The revolution will be digitised. Set in Ireland in 2014, Emmet Kirwan’s new play for Dublin Youth Theatre depicts a future of tech-savvy school students contending with State tyranny and a resurgent hardline Nationalism – conditions they consider borderline fascist, unconstitutional and, like, totally unfair. Such is the balancing act in director Willie White’s production, which must not only accommodate 21 performers, but also marry amplified political concerns to the daily quiet dramas of young individuals.

It isn’t an easy ask and Kirwan – a DYT graduate, performer and writer – is extended further by his scrupulousness. Giving most characters equal attention, he distributes his better lines evenly among the throng and tries on competing writing styles to contain their sprawling narratives. The first is poetry, where a corridor mill of students introduce themselves through rhyme: “Every generation experiences a different type of youth/ Exploding lyrical style of words and truth”. But that scheme is quickly traded for more standard-issue group patter, where Kirwan works hard to establish individual characterisation among future-

proof milieus: pheromone-addled knuckleheads, bitchy covens, earnest new kids in school, widely-vilified drama kids and would-be political leaders.

“Stop the deportations”, goes one clarifying student slogan, and the thrust of Half 3 Heroes becomes one of rebellion. In a dystopian school system within a shackled Republic, students named Kwame have been spirited away, while first generation Irish citizens with Polish or Kosovan parents face similar threats. That this ethnic panoply is not conspicuously present on the stage or among the cast seems slightly jarring. Is the future already here? Staging their own coup d’école , the students hole up in a gymnasium to broadcast their struggle via Bebo, but while the cast is consistently engaging, the production loses the verve of insurrection behind a checklist of youth concerns, its pace slackening between nods to bullying, underage drinking, fitting in or standing apart. More successfully, White and Kirwan draw subversive parallels between revolutions past and present. As the students reel off declarations, hoist flags, or bicker themselves into competing factions of idealists and destroyers, the Easter Rising is wickedly restaged. More subtly, Kirwan wonders what makes a leader now, his ideologues, populists and anarchists vying for position.

Ultimately little is solved and one student understandably worries, “Do you think we’ll ever become like them?” The answer might be a manifesto worthy of an uprising or a youth theatre. “We’ll grow old like them, but we must not become tired.” PETER CRAWLEY

2 for the price of 1 tickets (Full ticket price €12)
Matinee performance
Saturday 31st October 2.30pm

Dublin Youth Theatre's
Half 3 Heroes by Emmet Kirwan directed by Willie White
The Cube, Project Arts Centre, 39 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Free post show discussion with the cast, writer Emmet Kirwan & director Willie White

BOOKING: (+353 1) 881 9613

Dublin Youth Theatre’s Half 3 Heroes by Emmet Kirwan directed by Willie White kicks off this Monday 26 October @ 8.15pm and runs for a very limited run nightly until Saturday 31 October @ 8.15pm in Project Cube, Project Arts Centre.

DYT and Project Arts Centre have teamed up to give you some great value special offers;

• REAL DEAL – All tickets Monday 26 October are only €8.

• Tickets for parties booked of 10 or more people are only €10.

• Concession tickets* for Tuesday 27 October and the matinee on Saturday 31 October @ 2.30pm are only €10 and €12 for all other performances.

*Concession tickets are available, with valid identification, to Students, Senior Citizens, Equity Members and the Unwaged.

• A free post show discussion will be held following the matinee performance on Saturday 31 October with the cast of 21 young people, writer Emmet Kirwan & director Willie White (t.b.c).

• Milano restaurant in Temple Bar is offering Project patrons a pre-theatre menu of Pizza, Pasta or Salad plus a drink for just €12.50 per person between 5pm & 7pm. Show your tickets or email booking confirmation to avail of this offer.

• In a rush and need to eat on the run - Milano also deliver a delicious range of made to order pizzas to Project Arts Centre’s bar. No queues and no need to leave the building. Ask a member of our bar staff for more information.

• A special €5 rate is available from Fleet Street car park for Project patrons, simply present your show ticket when paying to avail of the offer.

• Why not make your trip to the theatre a night to remember by adding a stay at The Morgan Hotel. Conveniently located just a 5 minute walk from Project Arts Centre, theatre packages start from only €140.00 B&B per room, per night and includes a welcome cocktail & complimentary parking. Once you’ve booked your theatre tickets contact The Morgan on +353 1 6437000 or online www.themorgan.com to book this very special accommodation package.
Offer available until the end of 2009.

Book your tickets early to avoid disappointment. Tickets can be booked -

Online here http://purchase.tickets.com/buy/Tick...

By phone 01 8819613

Or in person at Project Arts Centre, 39 East Essex Street, Dublin 1

Suitable ages 14+. Contains some strong language.

Dublin Youth Theatre presents
Half 3 Heroes
Written by Emmet Kirwan and directed by Willie White
Previews Monday 26th & 27th October
Opens Wednesday 28th – Saturday 31st October
Nightly at 8.15pm
Project Cube, Project Arts Centre, 39 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
Tickets €15/€12 (Concession)
Bookings + 353 (1) 881 9613/4 / www.projectartscentre.ie

Who says young people don't care?

When their friends and classmates are deported, repatriated, shipped out and sent away the students of Ireland organise a nationwide take over of their schools.

Locked inside they realise that they also have to contend with each other and discover that navigating the politics of school and being a teenager might be harder than fighting the power.

Dublin Youth Theatre presents a specially commissioned darkly comic play set in the near future. Written by emerging writer Emmet Kirwan (Sarah & Steve, RTE 2), Half 3 Heroes deals with teenage issues and the big problems of being young, as well as some smaller political ones that are bigger than they seem.