Theatre: Blue Raincoat triumphs with a startling expedition

Shackleton perfectly measures the audience’s capacity to engage with this unique style of storytelling

Shackleton: an intensely physical production that eschews language for image

Shackleton

Project Arts Centre, Dublin

Until March 11

Rating:****

The beginning of Blue Raincoat’s Shackleton is signalled not with a curtain being opened but a sail being slowly raised. Directed by Niall Henry, this startling, atmospheric production presents an oblique visual engagement with the endurance feat of Irish polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, whose Trans-Antarctic Expedition met disaster when its ship, The Endurance, became stuck in pack ice. The crew was forced to take ...