Stage

The Commitments review: full of heart and soul, but not drama

The tremendous ensemble cannot be faulted but the abundant musical numbers overpower the thin storyline

Sara Keating's face
Sara Keating
Fri Oct 14 2016 - 21:44

The Commitments
Bord Gais Energy Theatre
★★★

Roddy Doyle's 1987 novel The Commitments was a story with music at its heart: a group of young working-class Dubliners find empowerment through music. The characters were revealed so vividly through Doyle's idiomatic dialogue that they spawned a trilogy of novels. The 1991 film adaptation, directed by Alan Parker, extended the idea of disenfranchisement in the books, drawing a portrait of economic and social decay in late-1980s Dublin.

The stage version, adapted by Doyle, opened in the West End in 2013. It remains loyal to earlier incarnations of the story, but the theatrical adaptation has no dramatic arc. Instead of personal conflict we get a set-list of soul classics. Instead of a social history told through song, it offers one karaoke number after another.

The cast of The Commitments. Photograph: Johan Persson

There are 18 full musical numbers - from the Motown medley of What Becomes of the Broken Hearted and I Heard It Through the Grapevine to rock'n'roll classics such as You Keep Me Hanging On and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction – and at least as many snippets of other familiar songs.

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Performed at a frenetic pace, without a single moment of silence or reflection, the songs merely operate as a showcase for the actor-musicians, surely the hardest working group of performers on the Dublin stage.

“There’s a story in every song,” band manager Jimmy Rabbitte reminds his recruits at the band’s first rehearsal, but Doyle and director Caroline Jay Ranger seem to forget this truism. With the exception of Jimmy’s half-snatched solo Mr. Pitiful, the songs do nothing to advance the plot or define the characters. A towering set by Suotra Gilmour creates an epic visual backdrop, but is regrettably underused.

The cast are led with phenomenal stamina by Brian Gilligan as frontman Deco and anchored by the lackadaisical charm of Andrew Linnie’s Jimmy. And as a multifaceted and multi-instrumental musical performance, the tremendous ensemble, under the musical direction of Alan Williams, cannot be faulted.

Unfortunately, their unlimited brio cannot make up for the fundamental weakness of the dramatic material. A missed opportunity to let soul really speak to “the politics of the people”.

Until October 29th