Reviews

Irish Timeswriters review The Stuff of Mythat the Project Cube and The National Concert Hall's Rising Starevent featuring flautist Emer McDonough with Jeremy Young on piano.

The Stuff of Myth, Project Cube, Dublin

Like Orpheus, whose voice and lyre could make the gods weep, Roger Gregg knows all about the seductiveness of sound. That the sonic design of his dependably madcap Crazy Dog Audio Theatre aims to amuse doesn't detract from the seriousness of his radio presentations - "framed by the proscenium arch of your ear and lit by the spotlight of your mind's eye".

Now framed by the black box of Project Cube and lit by swathes of red mist or twinkling little effects, The Stuff of Myth, directed by Deirdre Molloy, wonders if such sounds can also serve as a spectacle. The answer, to judge from Gregg's giddy musical adaptation of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, is a resounding "maybe".

Any show that can get you chortling from the safety announcements is encouraging, and as soon as Karen Ardiff's Persephone and Morgan Jones's Hades appear embroiled in a domestic dispute - trouble in anti-paradise - the show announces a tone of anarchic adaptation. Here the familiar structure of a legend is parodied and distended to service any number of running gags, comedy voices and innumerable zany sound effects. Fans of the slide whistle will not go home disappointed.

There's something endlessly endearing about the Goon Show brio of the ensemble - many of whom also play instruments - but, alas, little that is consistently funny. Like the perpetually cocked eyebrow of David Murray's Orpheus (played as a curious rock star cocktail, one part John Denver to two parts Mick Hucknall) the show's self-knowingness begins to

grate. It's a shame, because Gregg's script delivers the occasional gem: a satyr-turned-music promoter, for instance, or the sirens' song which asks the Argonauts to slip into something more comfortable, "like these jagged rocks".

Freed from the merciless time constraints of radio - an under-appreciated muse, it transpires - Gregg's scenes are inclined towards overindulgence, wandering aimlessly in search of jokes while too often leaving just the hum of an amplifier where the music should be. At over two hours, it is at least an hour too long.

As to the larger question - is "audio theatre" worth seeing? - there is strong validation in the eloquence of Ardiff's arch facial expressions, but nagging concerns in the accent soup of her several characters. The voice might create its own logic in radio comedy, but the theatrical frame is too exposing.

Perhaps this is why Molloy tucks the live sound effects into the background shadows, and why, ultimately, Gregg's show serves as a ringing endorsement of the broadcast medium. In its darkness our imaginations are truly unbound. - Peter Crawley

Runs until Feb 24

McDonough, Young, NCH, Dublin

The National Concert Hall's annual Rising Star slot replaces the kind of event that used to be known as a coming-out recital. It's a badge of honour. It brings a young performer the challenge of a full evening programme in Ireland's premier concert venue. And it's an opportunity for a lucky young musician to parade his or her full range of accomplishments. Dublin flautist Emer McDonough is now in her early 30s and has held the position of principal flute with both the Hong Kong Philharmonic and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestras. She's currently based in London, where she's principal flautist with John Lubbock's Orchestra of St John's, and from where she has guested as principal with orchestras around Britain.

The programme she chose for her Rising Star appearance was rather a jumble. She jumped forwards and backwards through the centuries with apparent abandon so that anyone fond of a decorous chronological progression must have experienced some kind of musical vertigo.

The point of the programme planning seemed to be simply to show the range and diversity of the performer's skills. She shied away from unaccompanied repertoire, but gave samples of the romantically flashy (Franz Doppler's Fantaisie Pastorale Hongroise), the classically poised (Bach's Sonata in E, BWV1034), a varied selection of French music, descriptive, incantatory, sensual (Messiaen's Le merle noir, Jolivet's Chant de Linos, and a flute and piano arrangement of Debussy's Epigraphes antiques). And she ended with that most amiable of 20th-century works, Prokofiev's Sonata in D.

McDonough's style is extrovert. She likes, as it were, to get the bit between her teeth, to tighten the twirl of embellishments, to rocket up climactic arpeggios, to test her delivery and stamina with challenging tempos. She's capable of that kind of intense sweetness of tone which is such a James Galway hallmark. And in Bach she switched off the overdrive, thinned down the vibrato, and, with the piano lid at its lowest setting, revealed the pale and interesting side of her tonal palette.

The programme included the premiere of Eoin Mulvany's PX2, the winning work in the Jerome Hynes Composer's Competition 2006. The piece is an exercise in musical expressionism, depicting "emotional states of reluctance, confusion, anger, isolation and nostalgia" which were experienced in reaction to a relationship break-up.

The compositional style was gesturally accomplished, but in a strangely old-fashioned way. It wouldn't have been surprising to encounter a piece in this manner as the work of a young Irish composer of three decades ago. McDonough and her always-accommodating partner at the piano, Jeremy Young, played it with expressive point. - Michael Dervan