Reviews

Irish Times reviewers give their verdicts on a performance from The Orchestra of St Cecilia with Barry Douglas at the NCH and Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Crypt

OSC/Barry Douglas at the NCH

_{Symphonies 4 & 3 (Eroica) . ............................................. Beethoven}

The strangest feature of Barry Douglas's ongoing Beethoven symphony cycle with the Orchestra of St Cecilia is how the conductor appears to want effects that his players don't deliver.

This is due only partly to the fact that his gestures seem to be communicative of emotional outcomes rather than suggestive of the concerns the players need to have to deliver those outcomes for the audience. The other main issue is the mis-match between the scale of the outcomes being proposed and the number of players on the stage.

The Orchestra of St Cecilia is a chamber orchestra, which, like chamber orchestras around the world, is now performing tracts of repertoire that were once the preserve of symphony orchestras.

The Beethoven symphonies are perfectly viable with the smaller numbers, but the effect of the music changes.

It's as if Douglas hankers after the bigger, warmer sounds, and the weighty impact that are denied him. His physical movements may have been milder in Wednesday's coupling of the Third and Fourth Symphonies than in the previous week's concert, but they still often suggested a turbulence that rarely touched the playing.

On the other hand, he is well attuned to the speed benefits of the smaller ensemble. He favours brisk tempos, and shows no inclination to linger. But the precision and point that might be expected, the more intimate ease of interplay between different instrumental groupings, and the clarification of wind tone and textures in the face of fewer strings haven't been materialising in this Beethoven survey.

In general, Wednesday's music-making was musicianly and low-key. There was no sense of a conductor interfering with the music. The performances were penny-plain, fast, but in a way which didn't exactly raise one's pulse.

It was the Eroica which was more securely handled, with firmer tone and brighter colours than the Fourth. But set aside the best work the RTÉ Concert Orchestra has done in this area of repertoire, let alone the achievements of visiting ensembles from Salzburg and Newcastle at the Belfast Festival, Douglas and the OSC sounded, well, underwhelming.

Michael Dervan

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Crypt, Dublin Castle

Albee's finest play is now 40 years old but, on the evidence of this production, has lost none of its cutting edge. It still has the power to make us laugh, squirm and be drained by its emotional climaxes - plural, because it manages more than one.

George is a small-town college associate professor in history, a stagnant pond in which he makes no ripples. His wife Martha is the daughter of the college president, and despises her husband because of his lack of ambition, and for other more complex reasons. He bitterly resents her contempt, and has evolved coping mechanisms from barbed retorts to drunken indifference - until the night of the party.

The pair have two guests; Nick, a young biology professor on the make, and his insipid wife Honey, a giggler who pretends that their life is sweetly uncomplicated. By the night's end, George and Martha have betrayed each other in their deepest intimacies, leaving wounds that can never heal. They also rend their guests for being insensitive or innocent enough to join the marriage butchers at play.

The depth of the characters, and the quality of the dialogue, are altogether exceptional in what may clearly be identified as a modern masterpiece. There may be reservations, albeit minor ones, about the performances, but the play is strong enough to support the actors in their individual approaches.

Brendan Conroy as George begins by being rather too henpecked and querulous, but grows into a valid interpretation of his own. Fedelma Cullen's Martha is occasionally too strident, but has the strength required for the role.

Gabrielle Breathnach as Honey, a lost lamb among tigers, whines and mewls appropriately; but the evening's honours go to Louis Lovett as Nick. He is the perfect, polite go-getter for whom betrayal is merely a means to an end.

When he finally says that he understands what has been happening, we know that he does.

Alice Barry directs very well (a little more pace, perhaps?), with a good set design by Janet Molfey.

Runs to November 23rd; to book, phone 01 671 3387

Gerry Colgan