Preview: Savour the summer’s coming feast of theatre, performance and street art

Summer used to mean slim pickings for theatre and the performing arts but these days the calendar is chock-full of treats to come

The summer season opens with the Cork Midsummer Festival running from June 13 to 23

Emer O'Kelly

Time was, theatre (and the performing arts in ­general) sank into the doldrums in the summer months. Our two main ­stages were predictable: the Abbey forgot about home ­audiences and turned to American bus tours, offering the O’Casey trilogy in ­rotation, with the odd Synge for variety, while back in the days of Ernest Blythe’s dubious reign there was also light relief in the form of a John McCann comedy of “Dublin life”. McCann, a minor Fianna Fáil politician and one-time lord mayor of ­Dublin, did have one claim to theatrical fame, he was father to the late and genius actor Donal McCann. But an impressive playwright he was not.

The Gate would revive whichever “frock play” had been most successful ­during the winter season, usually the least ­intellectually demanding, and with the costumes looking a little tired for this ­second outing.