Reviews

Reviewed today: Jesus Hopped the A Train; Kelly Sampson, Yu, and Speaking in Tongues

Jesus Hopped the A Train

Focus Theatre, Dublin

The New York playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis has written for television as well as for the stage - his credits include The Sopranos and NYPD Blue - and the echoes of voices from that genre ring through this powerful drama of free will's battle with the guilty conscience.

This influence is ably borne by Guirgis's writing, however, which shapes the destiny of Angel and Lucius, two criminals in solitary confinement in a Bronx prison, and of the precious few people they come in contact with, with vigour, humour and stunning emotional precision.

From the opening scenes, in which director Joe Devlin masterfully introduces the play's protagonists, dragging anguish out of the young Puerto Rican Angel as he attempts to pray and infusing cockiness into the born-again Lucius as he banters with a mild-mannered warden, the privilege of an overview, of an all-knowing distance from this torture, is smartly swiped from the audience.

This is a play of friendships that slowly evolve only to bring suffering - as Angel and Lucius, fellow killers who feel very differently about their crimes and about the religious intensity now attached to them, Declan Mills and Hope Brown are superb, achieving a tremendous dramatic fluency. As Hanrahan, the troubled attorney who takes on Angel's case, Aisling McLaughlin has a more fitful presence, but where Guirgis allows his language to lurch into melodrama her character generally bears the brunt, coming across like too many hard-faced female lawyers from the screen.

As Angel faces trial, and Lucius execution, this is a moral tangle hammered home memorably, but somehow too eagerly, by Guirgis; by the close, the intellectual and dramatic power of the piece is edging towards overkill. At fault, ultimately, is a cinematic sensibility; though Cahill's prison set, and Devlin's direction, conspire to infuse the cinematic sweep of Guirgis's script with moments of stunning theatricality, too often the action seems to court an invisible camera

Runs until September 18th - Belinda McKeon

Kelly Sampson, Yu

Bank of Ireland, Dublin

Schumann - Fantasiestücke Op 73. Fauré - Romance Op 69, Papillon Op 77, Sicillienne Op 78. Prokofiev - Cello Sonata

Of the many recitals I have heard at the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre by musicians in the early stages of their careers, this was one of the most accomplished and rewarding. The cellist Anna Kelly Sampson and the pianist Miaomiao Yu have in common some complicated associations of birth, residence and tuition in Ireland, Canada and London, and their lists of scholarships and prizes are impressive.

One of the most striking aspects of the cello playing was its unfailingly beautiful tone. Kelly Sampson rarely hinted that she was under pressure, even when grappling with the challenges of Prokofiev's demanding cello sonata. Indeed, this work might have sounded even more persuasive with a little less polish and a more combative approach.

Yu was a model of the alert, unashamed yet sensitive duo player. As a friend remarked, one got the impression that she and Sampson had played together a great deal. Although the recital had a well-practised air, nothing was routine or casual. The only time I wondered about Yu's choices was in Schumann's Fantasiestücke. Short stick on the piano plus heavy pedalling produced a texture that was strong on top and bottom but blurred in the middle. Granted, the composer marked out this pedalling, but his piano was considerably less resonant than the modern grand.

A highlight of this fine, somewhat well-mannered recital was the performance of three miniatures by Fauré, who was second to none in elevating salon music to high art. Beautifully shaped and aware of every nuance, they sounded perfect - Martin Adams

Speaking In Tongues

Civic Theatre, Tallaght

Andrew Bovell is a leading Australian playwright, and this sample of his work shows why. Although it may generate a reservation or two, there can be no doubt about the strength of his creative imagination, his ability to write punchy dialogue and the breadth of his concerns for his characters.

The first act reveals two husbands and two wives bent on adulterous affairs in an emotional cat's cradle, a juxtaposition of accidental spouse swapping. We see all four at the same time, in a clever piece of staging that harmonises their sexual clumsiness and their counterpointed speech. These are their first attempts to walk on the wild side, and they are eventually reconciled to their spouses - or are they?

As the ripples widen, we move outside the quartet to events in which they are only tangentially involved. One husband tells his wife of a colleague emotionally locked into the past, when a girl he loved went on holidays and never returned.

These characters become real, and we learn more of their pathetic stories. A disturbed male neighbour becomes somehow involved in the disappearance of a woman to whom he gives a lift one dark night. Is she dead; has he murdered her?

Four actors play all the roles, to which they bring clarity and depth. Noelle Brown, Una Kavanagh (quite exceptional), Seamus Moran and Karl O'Neill move easily between situations and characters, avoiding the confusion that might have emerged from their overlapping relationships. Liam Halligan's direction is fluent and sharply etched, against Marcus Costello's flexible design.

The reservations are that the play is at times somewhat too clever, to a point of near-distraction, and it can even seem unfinished. But the latter may be a ploy, an invitation to the audience to finish it themselves, if they can. It is hard to argue with that.

Runs here until September 18th, then tours - Gerry Colgan