About the Show

Irish Arts Center presents Galway International Arts Festival’s trio of installations exploring solitude, where each room frames a new voice from Tony winner Enda Walsh ('Once').

In 'Room 303,' an old man lies in bed waiting for the end. In 'A Girl’s Bedroom,' a six-year old leaves her bedroom and never stops walking until now. In 'Kitchen,' a wife wills her own implosion. Each playlet runs for approximately 15 minutes for audiences of six, who experience all three 'Rooms' in under an hour. A companion piece to 'Arlington' at St. Ann's Warehouse.

Critic Reviews (5)

“A haunting installation…A distinct, self-hypnotized voice fills each room, describing its environment as a limbo where life is frozen, even as it drifts into nothingness. The voices belong to Charlie Murphy, Eileen Walsh and Niall Buggy, and they are guaranteed to take up residence in your head, too. The contemplative ‘Rooms’ might be called disturbingly relaxing.”
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"The effect is weirdly intimate, creepily insinuating, and oddly seductive—in short, a haunting...Murphy, like her costars, delivers the text as if her life depended on it...Walsh, who also directed, has created an experience that inexorably draws you in and shakes you to the core. The people who once inhabited these rooms may have vanished, but their souls have stayed behind, and are raging far into the night."
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“Each of IAC’s 'Rooms' allows immersive rifling and snooping before and during the audio...It is Room 303 that is the standout piece. A dying man in a poky hotel room focuses on the futility of his lot, personified by an annoying fly. Buggy’s delivery of Walsh’s words is beautifully poignant and droll, a playwright’s dream.”
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"More of an installation than a show...While the sets were perfectly fine in capturing the shabby anonymity of a hotel room from afar, for example, there was literally nothing of note in any drawers or anywhere else. Why encourage people to explore a kitchen when most cabinet doors were glued shut?...Each monologue charted a drab life with a modest twist towards the end that I won’t spoil. They were ably performed but the overall effect was a lot of bother for very little effect."
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"The attention to detail in the creation of the rooms is marvelous, with many items that have obviously been brought over from Ireland to give authenticity to the place, especially in the kitchen room. Lighting and sound are used to great effect to punctuate the pieces. The recorded vocal performances are haunting and, with the poetry of Enda Walsh’s script, paint vivid pictures of these three individuals."
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Trailer

Creative team