More of a museum piece than a play

REVIEWS:Agamemnon Project Cube, Dublin

For Irish theatre audiences, there’s a strange irony attached to Aeschylus’s Oresteia. It is the only surviving trilogy from the classical Greek canon, and yet it is still feels lost to us; there has never been a professional production of the original cycle in Ireland. The ambition of Classic Stage Ireland, which begins its production of the complete trilogy with director Andy Hinds’s new version of Agamemnon, is to finally realise the cursed bloodlines of the House of Atreus, and the public and private consequences of war, honour and retribution, but this earnest staging doesn’t bridge the gap between us and the plays.

We begin, in one witty concession to the here and now, with Joe Purcell’s Watchman delivering the fire-and-safety announcement, supine on the floor. As soon as the Chorus sweeps onto the stage, though – a line of symmetrically costumed elders, nurses and aides – any freshness that Hinds as adapter has brought to the text disappears behind the patina of declamatory classicism that he brings as director. Despite Vincent Bell’s modestly effective design of cubist battlements and John Crudden’s sensitive lights, the staging is dispiriting, every utterance accompanied by arms-aloft gesturing, every eye trained somewhere in the mid-distance.

Admittedly, Aeschylus doesn’t make it easy. The Chorus is the dominant party to the action, an antique convention that Simon Doyle’s recent Oresteia adaptation, Off Plan for RAW productions, chose to excise. Instead, Hinds divides the text among them like a fractured orchestration, where voices weave in and out of unison. It is as painstaking an approach as his serviceable adaptation, measured in iambic free verse, but one that makes it more appealing to read than listen to.

That increases the sense that this is primarily an act of literary restoration, with the stage as a visual aid, and the production is similarly reluctant to hammer home any contemporary parallels: no chimes of sectarian division, say, nor economic parables of a land corrupted by the pursuit of property. Some may prefer their classics without comment, but such treatment makes Aeschylus feel more appropriate to a museum than a stage.

Ends Saturday

– Peter Crawley

Swan Lake/Cinderella

Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin

In the freeform world of Russian ballet, where stars from one company can now flit about the world touring and guesting in others, new creative chemistry can be forged. This is one of the strengths of the Russian State Ballet, and we watched spellbound as visiting Bolshoi prima ballerina Nina Kaptsova illuminated their production of Swan Lake in a first-time partnering with her co-star Evgeny Ivanchenko from the Mariinsky. She breathed new life into this romantic classic with her wonderfully subtle reading of the Odette/Odile role, which she infused with an ethereal lightness and quiet intelligence.

The lacklustre mood in the opening set-pieces, with a restless and disengaged Prince Siegfried mooning about, were underlined by the greyness of the costumes and the technically perfect but spiritless corps and soloists. The upbeat, scarlet-clad Konstantin Telyatnikov as the Joker worked overtime on his athletic antics, but there is collective relief, audience included, at the visible transformation of Siegfried when he first encounters Odette and the fluttering swans by the shore.

And this is another strength of the company: it has not neglected its corps. In gauzy tutus to highlight their elegance of line, this synchronised white sisterhood of 24 swans were mesmerising. The evil machinations of the winged sorcerer Rothbart only allows them to revert to human form at night, offering Siegfried the opportunity not just to become infatuated but also heroic, as he vows to break the cruel spell. But deception looms and Kaptsova now appears as the Black Swan. We often admire the technical brilliance and stamina of the ballerina in this dual role as she moves from undulating arms and tender fragility to brittle, manipulative showiness. Yet can we believe that Siegfried could be fooled? Here Kaptsova gives us a fresh, subtle rendition of Odile, revelling in the art of deception so there is only the giveaway disdainful arch of the shoulder, the eyes darting to her father Rothbart, and of course the I’m a celebrity-awesome 32 fouettes.

In keeping with the Mariinsky version, we are also treated to a happy ending. Siegfried breaks one of Rothbart’s wings, and the spell, and the lovers are united.

More happy endings for hapless princes in Vyatcheslav Gordeev’s wonderfully vivid version for his company of Cinderella, in which the fairytale element is signalled in a tantalising glimpse of a sparking wand in the opening sequence. It makes for a very coherent production, combining vitality of performance and imaginative design, with Ivanchenko again taking the role of another disaffected prince seeking true love. Luckily he finds romantic fulfilment in the delightfully girlish Cinderella of principal dancer Anna Shcherbakova, whose lightness of movement and vivacious acting are immediately engaging.

Much competition abounds here, but the scene-stealers are the marvellously camp, comedic stepmother and ugly sisters, in shocking neon pinks and greens. They were perfectly judged pantomime performances by the male trio of M Vineev, A Pyyzhov and A Kosinov. The RTÉSO with guest Russian conductors completed this fine double bill.

– Seona Mac Réamoinn

Spiritualized

Vicar Street, Dublin

As exciting, repetitive motifs in rock music go, there is little that can better a musician’s dogged insistence in applying a wall of sound that is both virtually indestructible and comfortingly protective. Spiritualized’s Jason Pierce is clearly focused on driving home the point; this astonishing gig opens and closes with improvised freak-outs that bring to mind the mathematical precision of high-end jazz, but in between are songs of such pristine pop that you are often left wondering what is it about the fusion of melody and noise that is more cathartic than irritating.

Throughout the show – which featured Pierce and backing female singers dressed head-to-toe in white, and a backdrop on which Warhol-esque, retina-tripping images were projected ­ the music touched on points at which pain and pleasure coincided: guitars strafed and shredded the air, but it was the tunes that brought everything together. It was all very studious, too: Pierce, a man wary of insignificant banter, standing still in front of a lectern, flicking pages after each song, landing on selections from across the band’s catalogue. Drawing from new album, Sweet Heart Sweet Light, to older records such as 1995’s Pure Phase, 1997’s Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space, 2001’s Let it Come Down, and 2003’s Amazing Grace, the set may not have been stylistically diverse, but it abounded with classic krautrock (the emphasis on the second syllable) and plentiful religious/drug references on tracks such as 12 Steps, Hey Jane (the band’s new single), Electricity, Cop Shoot Cop, Electric Mainline, and Lord Let it Rain.

As an experience in mesmeric sonic kicks, it was up there with the best of its kind; as an exercise in creative fixation it was salutary – why be a jack-of-all-trades when you can be master of one?

– Tony Clayton-Lea