Raven Eyed – Dublin Fringe Festival – Review

Dates Sep 14 -16 / 21- 23 @ 20:30 & 22:00 – Tickets €18/ €16 conc.
Duration 60 mins
Other performance Sep 12 – 13 / Sep 20 @ 21:00
Venue: Meeting Point @ The Point Luas Stop

Loosysmokes seems to have one clear intention; to freak out their audience! Their last production in the 2015 Fringe Festival was called ‘Behind the Dark’ and took place in the Phoenix park at night. The performance was in a small wooded area with the acrobats high overhead. This time out, we were required to meet at the Point Luas station. For those that don’t know the area, this is the station at the end of the Red line Luas, beside the 3Arena. There is a lot of wasteland in the vicinity and a number of half-finished building sites. While I won’t reveal the location chosen for this event, it is an indoors location in the vicinity. If you were to describe it, it would be the type of place a serial killer would go to dismember the bodies!

Loosysmokes are listed as a circus act in the brochure but it is clearly with a difference. They have a number of acrobats and other performers, but their aim is to transport the viewer to somewhere quite bizarre. As you can see from the image above, they draw heavily from the world of horror films. The lighting for this event was very impressive, with use of uplighting along with strobe and other effects. There were also projections onto the back wall of the set along with a soundtrack of creeping, scratching and gnawing sounds, all looped to add to the atmosphere.

There were four performers on stage, three women and one man. All four were capable acrobats and moved well around the stage, lurching and contorting their bodies into a variety of forms. They also performed in the air, on ropes and trapeze. While there was no clear underlying story to the event, there were a number of distinct scenes, with different groups of performers in each one. Their clothing seemed like it was from another age and the performance had an edge of the supernatural, like ghosts woken from their eternal slumber. This is a must see for those that like to spook themselves. Go to the late performance, settle back and watch this vision from beyond the grave!