Irish Times critics review The Castlecomer Jukebox at the Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford; Kenka and Kandachime at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, TCD and Monica Huggett (violin), Joseph Crouch (cello), Richard Sweeney (theorbo), David Adams (harpsichord) at the National Gallery
The Castlecomer Jukebox at Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford
Jimmy Murphy's previous plays, Brothers of the Brush and Kings of the Kilburn High Road tackled areas of social life and recent history that have been frequently overlooked. His latest, produced by Red Kettle Theatre Company, pays homage to the showband era, which brought rock 'n' roll and dreams of Las Vegas glitz to dancehalls around Ireland until well into the 1970s. Perhaps more than the recorded music emanating from London and New York, it was these packed live performances in their home towns and villages that left a generation of Irish people "all shook up".
The headily liberating effect of white suits and medallions is not what we see here, unfortunately. Instead we look back on it from the present, as a group of survivors from the era, The Castlecomer Jukebox, reunite for a summer season in a tawdry midlands hotel. Unlike Billy Roche in his comparable play, The Cavalcaders, Murphy does not succeed in creating a world; instead, he tells us about it. It's all retrospective - and inevitably susceptible to sentimentality.
Instead of bringing us back into their heyday, the play relies on the reminiscences of the band's leader, Ginty (Mick Lally), prompted by the young hotel porter (Peter Halpin), who rarely seems more than a plot device.
The satirical scenes in which the hotel owner (Niall O'Brien) bribes the local MEP (Jennie Ledwell) to secure the US President's visit to his hotel, lack bite, despite their topicality, and under Jim Nolan's direction, the performances lack energy. While it's not surprising that the cartoonishly craven hotelier speaks in clichés, there seems no reason for all the band members to be equally handicapped. Yes, they've had their "day in the sun", they're "at the end of the road", the "clock is ticking" and they're "yesterday's men", but maybe they should stick to the music.
When they do play a valedictory number, with Honor Heffernan as the charismatic lead vocalist, there's a glimpse of the magic that eludes the writing and production. It was warmly received on Thursday night in Waterford, home of the Royal Showband, but to be more than heartwarming, it needs to offer something beyond nostalgia - which, of course, is not what it used to be.
Runs until March 6th, then tours nationally for nine weeks.
Helen Meany
Kenka and Kandachime at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, TCD
The visiting Japanese Butoh group Torifune Butoh-Sha gave Irish theatre practitioners an exceptional development opportunity in taking them through a three-week training period to perform this programme. Dating from a controversial performance in 1959, Ankoku Butoh (Dance of Darkness) arose as post-second World War Japan's amalgamation of and defiant response to the varying influences and developments in its society. As well as 20th century dance traditions (before the war, many Japanese performing artists had visited Europe and learned classical and modern dance techniques), it incorporates traditional Japanese theatre techniques from the Noh, Kabuki and Bunraku to create an enigmatic art form that resists the pure reason and quantifiable thought on which we Westerners rely and pride ourselves.
The first piece in the programme, Kenka, presented nearly one and a half hours of mesmeric movement. The leading dancer of the company, Kayo Mikami, gave a performance that left little doubt as to the nature of purgatory. Portraying a woman who has died young and still pines for her child on Earth, Mikami superbly displayed a lynchpin of Butoh: that transformation of the self into that which is portrayed, with the act of metamorphosis being the key, the mind's movement into a different state. In the various sections of the piece, Mikami displayed utmost physical and mental control in a convincing performance as a body animated not by life but by grief. Her dance proceeded at times achingly slow, as though she were a statue being shifted mechanically across the stage, and sometimes wildly, with movement seemingly uncontrolled. Her white face and body paint - traditional in many forms of Butoh - as well as her unconventional dancing gave the eerie sense of a corpse that could not die, powered by something larger and stronger than life.
In Kandachime, Irish performing artists joined the other members of the company to present a piece inspired by the kandachime, wild horses living in the coldest regions of Japan who survive the harshest circumstances. Apart from the slow, slow movement and the sometimes rigorously stylised, sometimes chaotic choreography and stage direction, some of the most striking elements of the piece were the extreme facial expressions and contortions presented by the actors. The guests did well here, newly introduced to the art form, but the Japanese company members defy description in their ability, with the help of white makeup, to create a mercurial, mask-like visage - even their faces could dance.
I was surprised that apparently no dance professionals took part in this superb training and performing opportunity. Witnessing such a performance is a transformational experience and I expect, like homeopathy, will continue to alter consciousness and perception long after the actual dosage. I can't imagine what it must be like to be embroiled in it. Although it requires some sticking power, anyone seriously interested in the performing arts should see and explore this.
Christine Madden
Monica Huggett (violin), Joseph Crouch (cello), Richard Sweeney (theorbo), David Adams (harpsichord) at the National Gallery
Baltzar - Prelude. Divisions on John come kisse.
Schop - Lacrimae Pavann.
Marini - Sonata due corde.
Fontana - Sonata nona.
Leclair - Sonata Op 5 No 7 (Le tombeau).
Biber - Sonata in E minor (1681).
Do you think of early music as an elegant accompaniment to canapes and wine? If you do, don't go and hear ace violinist Monica Huggett.
You'll choke! As part of the Irish Baroque Orchestra's spring tour (the opening concert was reviewed in this newspaper last Thursday), she and the orchestra's continuo group appeared at the National Gallery. All the composers were known in their lifetimes primarily as virtuoso violinists.
Monica Huggett's playing brimmed with the excitement of discovery. She pointed out that Marini's Sonata due corde, which dates from around the 1620s or '30s, was written as the violin was moving out of popular music and becoming an instrument for high art.
The Marini and a beautiful Lacrimae Pavann by Schop push the boat out as far as the instrument's expressive and technical possibilities are concerned. From the way Huggett ornamented the written line to Richard Sweeney's lively and responsive theorbo playing, it sounded as if everything was being invented anew.
There is nothing cosy or even consoling about such music. It was designed to move yet startle through subtlety and extremity. In Fontana's Sonata nona, the dialogue between Huggett and cellist Joseph Crouch had a blend of eloquence and fire that paralleled the flamboyant energy of Baroque buildings.
By any standards, Biber's 1681 Sonata in E minor is an extraordinary piece, especially in its blend of disciplined compositional technique and free-flowing fantasy. The sense of urgent invention in the violin was intensified by the richness of the full continuo group - cello, theorbo and harpsichord (David Adams). After this performance one could only agree with Monica Huggett's claim that Biber deserves to be known as a great composer.
The Irish Baroque Orchestra appears at Kings Inns Dublin next Saturday and St Nicholas Collegiate Church Galway on Sunday. For details telephone (01) 6337283.
Martin Adams
