Festival: Accessible Performances at Dublin Fringe Festival

This year’s Dublin Fringe Festival features ISL interpreted and audio described performances, as well as the second iteration of an exciting commission, the ISL Deaf Translations Project, led by artist and Deaf interpreter Lianne Quigley.

Aiming to bridge the gap between the stage and audiences who are Deaf or hard of hearing, Lianne will lead a specialised team of interpreters who are Deaf and hearing, offering an enriched and more inclusive Dublin Fringe for all through interpreted performances.

A celebration of Irish Sign Language and a vital step towards recognising the cultural heritage of the Irish Deaf Community, this project facilitates and promotes team-interpreting in the theatre context. It goes beyond the familiar model of a ‘hearing interpreter signing to a Deaf audience’ and brings Deaf culture, creativity, and representation to the fore.

This pioneering collaboration between Dublin Fringe Festival and Lianne Quigley marks an important step towards a more accessible and inclusive artistic landscape in Ireland.

Afterwards ISL Interpreted Performance 13 September 6pm
Three women in the immediate aftermath of a life changing choice. Set in the recovery ward of an abortion clinic in the UK, two Irish Women – one a married mother of three, the other, an eighteen year old on her first foray out of Ireland – and a young English solicitor spend a disorienting night together as they wait for morning.
Revelations, arguments, and silly songs take them to dawn as they look into a transformed future. Outside, the world keeps turning.

Illness as Metaphor ISL Interpreted Performance 14 September 6.15pm
In her book Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag sets out to diagnose the problem with the way we think about illness. Her discovery was not to focus on sickness itself, but the language surrounding disease – language that can, in her view, quite literally kill. Whether it’s the metaphor of “battling cancer” or the image of “front-line workers” during the pandemic, Sontag claims that metaphors distort our way of thinking – since neither cancer nor Covid are states of war.

Working with six participants living with long-term illness, Dead Centre adapt this groundbreaking text for the theatre. But isn’t the theatre itself a metaphoric space? If all the world’s a stage, how can theatre try and deal with reality? Perhaps, through listening to the testimony of real people, theatre can be re-invented as a place where we might live, and die, without metaphor.

Chicken ISL Interpreted Performance 15 September 1.15pm
Meet Don Murphy; a proud Irishman, a hopeless ketamine addict and one of his generation’s greatest actors. He also happens to be a chicken.

A Kerry cock, to be exact. Join the feathered Oscar winner as he shares his star-studded life story: from moving to New York to getting his big break, having his first bird-on-bird sexual experience, and attempting to navigate life in the spotlight. Along the way, Don will be confronted with some hard truths about himself, chicken-kind and humankind.

BEASTS. ISL Interpreted Performance 21 September 9.15pm
‘Can our ancestors look down on us? Would they even recognise me?’
Sam and Max are trying to navigate the world as mixed-race girls. But they’re haunted by the very faces they call their own. They’re angry, they’re pissed and they’re about to go on a ‘trip.’ Maybe the Gods of the Ramayana can help them? Through ancestral deep dives, divine encounters, and with the help of the NCH Gamelan Orchestra live on stage, maybe they’ll find their way home.

Other accessible events as part of Dublin Fringe include:

Malignant Humour ISL Interpreted Performance facilitated by Aoife Hendrick 14 September 1.15pm
Hannah found a lump. Its nothing, right? Malignant Humour explores the stifled laughter in hospital corridors, the importance of the kindness of medics, being asked if you’re pregnant for the fifth time in a single day, and Blondie.
Join Hannah for every blood test and biopsy in this mix of trapeze and theatre exploring the death-defying circus act that is chemotherapy. Based on her own experience with cancer, Malignant Humour asks what happens when your own body betrays you, and you’re left hanging in mid air? Take a seat, the doctor will see you shortly. If you’re brave, you won’t feel a thing.

First Trimester ISL Interpreted Performance 21 September (all performance times)
Witness intimate live interviews between performance artist Krishna Istha and 100s of participants, in a quest to find them and their partner a sperm donor, or at least discover the qualities that bring them closer to their perfect match. The show explores human connection, parenthood, and what it means to create a family as a transgender person. This performance is a rare opportunity to contribute to and witness queer family-making, watch the interviews unfold or sign-up as a participant and prospective donor.

Tearmann Aiteach/Queer Sanctuary Audio Described Performance facilitated by Mo Harte 21 September 6.15pm

Sweaty dancing, fabulous strangeness, abundance, transforming naked bodies, sparkling visual design and gorgeous garments. What’s not to love? Tearmann Aiteach / Queer Sanctuary dances a welcoming space that supports flourishing, solidarity and spritely sparkle. It has grown out of Fearghus and Isabella’s separate practices as artists of different gender, generations and nationalities. Their dancing together celebrates what’s possible between their queer bodies and others. You’re invited to watch, and if you fancy, to dive in. Dress up or not. Sparkle.

The Maestro and the Mosquita Audio Described Performance facilitated by Mo Harte 15 September 6.15pm

Once a celebrated conductor, the Maestro now lives alone, haunted by dreams of past glory and tortured nightly by the visitations of a bloodhungry mosquita. This tiny nemesis destroys the Maestro’s dream of a magnificent comeback and plunges him into a war he can’t win. Not until he recognises in his enemy the same need for love and life as in himself. With an original score by Oscar-winning composer Stephen Warbeck, this big hearted show follows an artist’s journey from innocence to corruption, delight to downfall.

Gatman! Audio Described Performance facilitated by Mo Harte 10 September at 6.15pm

A darkly comic one-man play exploring the metamorphic effect of alcohol with a superhero twist. Murph is a down-and-out Corkman addicted to Gat(booze). Trying desperately to sober up before a visit with his son, Murph traverses the eccentricities of the city as he takes on the great fight between alcoholism and recovery. But, meanwhile… Welcome to the glorious wonderland of Murph’s alcohol-fuelled superhero alter-ego, Gatman. Gatman’s mission: to save his beloved, boozy city from the sobering shackles of Father Mathew – a priest statue come to life.

Embedding Access: A Workshop for Disability Inclusion 12 September
This workshop will explore the role of theatre-makers as creative forces in implementing disability inclusion throughout theatrical work. There will be an hour-long talk on methodology for disability inclusive practice, followed by a practical workshop that invites practitioners to collaborate on how we access theatre, and explore the creative ways in which access can be implemented from the very beginning of a project.

Please note that the programme notes available for the audio described performances are also suitable for patrons who are neurodivergent, please contact boxoffice@fringefest.com for more details.

For more information, visit fringefest.com