Theatre for One: Made in Cork review – One actor, one audience member and a life unravelling
Emmet Place, Cork
★★★★☆
An assistant in a red jumpsuit ushers me into a black container on the plaza in front of
Cork Opera House
. I step into a tiny space about the size of a toilet cubicle and styled like a peep-show booth: inbuilt seat, red plush walls, stage lights.
The door shuts behind me. Then a panel slides open to reveal a woman in tears. She begins to berate me for dumping her. I have been a total cad – that much is clear – and I begin to feel genuinely sorry.
This is It's Not You, a short play by
Cónal Creedon
, performed with striking emotional realism by Áine Ní Laoghaire as part of Theatre for One: Made in Cork.
Conceived by the theatremaker Christine Jones, the format is simple but powerful: six five-minute plays, each written for a one-audience-member-at-a-time booth, performed in succession throughout the day (and free to watch: you just join the queue).
READ MORE
This 2025 edition, presented by
Landmark Productions
and
Octopus Theatricals
in association with
Cork Midsummer Festival
and Cork Opera House, features new work by six writers with strong Cork ties: Creedon, Katie Holly, John McCarthy, Michael John McCarthy,
Gina Moxley
and Louise O'Neill.
Directed by Julie Kelleher and Eoghan Carrick, the experience is confronting – and that's its strength. The extreme proximity of the performer, the unwavering eye contact and the impossibility of leaving demand emotional engagement. These are characters unravelling, opening the mess of their private lives to you; it's theatre as confessional.
Theatre for One: Made in Cork – Tommy Harris in Amibition, by Katie Holly. Photograph: Jed Niezgoda
Theatre for One: Made in Cork – George Hanover in The Wedding, by Louise O'Neill. Photograph: Jed Niezgoda
In Katie Holly's Ambition, a depressed magician (Tommy Harris) fumbles through tricks during a job interview for a corporate party. It's clear how much he needs this gig. Even his rabbit, he suspects, looks at him with contempt, just as his girlfriend did – before she dumped him.
In
Louise O'Neill
's The Wedding, George Hanover plays a mother in a changing room, navigating layers of guilt and love as she searches for a dress to wear to her daughter's big day.
Theatre for One is powerfully transporting; lightning-quick and raw. It leaves an emotional after-image that lingers as you step out of the booth and back into the plaza, back into the real world.
Theatre for One: Made in Cork runs daily, except for Monday, June 16th, until Sunday, June 22nd, as part of
Cork Midsummer Festival
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