Galway Arts Festival Reviews

Michael Seaver reviews Phoenix Dance Company at the Black Box Theatre, Galway, Patrick Lonergan reviews Dog Show athe the Bank of Ireland Theatre, NUIG.

Phoenix Dance Company

Black Box Theatre, Galway

Darshan Singh Bhuller's slice of Saturday night, Eng-er-land, arrived at Galway Arts Festival with a reputation for bravado, rather like those hoarse-throated football yobs that roar their country's name. Pumped up by public acclamation and clearly unaffected by critical indifference, the work has a self-belief and cheekiness that allows the audience to laugh along comfortably with its cartoon-like presentation regardless of content. Video images are projected on to the back of the stage and on to a scrim in front of the performers so they can inhabit a three-dimensional world of curries, drink and dancing, followed by the inevitable vomiting, public urination and woozy sex.

The interaction of image and live performer is so seamless that gesture reigns at the expense of movement, and along with a facile narrative it's all immediately digestible. But the simple reconstruction of what happens on weekends in England - and Ireland - isn't enough. Maybe Eng-er-land got too seduced by its own slick presentation, or in its immediacy got too close to us to tell the truth. But a sharper tongue might say more while still keeping a safe distance from moralising.

In spite of this lightness there is still a strong conceptual voice behind the work, unlike Rui Horta's mumbling Can You See Me. As the dancers pushed their limits of physical and emotional endurance we were left guessing about their interior worlds, as they writhed and sprawled their way through a Jimi Hendrix-influenced soundtrack. A final unison quartet under softly glowing light-bulbs was unresolved and only slightly calmed the freneticism, leaving us with an energy buzz but little else.

Henri Oguike kept the visceral in check during Signal. The final quintet, with three fire bowls blazing under red lights, began with the dancers running in circles and promised to break away from a considered construction and a quirky angular vocabulary. But the booming taiko drums were silenced time and again by light cymbals as dancers slowed until the next booming set of phrases. At times Oguire pushed limits further than Horta as dancers rushed onstage to begin impossibly complex unison phrases with milliseconds to spare.

Runs until Saturday

Michael Seaver

Dog Show

Bank of Ireland Theatre, NUIG

Cat-lovers may be relieved to know that no dogs actually appear on stage in Dog Show, a new play written and directed by Garret Keogh. The show bills itself as a "psychedelic canine thriller" about "love, sex, jealousy and death", and while audience members eager to find out what exactly a "psychedelic canine" is are likely to be disappointed, the play successfully delivers on its other promises.

Shep (yes, he's a sheepdog) has fallen hard for local labrador Molly. They cavort around the countryside by day and play happily with their owners at night. But all is not well. A neighbour's dog with unusually large testicles has been sniffing around. There are red-eyed ghost-dogs stalking nearby woods. And there's a fox on the loose, killing lambs. Bad news must surely be on its way.

This may sound absurd, but what makes Dog Show work is that this story is not actually performed. Instead, the play is set in a recording studio, where bored actors are recording Shep's story as a radio drama. They narrate the action to microphones, create the play's sound effects (including animal noises), and cue each other up for their speaking roles. The pleasure here lies in the contrast between the high melodrama of the radio play, and the weary professionalism with which these radio actors perform their parts.

The cast of four - Luke Griffin, Pat Laffan, Lisa Lambe and Gerry O'Brien - nicely balance their dual roles, allowing the audience to enjoy both stories fully. This produces some hilarious results. The show's producer interrupts the recording to say that a group of child actors needed for the play won't be showing up until later - and we get great enjoyment from his actors' relief at this news. But moments later, we're immersed in Shep's story again, wondering how the tragedy will unfold.

A play about the doomed romance of a sheepdog and a labrador might not sound particularly promising. But by presenting Dog Show as a play within a play (imagine Babe scripted by Luigi Pirandello), Keogh gives us a production that's theatrical, witty, and inventive.

Runs in Galway at 1pm and 6pm until July 18, then Kilkenny Arts Festival, Aug 16 to 21; www.galwayartsfestival.ie

Patrick Lonergan