Reviews

Reviewed today are Howie the Rookie at the Everyman Palace Theatre and Horizons - Group Show at The Lavit Gallery, Cork.

Howie the Rookie

Everyman Palace Theatre

Mary Leland

Geoff Gould's use of back-lighting and screen for this Fourth Road production of Howie the Rookie at the Everyman Palace suits its participation in Cork's current Midsummer Festival. This is style as metaphor. Howie's Edinburgh life is not cheerless, but it is not stable; its relationships run first into barren exchanges and futile misunderstandings, then into the danger which is always lurking in an existence poised on the sidelines of the modern city. Bleak lighting and unframed staging conveys that arid atmosphere, always murky despite being always illuminated. With the screen between the audience and the players, the action, which is a kind of shadow-mime, is carried by the two voices to which playwright Mark O'Rowe gives all the narrative. The black silhouettes can diffuse or sharpen as the play demands; perspective and proportions are distorted, just as shadows loom or fade or exaggerate the physical image they reflect. The lighting design by Lizzie Powell is an adventure in itself, crafted to enhance the medium which, it must be said, is visually challenging for the audience despite its potent allegories. Also challenging to the point of impenetrability is the necessary Edinburgh patois in which Jamie Michie and Jack Tarlton bring these lost boys to convincing life.

Howie the Rookie continues at the Everyman Palace until Saturday, at 8 p.m. To book, tel: 021-4543210/021-4501673

Horizons - Group Show

The Lavit Gallery, Cork

Mark Ewart

Through both its Student of the Year Award and its numerous dedicated group shows, the Lavit Gallery has done much to support young and emerging artists over the past three decades. This exhibition continues this spirit for nurturing talent, with a selection of new and recent work by 12 local artists. There is an interesting mix of styles, subjects and media within the selection, but it is the discipline of painting which is most widely represented.

Martin Finnin's persistent reinvention materialises again as his disarmingly uncomplicated semi-abstract landscapes use translucent tissue paper, which is torn back to reveal bold fluorescent colour underneath.

Similarly, Tom Climent's contributions offer a change in emphasis as he moves away from explicit reference to art historical sources. The Church of San Isidro has an elegant simplicity with an architectural setting represented with great economy, while Ita Feeney's treatment of a headland and expanse of water has an arresting serenity.

Megan Eustace's unusual composite images of animals and female portraits combine a fluid paint application with fine pencil rendering. Áine Ivers takes the realm of mixed media into more sculptural territory as her attractive wall-mounted plaques use copper, slate, ink and feathers to depict intricate cityscape views.

Two artists show 3D work. Alex Pentek's ceramic nude studies have a classical elegance with some particularly fine modelling, which captures exquisite details of the human form. Eamon Gray's bizarre construction is a world away, comprising a child's tricycle with a cast-bronze sapling sprouting from where the saddle should be. This surreal artefact seems to be dealing with the cycle of growth and the speed of change in both human and environmental terms.

Runs until June 29th.