At the Galway Arts Festival Belinda McKeon reviews The Small Things at the Druid Theatre, Michael Seaver reviews Aurelia's Oratorio at the Black Box Theatre and Patrick Lonergan reveiews A Distant Country Called Youth at BoI Theatre, NUIG.
The Small Things, Druid Theatre, Galway
To enter fully into the world of Enda Walsh's Man and Woman, the characters whose monologues and occasional dialogues weave the tapestry of memory and foreboding that comprises this play, it is necessary to know something of their situation beforehand. Firstly, you need to know these two elderly souls are the last two people alive. Secondly, although they appear to be sitting in the same room in the same house, they are in fact living in separate houses, divided by a mountain valley, and gazing at one another from their windows.
This information matters, but it is not contained in the words spoken by Walsh's characters, nor within the visual vocabulary of the play. And this much is telling, The Small Things being a play essentially about language and the tension between repression and revelation that dictates how truthful and how useful - how human - language will turn out to be.
With this complex question at its core, the contextual and structural obscurity with which the piece sets out goes some way to adding a thrilling strangeness, a sense of the dream world, to the dark reminiscences of its characters; Man and Woman convincingly inhabit a space that is pushed in upon by the mind and that pieces itself together through remembered snatches from childhood - in this case, a bizarre atrocity that has changed human interaction forever - and what is consequently realised about adulthood.
In these utterances, Walsh's considerable talent for the stark pool of images, for the rich synthesis of the horrible and the mundane, is as evident as in his previous plays, most notably bedbound in 2000. However, that play was also distinguished by its sketching of the central relationship with depth and with patience, and not just with a relentless thirst for the moment of crisis or shock. Such an achievement is what The Small Things lacks.
For all its brooding on notions of speech and silencing, on trust and on the act of telling, the play is not the profound meditation on narration and existence that it sets out to be. This is through no fault of the performers, Bernard Gallagher and Valerie Lilley, who are by turns touching and unnerving in their roles, and who handle the sharp trajectories of Walsh's language with warmth and skill. The problem is bigger than them, existing before they even come onstage. It lies in this play's relationship to opacity and ambiguity, the very dangers in the face of which its characters are trying so bravely to speak. The play itself, unfortunately, remains in these dangers' thrall. - Belinda McKeon
Aurelia's Oratorio, Black Box Theatre, Galway
We need shows like Aurelia's Oratorio more and more these days. First there's the lineage: although Victoria Thiérrée Chaplin and Aurelia Thiérrée may be daughter and granddaughter to Charlie Chaplin, a more important bloodline is preserved in the variety of gags and illusions that has been passed down through music hall and circus. They also jettison narrative and meaning, allowing the audience to dream along with the performers instead of having to make sense of everything on stage. And throughout there is a sheer joyousness and sense of fun that is warmly uplifting.
It's also perfect for the Galway Arts Festival. The journey walking past street performers into the theatre is seamless, as we enter Aurelia's dreamscape.
Canadian dancer Timothy Harling joins Aurelia Thiérrée in a world inspired by an artistic movement in the Middle Ages, where everything is in reverse: shadows walk upright, a pet mouse drags in a dead cat and clothes are hung out to be watered.
Director and designer Victoria Thiérrée Chaplin frames the stage with lush red curtains that come to life, swallow people and travel from one side of the stage to the other. Sets are kept to a minimum, and a simple hat-stand, chest of drawers and stool are sufficient foils for the humans. Nothing is inanimate and the cast of lively and strong-willed objects vie for our applause. Rivalry between object and human is fierce, particularly between Harling and a coat that gains the upper hand, pinning him to the ground until he submits and accedes to its wishes.
Conventions are sustained but never jaded, and the pace gathers towards an extraordinarily magical final image. The emotional rhythm is also subtly controlled, and progressively darker images and moods undertow the gleeful magic. At these moments the richness of imagination becomes most resonant as dreams become twisted and more questioning. Monika Schwarzl, Tarzana Foures and Nicola Reese lend a hand - metaphorically and literally - to proceedings, and the timeless invention and magic was well rewarded by a grateful audience. - Michael Seaver
A Distant Country Called Youth, BoI Theatre, NUIG
It's revealing that writer-director Steve Lawson does not describe this adaptation of Tennessee Williams's letters as a play, but instead calls it a "theatrical event". That's an important distinction - because although it ably celebrates Williams's life and work, A Distant Country Called Youth suffers from a lack of theatricality.
