The Matador – Show in a Bag Shane O’Reilly – Review by P McGovern

Matador – at Bewley’s Café Theatre @ Powersourt Centre until September 14

The publicity for this show might lead you to expect a few glasses of Spanish tourist board-sponsored Rioja. If so you’ll be disappointed, but this will be your only disappointment in a show performed with great panache and also written with wit and compassion by Shane O’Reilly. The drama is set not in a crowded corrida but a small farmholding in rural Ireland and centres on the lengths to which a father will go to, to allow his son go to college – this is Healy Rae country and not Castlerock.

O’Reilly has great presence, commanding the stage effortlessly, slipping in and out of the roles of father, mother, son and, yes, bull too! Unlike many young actors on Dublin stages, he is vocally secure in his assumed accents, shifting pitch from old to young or male to female and bringing a character to life in a flash with bodily gesture and facial expression.

Setting is minimal but the subtle lighting design by Eoin Carrick (who also directs) and O’Reilly’s powerfully concentrated performance ensure that it requires nothing more. Olé.

The Matador – Show in a Bag Shane O’Reilly

Dates Sep 08 — 10 @ 20:00, Sep 12 @ 18:00, Sep 13 @13:00 & 18:00, Sep 14 @ 20:00.
Tickets €13.
Duration 60 mins.
Venue:
Bewley’s Cafe Theatre @ Powerscourt