Irish Times critics review events from the world of the arts:
Haiku
Pavilion, Dún Laoghaire
We know that puppetry is international, but it is still a surprise to find an Italian company, Controluce of Turin, base a show on Japanese poetry and dance traditions. Haiku is a form of poetry written on one or three lines; Butoh dance connects the conscious with the unconscious, often obscurely.
Controluce is one of the foremost shadow puppet companies in Italy today, and brings to this performance a sense of what their oriental import is all about. Simplicity is the name of the game. There is a background of three screens on which a disembodied hand writes Japanese picture-words. These dissolve, and a male dancer appears facing his own shadow projected on a screen.
He is swathed in white silken fabric and, as he advances very slowly towards his shadow, he discards layer after layer of wrappings until he is nose to nose with the screen. A pianist accompanies him in this, and he finally disappears. Similar scenes follow with the same dancer and pianist and only minor variations of movement, slow and sinuous.
The screens, mostly grey, change at times to scarlet, and recondite images of figures, branches and foliage are projected on to them. It all comes across as food for meditation rather than overt entertainment. The 40-minute show has a delicate visual beauty, and the dancer, pianist and two puppeteers earn their applause. - Gerry Colgan
The Hypochondriact
Lyric Theatre, Belfast
The key is in the title. Moliere's satirical situation comedy Le Malade Imaginaireit most certainly still is, with its scurrilous debunking and rich, pithy text remaining intact in spirit if not entirely in word. Four centuries on, playfully wrapped and masqued in the Commedia dell'Arte convention, it has travelled all the way to 17th-century Northern Ireland, where the natives speak in strangulated tones and convoluted sentences and the translated title gets the Ulster vernacular treatment in acquiring a final "t". There is a palpable sense of shared fun between writer/translator David Johnston and director Dan Gordon in forging a fast and furious physical production, whose wickedly scatological humour seems to know no bounds.
Yet it knows its bounds extremely well, for this is a skilfully handled, disciplined piece, delivered by a fine ensemble cast whose sense of timing and rhythm is already spot-on. While it is the pompous, rubbish-spouting medical profession that is the main butt of Moliere's mischief, the law, education and intellectual use of language also get a drubbing, with the Ulster-Scots lexicon receiving special treatment. From his throne-like commode, Andy Gray's stingy Argent is the original doctor's joy, his attempts to preside over his wayward household rendered ridiculous by his obsession with the enemas and purges and ventings that punctuate his peculiar life. He has forged a formidable comic partnership with Sheelagh O'Kane's bolshy servant Tanny.
Bronagh Taggart is his spirited, loving daughter, Pádraig Wallace the handsome object of her desires and Tara Lynne-O'Neill his money-grabbing trophy wife, in hock with Kieran Lagan's oily notary. Micheal Doherty and Patrick J O'Reilly are a glorious pairing as the puffed-up, all-knowing Drs Macrobious snr and jnr. It only requires a flick of the scalpel to slice a few minutes off the duration and render this tricky transplant operation a resounding success. - Jane Coyle
Until October 13th
Raymond O'Donnell (organ)
Pro-Cathedral, Dublin
Widor - Allegro (Symphony No 6). Howells - Rhapsody in D flat Op 17 No 1. Bach - Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV538. Vierne - Choral (Symphony No 2)
Raymond O'Donnell's recital at the Pro-Cathedral, the second in the annual September series, included two substantial works from the French symphonic repertoire. Even by the generous standards of the Pro-Cathedral's organ, the opening of the allegro from Widor's Symphony No 6 was impressive.
Good registration and spacious timing as massive chords gave way to urgently moving contrapuntal patterns, were evidence of O'Donnell's intention to deliver a sense of unfolding drama. Sometimes it worked well, but that tended to be more from phrase to phrase than in the design of the whole. A long, elaborate movement of this kind works best with a sharper sense of timing, as ideas and sections are differentiated via subtle shifts of tempo.
Bach's toccata and fugue in D minor BWV538, which sometimes goes under the inappropriate moniker of The Dorian, is a tough piece.
Although the toccata was taken at a brisk speed, it did not attain the arresting virtuosity that its concerto-style textures imply and although the fugue had a breadth, its impact was limited by a homogeneous style of playing that did not relish the independence of parts.
The oh-so-English, step-wise motion of Howell's Rhapsody in D flat made a good contrasting piece between the Widor and Bach. However, the recital's highlight, by some margin, was the choral movement from Vierne's Symphony No 2.
O'Donnell presented the deep, opening melody with a vocal style of phrasing, and sustained that valuable quality throughout the movement. Here and in the Widor, there was the occasional bout of fluffy detail, largely due to technical problems, but this was a convincing, engaging performance. - Martin Adams
Morgan & Dullea
NCH John Field Room, Dublin
Michael Finnissy - Mississippi Hornpipes. Charles Wuorinen - Six Pieces. Benjamin Dwyer - Movimientos I-IV.
Darragh Morgan and Mary Dullea have a reputation for being able to tackle just about anything that contemporary composers can throw at a violin and piano duo. All three pieces on this programme, the second in the Music21 series, present serious challenges of technique and musicianship, and one of the signs that all the most important challenges were met was that the concert was consistently persuasive.
Michael Finnissy's Mississippi Hornpipesis an extraordinary confection of complex writing in which most of the material, in the violin at least, is derived from 19th-century American fiddle tunes. It teases the ear through its persistent references to pre-existing material, in the midst of an almost harebrained complexity.
The slow opening of Six Piecesby New York composer Charles Wuorinen was a perfect foil to such relentlessness. And that aptness was sustained as these sophisticated character pieces displayed impressively subtle musical thinking and good humour. - Martin Adams
