Sep 10 2021
Demon twins and sci-fi raves at Galway’s gobsmacking arts fest - and a 4 star review in the Guardian for Decadent! (★★★★☆)
‘’In Decadent Theatre company’s There Are Little Kingdoms (★★★★☆) the lives of the inhabitants of a small Irish midlands town intersect all too closely, without assistance from smartphones or social media. Adapted from Kevin Barry’s debut short story collection, multiple characters rub shoulders on the main street or at the North Star Bar over the course of a single day. We are introduced to a pair of teenage girl troublemakers “the demon twins”; a sex-obsessed poultry farmer and a bewildered soul who is trying to figure out how he came to be the owner of a chip shop. With the terrific ensemble cast of seven swapping roles throughout, they succeed in sustaining comic energy, despite the subduing effects of playing to a socially distanced audience of 50 dotted around the auditorium of Galway’s Town Hall theatre. Seeing Barry’s award-winning stories from 2007 staged now, they seem on the surface to capture a simpler time, around the turn of the millennium. A more complicated picture builds, thanks to director Andrew Flynn’s receptiveness to sudden tonal shifts, from black absurdity to queasy realisations. Barry and Flynn’s chiselled script has an intricate structure, offering shifting perspectives on a tight community in which emotion is kept at bay until it erupts ferociously, leaving damage visible like a bruise’’
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