American actor Andrew McCarthy reads a series of excerpts from Williams's letters, taking us from his early attempts at writing to his first Broadway success, The Glass Menagerie. We hear his correspondence with family, editors, friends - and discover interesting echoes of the themes that would later dominate his plays.
There are revealing autobiographical details too. Williams's pain about his sister's mental illness is emphasised, as is his self-deprecating but lively sense of humour. And the show is particularly effective in illustrating how Williams's feelings about his homosexuality dominated his writing.
This is enjoyable, informing those who know little about Williams, while challenging the expectations of people familiar with his work. But does the show offer anything that we couldn't gain from reading these letters ourselves? Not really. McCarthy enlivens his performance by moving through three different podiums on the stage, and there's some nice business with props - it's amusing to see Williams drinking water when writing to his family, but sipping martini and smoking while boasting to friends about his sexual exploits. There are also occasional slide projections of photos, which act both as supplement and counterpoint to the letters.
But these tactics do little to overcome the fundamental problem here: because McCarthy spends the show reading letters, he cannot engage effectively with the audience - moments of connection occur sporadically, but are broken instantly, as McCarthy's eyes return to the text before him.
So the audience finds itself in the position of eavesdropping upon private conversations between Williams and the people in his life. The jokes are not for us, and neither are the revelations. The overall effect is jarring. We're left convinced of the importance of Williams's writing - but there's a huge contrast between the passionate imagination revealed by his letters, and this static, disengaged style of production. - Patrick Lonergan
• Galway Arts Festival shows run until the weekend
Hughes/McGinley, BoI Arts Centre, Dublin
Beethoven - Sonata in F Op 5 no 1
Ian Wilson - Six Days at Jericho
Chopin - Polonaise Brillante
In three pieces that place cello and piano on an equal footing, Derry-born musicians Jane Hughes and Ruth McGinley both demonstrated their individual strengths. Hughes admirably captured the lighter side of Beethoven in the first of his sonatas for cello and piano, a work so jolly it even skips a central slow movement. Her phrasing was full of natural, almost conversational touches that seemed to confer her instrument with a very likeable personality of its own.
A perfect foil to Beethoven's contiguous allegros came with the heavy tread of Ian Wilson's Six Days at Jericho. This isn't an Israelite stomp to bring the walls tumbling down; rather, it's a slow, lugubrious promenade that explores the nether regions of both instruments to good effect. At an unhurried but resolute tempo, it was beguiling.
In Chopin's Polonaise, Hughes's cello-playing once again emphasised lyricism over display. The requisite brilliance was, however, amply supplied by McGinley, who baulked at none of the work's formidable technical challenges. - Andrew Johnstone
NYSO of Ireland/Almila, NCH, Dublin
Mahler - Symphony No 9
The National Youth Symphony Orchestra's concert began with a long preamble rather than the Ninth Symphony by Mahler.
Music animateur Hannah Conway held forth, with the orchestra, its conductor Atso Almila and the audience (singing gamely on request) at her beck and call for 45 minutes. The performance itself didn't get underway for more than an hour after the advertised time.
Conway's was a dispiriting performance, mostly a kind of arbitrary discourse, Ladybird Book of Music Analysis-style, on thematic connections, real and imagined. Some wise folk left while it was underway. Others seem to have been differently affected - for the performance itself, there were empty seats around me that had been occupied before the interval.
The orchestra's playing under Almila had a lot to commend it. It was confident and secure. The textures and shadings of the string writing were carefully attended to, and the lungs and lips of the brass players passed all tests of volume with flying colours - though it must be said not always with sufficient sensitivity to the audibility of their string-playing colleagues.
The performance was oddly stiff, the message communicated with the formality of an announcement rather than the flexibility of a personal statement.
The result was a discrepancy between the sound and the emotional message, the former captured with far greater success than the latter. - Michael Dervan
