Reviews

Irish Times writers review a selection of events throughout the country.

Pugilist Specialist, The Helix, Dublin

Helen Meany

Even the name, the Riot Group, seems ironic. This talented quartet of performers from California have the control and precision that make the possibilities of anything riotous seem fairly remote. Written by Adriano Shaplin, and collaboratively directed and designed, their latest work is a stark anatomisation of US military culture - as envisaged by a group of postgraduates.

It presents four marines who are preparing for an undercover mission in the Middle East: an assassination attempt on an unnamed target, presumably Saddam Hussein. An intelligence expert (Drew Friedman), a volatile sniper (Shaplin), a jaded colonel (Paul Schnabel) and an explosives expert (Stephanie Viola) are thrown together; the tensions between them reflect the broader divisions in the army as a whole. Paranoia abounds, especially about the media, highlighted by the microphone that hangs over them.

Sitting on two benches that they rearrange on the bare stage, the characters face forward, addressing their words to the audience. Movement is minimal. In a style and form reminiscent of a Sarah Kane play such as Crave, the writing and staging are pared to the bone: these are voices rather than fleshed-out characters. Our attention is drawn to the language, a cleverly unsettling distillation of political and military euphemism, impersonal jargon, rhetorical flourishes and heavily ironic banter.

Shaplin has an ear for the elasticity of key words, especially "love", which is used to describe their attitude to the enemy: love as seduction and conquest, desire and obsession. Referring to the US global role the sniper says: "They either love us or they love to hate us. Either way, we're spreading love."

The writing and staging present an almost anthropological view of the way the soldiers have been moulded by the structures and language of the institution. But, while it's certainly a relief not to be preached at, the detachment becomes a problem in itself. And, of course, jettisoning naturalism doesn't mean there can't be any drama, which makes a late but implausible appearance here. Under the pressure of action, the studied impersonality of these four characters begins to crack.

More importantly, the arguments between them come across as sophomoric: their one-liners and aphorisms about history have no context and their pronouncements on life and death haven't been dented by experience. For all its portentousness, it doesn't take the subject of "the war on terror" sufficiently seriously.

Runs until Saturday

Air, Olympia, Dublin

Kevin Courtney

With the fragrance of St Valentine's Day still in the air, young lovers flocked to the Olympia Theatre to relive those magic Moon Safari moments and perhaps rekindle their love affair with France's dynamic but often exasperating duo. "We are very romantic - in the right circumstances," announces Nicolas Godin as he picks out the acoustic-guitar intro for Cherry Blossom Girl. His musical partner, Jean-Benoît Dunckel, intones the soft, sibilant lyrics with a Gallic lisp, his electronically treated voice resembling a flower-arranging robot. The band that have soundtracked a million romantic interludes are here in the flesh, bringing songs from their new album, Talkie Walkie, along with a few old chill-out favourites. It didn't quite deliver passion and excitement, but it left a warm, fuzzy glow.

Since the massive success of Moon Safari in 1998, Air seemed to have become trapped in a prog-rock air pocket - their second album, 10,000Hz Legend, was Pink Floyd with a French twist, and although it made some brave sonic leaps it felt as if the pair were aimlessly moonwalking without a command module to keep them grounded. Talkie Walkie is generally seen as a return to form; Venus, Surfing On A Rocket and Another Day combine ethereal melodies with retro electronica and an odd sense of incompleteness. Such tunes as J'ai Dormi Sous L'Eau and Talisman sound like variations on a theme, coming tantalisingly close to full song fruition but never quite getting there.

Dunckel has eschewed the keyboard- wizard robes but still shows an octopus-like agility on organ, Minimoog and grand piano; Godin handles bass, lead and acoustic-guitar duties. The pair are backed by a drummer and second keyboard player, but it's soon apparent that Air don't have enough substance to keep a solid live presence.

The last time they played Dublin they were joined by the whizz-kid Jason Faulkner, a brilliant frontman who pulled together Air's often disjointed aesthetic. Dunckel and Godin seem more like backroom boys who have been pushed out centre stage: their performance is tentative, halting and lacking in presence. Noodly numbers such as Run, People In The City and Wonder Milky Bitch offer lots of chances to see two fine musicians in action, while Kelly Watch The Stars, Sexy Boy and La Femme D'Argent made for a poptastic finale, but what Air need are a few supremely talented sidekicks. Then they could really make us swoon.

