Reviews

Seven years after Deserter's Songs enchanted us, Mercury Rev's magical spell is finally beginning to wear off. But only slightly.

When the band held forth for two nights in Vicar Street, we were at their feet, soaking up the reedy, high-pitched tones of singer Jonathan Donaghue, and breathing in the ion-charged air of the band's psychedelic, pastoral soundscapes. Just like a hypnotist's show, a Mercury Rev gig requires us to suspend our cynicism. In return, they'll weave a tapestry of touchy-feely alt. rock, and we'll go home with a warm feeling in our tummies. One snap of the fingers, however, and we could end up with a sickly sensation, as if we'd just sat through a lounge set by Murph and the Magictones.

Since Deserter's Songs, Mercury Rev have evolved into a slick, shimmering five-piece, and Donahue has developed into an expressive frontman, a besuited blend of Gene Pitney and TV magician.

As images of dolphins, fractals and lunar landscapes swirl on the screen behind them, the band unfurls tracks from its new album, The Secret Migration, the guitars, keyboard, bass and drums floating around the venue in search of somewhere to land. In A Funny Way loses its Spector-esque stomp, while Secret For A Song reveals little more than it promised on record. Black Forest (Lorelei) is dark and dreamlike.

Tonight It Shows and The Funny Bird, both from Deserter's Songs, seem like old coats taken out of the wardrobe and dusted down for a trip back to Narnia, but Opus 40 is a symphonic triumph, segueing nicely into a version of Bob Dylan's Gotta Serve Somebody. Little Rhymes and Spiders and Flies, meanwhile, evoke childhood hopes and fears, but, as Donaghue holds his arm aloft and wishes upon a star, we're reminded of someone from our childhood - Jiminy Cricket. - Kevin Courtney

The Glass Menagerie Lyric Theatre, Belfast

Set in 1938 and narrated in 1944, Tennessee Williams's memory play moves in difficult times. When we enter the Wingfield family's shabby St Louis apartment, the Depression is over and the US is indulging itself in the enjoyment of swing music and liquor, resolutely turning a blind eye to sinister forces massing in Europe.

For poet-philosopher Tom Wingfield (Richard Dormer), the false optimism of his country is a source of frustration and despair, which weigh heavily on his shoulders as both the world-weary narrator, who begins and ends the play, and the angry young man of earlier days.

Gary McCann's set brings us inside the home and the psyche of Amanda Wingfield (Elizabeth Counsell), a faded southern belle, living on questionable memories of a romantic past and hopes for the right man to whisk away her mentally and physically fragile daughter Laura (Abigail McGibbon) into a happier and more prosperous life.

Outside is a maze of metal fire escapes and walkways, through which Tom prowls and paces like a caged tiger; the interior is dominated by a portrait of the absent villain of the piece - the feckless charmer, who married Amanda, fathered her children, then walked out without a word of farewell, leaving them to survive on Tom's meagre wages from the warehouse and Amanda's commission from selling magazines over the telephone.

Director Rachel O'Riordan proves as incisive and sensitive with text as she is known for being with movement and physical expression. The delicacy and tenderness she achieves, particularly in the brief courtship between Laura and Patrick Moy's merry-faced gentleman caller, make a far more lasting impression than some of the rather over-egged scenes of physicality, focused mainly on Dormer's powerful Tom and Counsell's brittle Amanda. McGibbon is an achingly vulnerable Laura, obsessively attached to a set of little glass animals and cushioned from harm by her adoring brother.

During the fated dinner party, however, Counsell's rouged, frizzy-haired Amanda strays just the wrong side of hysteria and into grotesque parody, a figure more to be laughed at than pitied. Thus, the balance of the play is tilted steeply into the dark, haunting resonance of Dormer's magnificently delivered closing lines.

As the candlelight flickers and dies on Laura's beautiful, distracted face, we find ourselves drawn inexorably into Williams's tightly closed circle of heartbreak, from which there will be no escape. - Jane Coyle

At the Lyric until Apr 2

Cork City Ballet Cork Opera House

All first acts at the Opera House are disturbed by the ruthless progress of late-comers being admitted, but Cork City Ballet's Celtic Dreams survives, perhaps on the strength of its bravado. A clever, idiomatic fusion of styles (classical skills allied to Enya, Bono and Clannad) this crowd-pleaser is beautifully danced and is also distinguished by striking tonal contrasts in costuming. Both costumes and dancing radiate in the pas de deux from Le Corsair (Chika Temma and Zhannat Atmymayev in a brilliant pairing) and Judith Sibley's work is a convincing exploration of Bronagh Gallagher's Every Heart Gets Broken in Prayer for a Broken Heart. Some might argue that the glacially stiff tutu worn by Cristina Bayo impedes her performance in The Dying Swan but there is no doubt about her elegance as a dancer. However while all these pieces have their own integrity they seem merely an introduction to the second half of the programme which is the second act of Giselle.

Remembering that this company is working to recorded music and without the support of an orchestra the achievement here is remarkable. This ballet, and especially its second act, is hoary now, yet here it is like experiencing it for the first time, as if fresh from Adam's pen. What a gift this is to all those who are experiencing it for the first time. Mystical yet macabre, technically exacting yet demanding coherent characterisation, requiring a fluid corps de ballet yet offering superb opportunities for soloists and, with all these requirements met in this reproduction by Monica Loughman (who danced Myrtha to the Giselle of Veronika Ivanova with Zhannat Atymtayev as Hilarion and Nikita Shcheglov as Albrect), rewarding the highly-necessary suspension of disbelief with a thrilling blend of pathos and drama.

Paul Denby's lighting design might have done a little more with the moon, perhaps, but nothing can detract from the eye-filling, heart-clenching impact of the sustained emotion achieved: emotion should blunt the dancer's edge, but here the emotion is the dancing.

It is only a mild disappointment to know that the visit of the State Ballet of Russia has been cancelled: Cork City Ballet should fill the gap nicely. - Mary Leland

On national tour