).

Through May 14, various times and prices, Broad Street Ministires, 315 S. Broad St., 215-454-9776, inisnuatheatre.org.

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