A round-up of reviews from the arts world.
The Constant Wife at Gate Theatre, Dublin
Somerset Maugham's comedy of 1920s morals and mores takes place in Eileen Diss's lush design of a spacious room displaying the trappings of wealth.
Here we are introduced to Mrs Culver and her daughter Martha discussing the open secret (to them) of elder daughter Constance's plight in having an unfaithful husband, John. Should she be told? Mother is utterly opposed to this, expressing her pragmatic views in a stream of witty epigrams; men are inherently sexually immoral, but so long as they pay the bills and behave with discretion, what's in a romp? Martha is outraged, but conditioned to obeying her mother. Family friend Barbara, an interior decorator, agrees.
Later, we learn that Constance has long known the situation, and goes further even than Mama in tolerance of John's peccadillos. She, too, has a neat way with an epigram, but her equanimity gets an injection of new thinking. Bernard, an old admirer, returns to worship again at her feet.
John's current mistress is Marie-Louise, Constance's best friend, and her husband Mortimer calls in a fury having discovered his betrayal. Constance rescues the situation, and can now call the tune for family and friends.
So it goes on to a neatly crafted ending, with lots of laughter en route.
The author's notorious cynicism is given full play as he exposes the folly and self-indulgence of his characters. But this also illustrates his limitations; where Wilde, say, wrote brilliant dialogue that defined characters in depth, Maugham leaves an impression of having created them primarily to speak his clever words. They are not credible people, and we laugh at, but not with, them.
It is necessary only to accept this, and not seek more, to enjoy this stylish near-farce hugely. The fine cast of Paris Jefferson (Constance), Susan Fitzgerald (Mrs Culver), Judith Roddy (Martha), Jade Yourell (Marie-Louise), Simon Coates (John), Stephen Brennan (Bernard), Caitriona Ní Mhurchu (Barbara) and Michael James Ford (Mortimer) bring just the right measure of comic exaggeration to their roles, and Alan Stanford's direction moves it along skilfully. Gerry Colgan
Runs until August 12th
Cormac Kenevey at Whelan's
Singer Cormac Kenevey, backed by his longtime support, the Phil Ware Trio, with Danny Healy (trumpet), captivated an enthusiastic audience on Tuesday in a final concert before the group departed for London and a booking at the Pizza Express. The concert and the booking - the Pizza Express in Dean Street is a prestigious venue for mainstream jazz in London - marked his signing for the noted Candid label and the relaunch of his debut CD This Is Living, featuring the same musicians.
This was a couple of hours which, for sheer professionalism and musicianship, would be hard to beat. Kenevey has a light voice, good phrasing, a respect for lyrics and the ability to take a wide variety of material and put his own stamp on it.
A trained musician, he also has good ears, so when he embarked on the booby-trapped route of scat singing, he managed to make it work better than most. And, not incidentally, he can swing.
Both sets were a well-balanced mix of standards, good originals and lighter material, all put across with considerable aplomb. And he chose well; the first set, which opened somewhat nervously with an uptempo blues, but grew steadily more assured, included It Could Happen to You, No Moon At All, The Nearness of You (complete with a recitation from WB Yeats - not sure if that worked, however), a couple of comic songs, the venerable Dat Dere and You Call It Jogging But I Call It Running Around, and an impressive original by Kenevey and guitarist Hugh Buckley, The Bright Song.
An even more assured second set included several gems, among them a fine All of You with a delightful segue to I'm Through with Love, performed as a duet with Phil Ware, and a couple of originals, Just a Day (with the singer duetting with himself, helped by electronics) and Tell Me The Truth.
Kenevey affirmed his roots in jazz with a vocal version of All Blues, from Miles Davis's seminal Kind of Blue album, and for good measure threw in a very capable clarinet solo on a blues. But those roots were evident throughout the concert, not least in the crisply performed arrangements crafted by Phil Ware - the trio was in excellent form, with Kevin Brady driving them well from the drum seat - and in the excellent solo work of Ware, Danny Healy and Dave Redmond.
With a pleasant personality and a well-judged programme by a versatile singer clearly at home with the material, it would be a big surprise if he - and the group - failed to register on a wider stage. And that's something his new label obviously doesn't expect to happen. Ray Comiskey
Pahud, Le Sage at the NCH
Schumann - Romances Op 94 Brahms - Sonata in E flat Op 120 No 2 Poulenc - Flute Sonata
Franck - Sonata in A
The Irish recital debut by Emmanuel Pahud, principal flautist of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, was to have been a double celebrity night.
Pahud was to have shared the platform at the National Concert Hall with one-time child-wonder pianist Hélène Grimaud. Yet, although the advertised musical programme had been twice revised (ending up in its original shape) and Eric Le Sage replaced the indisposed Grimaud, the printed programme blithely ignored all the changes.
Pahud chose to devote more time to arrangements than to music originally written for the flute. Franck's Violin Sonata has long been fodder for flautists. But Brahms's two late clarinet sonatas are a much more recent appropriation. They are also, it has to be said, a far less successful one.
It may seem an awful thing to say, but there were times in Pahud's perfor-
mance of the Brahms's Sonata in E flat, Op. 120 No 2, when he sounded like flibbertigibbet compromising the delivery of a serious message.
This is no criticism of the playing itself, which commanded all the sweet, flutey roundness of tone, shapeliness of line and agility that you would expect from such a master of the instrument. And Le Sage carried out the necessary rebalancing of the piano writing with skill.
But there are key effects - an unforced steadiness of manner across a wide dynamic range, a gravitas of delivery - which the flute simply appears unable to deliver in this repertoire, and which are no problem to the viola, the composer's only specified alternative to the clarinet.
Schumann's Romances, Op. 94, originally for oboe (with violin and clarinet as the composer-sanctioned alternatives), fared rather better, with the careful Le Sage here avoiding the moments of over-pedalling which occasionally marred his Brahms.
Franck's Violin Sonata has a heavy-duty piano part, which serves to drive flautists to the pressured edge of acceptable tone-quality, an effect which brings its own aura of virtuosity through reminders of the treacherous territory that is being broached.
The NCH audience gave the Franck their warmest applause.
I found myself more taken by the bittersweet moods of Poulenc's 1957 Flute Sonata, the one original work of the evening, and also the one where music and music-making found their most agreeable balance. Michael Dervan
