Madam, - I seem to have missed the point of The Story of the Bull. I am one of the few who sat po-faced through a rendition of the Fabulous Beast production at the O'Reilly Theatre and through Fintan O'Toole's dazzled eulogy of same (Arts, October 7th).
Mr O'Toole is reminded of revolving glass balls; I saw a load of balls and a lot of bull. He found panache and the highest levels of accomplishment; I saw a profligate squandering of exceptional talent (the physical dexterity and capacity of the core company hugely underused; the experience and subtlety of two fine actors - Olwen Fouéré and Conor Lovett - sacrificed to declamatory vulgarity for the former and dreary narrative for the latter). Mr O'Toole found "visceral prehistoric ritual"; I saw much manic rushing - bull-in-a-china-shop-like - around the Bord na Móna set.
He found it vastly impressive - I found its attempt at schlock cumbersome and unstylish. If only Michael Keegan Dolan had stuck to the day job (superb choreography - yes - "as astounding as it is uproarious") and abandoned his schoolboy chiming of naughty words (all three of them - "f***", "c***" and "sh**" - never mind the "bull" and the "bitch").
So there's something wrong with me - I was left drearily unmoved while Mr O'Toole was "sensationally" unsettled. He began to beam ironically at the comparisons with Riverdance; I looked back to Women at Arms - Storytellers' articulate and physical "take" on the Táin; I remembered the Tom McIntyre/Patrick Mason earthy, sexy, poetic adaptation of The Great Hunger.
I would happily raid Mr O'Toole's vast sack of superlatives for last year's offering, Giselle. But there where was wit, irreverence and a core of magnificent movement, pushed to limits; here, in the O'Reilly, there was a sprawling and too frequently dreary two-hour crawl through an inarticulate swipe at 21st-century Ireland.
I can agree with him - we do need theatre to take on our hyped-up, SUV society. We desperately need Swift's savage indignation, Pope's satirical scalpel; we need fewer bare bums, less bloody drumming, more Tarantino, less of the verbals and just more pure dance from the Beast. - Yours, etc,
D.R. WEST, Royal Terrace West, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.