Revenger's Tragedy in the Belltable

FANCY some blood and lust with a healthy dash of murder? No it’s not Quentin Tarantino, but you’re not far off.
Continuing this week in the Belltable is the Bottom Dog produced play, the Revenger’s Tragedy, the fourth play produced by the Limerick Theatre Hub.
Adapted from Thomas Middleton’s Jacobean classic text by local playwright Mike Finn, directed by Myles Breen and starring former Emmerdale actor Liam O’Brien, this piece is dripping with murder, a tragic comedy you can really get your teeth into.
The play deals with the return of ‘Vinnie’, hell bent on avenging the death of his girlfriend at the hands of the notorious Duke - played by Killinaskully’s Pascal Scott - and if it sounds like a Guy Ritchie movie, mixed with Shakespeare and moulded by Martin McDonagh, you are probably on the right track.
“I was attracted to the play originally because I just loved the title and when I read it I decided it would be fun to do an adaptation of it,” says Mike Finn.
“It is a good old fashioned play, a Jacobean revenge tragedy, and it is full of blood, lust, incest, murder - so I thought it would be interesting to do a modern take on it, because unfortunately those things are very close to us.
“One of the things we discovered about it as we went along is that it is a tragedy as the title would suggest, but we have realised that it is hilarious, sort of a black comedy. There are some real elements of farce - it is quite black, almost like a bedroom farce but with knives. It is quite mad.”
The cast is also made up of superb actress Gene Rooney, Aidan Crowe, Dorothy Cotter and Pat Ryan, with an original - and dark - score, written by Giveamanakick’s Steve Ryan.
The setting promises to be superb, utilising the versatile space of Red Cross Hall, and this play is ambitious in its scope - a fact not lost on Finn.
“It is big and ambitious and is the biggest one in terms of scale of the four, so if it fails it will be spectacular, but I would like to think the audience will come out and even if they don't think it is the greatest play in the world, they will know they have been spoken to.”
The Revenger’s Tragedy runs in the Belltable until November 24. For bookings contact 061-319866.