Side By Side By Sondheim, Everyman Palace, Cork

Mary Leland

The glitz and glamour of Side By Side By Sondheim are so assured that the temptation is to enjoy the production almost as an art form in itself. The question of how the songwriter Stephen Sondheim comes out of this occurs as an afterthought, possibly because it is answered so positively and so comprehensively that, although it is presumptuous to assume his own likely reaction to this show, he may well be at least as delighted as the audience.

The three singers seem to relish the music he offers - to display their phrasing, pitch and control skills - and the lyrics, which allow them to to engage so vibrantly, and so tenderly, with the material and one another. Patrick Murray's set and costume design is as glossy as Harper's Bazaar, and the lighting design by David O'Brien carries out director Cathal McCabe's sense of context, giving an extra visual charge to the vocal pyrotechnics of the performers.

Paired pianists John O'Brien and David Wray (also the musical director) are equally capable of the necessary evocation of mood, and as accompanists they could hardly be bettered within this convention.

As a display of their individual qualities the show allows lots of Linda Kenny's velvety lower tones, of Ellen McElroy's taste for the dramatic and of Kenneth W. Gartman's musical sensitivity. Mary Curtin, the narrator, has an attractive speaking voice and a good sense of timing but keeps looking at her script (by Ned Sherrin) like a newscaster whose monitor has gone down.

This and the microphones - reminders that even this expertly professional cast doesn't trust itself to cover a medium-sized theatre - are the only quibbles with a production glittering with panache.

Runs until Saturday

Guy Johnston & Tom Poster, Harty Room, Belfast

Dermot Gault

Barber - Cello Sonata. Schumann - Drei Fantasiestücke Op 73. Fauré - Romance, Papillon. Schubert - Arpeggione Sonata. Martinu - Variations On A Theme By Rossini

It was Samuel Barber's misfortune to die when his music was at its most unfashionable, but his essentially elegiac art had defied fashion throughout his career. What could have been less fashionable in the early 1930s than to write a Brahmsian cello sonata? Nevertheless, the medium suits Barber's musical personality, and his 1932 Cello Sonata is a strong piece.

The Brahms influence is apparent mostly through closely knit part writing and dark, low-lying melodic lines. Both the Barber sonata and the Schumann Fantasiestücke that followed - ripe, subtle music full of fine nuances - need sympathetic playing and careful balance, and they got it from the cellist Guy Johnston and the pianist Tom Poster, both of whom have recently won major awards for young musicians in England. Johnston relished the deep sonorities of the Fauré Romance and the virtuosity of the Papillon, which followed it, and Poster was an exemplary partner.

The Schubert sonata, written for a short-lived hybrid of the cello and guitar, is often played on the viola but more frequentlyon the cello, on which it is notoriously awkward. In the first movement, a flowing, pleasant performance, one was sometimes aware that the music was being played on an instrument for which it was not written, but the long-drawn-out lines of the short slow movement and the characteristically rich harmonies underneath were handled expressively. The Martinu variations, a fun piece with plenty of opportunities for bravura playing for both players, made an extrovert end to the programme.

Searching For The Enemy, Granary, Cork

Mary Leland

The perils of seductive technology haunt this Boomerang production of Gerald Bauer's new play. Boomerang is always courageous, always ready to explore new ways of seeing and saying old truths, and in this case it has collaborated with the design collective Shade Interactive of Holland and Theater der Jugend of Austria to present a text with an ideological premise borrowed from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four.

The mood of surveillance, of the underworld of punishment or even extinction, is evoked with graduated menace, less through performance than through the idiom of video and computer vocabularies. The screen behind the players pulsates with their distorted and reproduced reflections, conveying alienation and bewilderment in a succession of projections, interrupted by television news clips that are rather more interesting than what's happening on stage.

E-mail interventions suggest the interactivity is sometimes more a matter of imposition than interaction, and Paul McCarty's lighting design has some difficulty keeping up with the pace. Neither the playwright nor the director, Trish Edelstein, demand any more from the cast than competence; the real demand is for technical expertise if the components are to fuse convincingly. The work of Remko Dokkum, Ruud Lanfermeijer and the sound composer Marcel Wierckx depends on state-of-the art operation and facilities the Granary seems unable to supply just yet. The click must be slick, in other words.

Runs until Saturday