'The Asylum Workshop'

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"There are many good things to say about this impactful work, not least the performances of TU Dublin’s final-year Drama students. Playwright, Colin Murphy after what must have been extensive research, bases his docudrama on real life facts, records, testimonies, medical reports, and analyses to present how people were treated for mental health issues. This includes barbaric medical mistreatment and forced incarceration in what was once called, the ‘Lunatic Asylum.’ Later this became St. Brendan’s mental hospital and today, as a vibrant university institution, it is called Grangegorman.

Multi-layered and entirely engaging, this fast-paced production, treats this difficult and disturbing corner of our history with reverence. Director Peter McDermott employs several techniques to effectively juxtapose fact and fiction, making connections both historically and metaphorically. The opening scene takes in a class of drama students chatting and then rehearsing for a performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This somehow cleverly segues into the same students researching and then presenting another play about the very space they are working in which was once an asylum for lunatics."

- The Reviews Hub