Reviews

Irish Times writers review the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Lansdowne Road, The Wedding at Cork Opera House and Dead Boys at the Focus Theatre.

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Lansdowne Road

Hanna was there. 40,000 rock 'n' roll kids were there. And - crucially - prodigal guitarist John Frusciante was present, correct and clean. If U2 were California beach bums, they'd probably have morphed into the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Here's a tight, self-contained unit in search of meaning among the detritus of modern life, and whose vision spans way beyond the borders of Malibu. Their 1999 album, Californication, niftily caught a jaundiced LA buzz, and earned the band sales of 12 million plus. They've been together nearly 20 years, but there's a feeling that this quartet has not yet reached its full, stadium-slamming potential, despite last year's dry run as support to U2 at Slane.

Lansdowne Road was bathed in west coast sunshine as the support act, New Order, took the stage to general indifference from the youngsters up the front. The headliners are huge fans of the Manchester electro-pioneers, but the crowd just wants some Californication. "Tell yer dads you saw us," quips singer Bernard Sumner in disgust.

Anthony Keidis, John Frusciante, Flea and Chad Smith bounded onstage with their customary exuberance, and kicked into the opening riff of their new single, By The Way. Instant, deafening recognition. For most of the gig, the crowd was in danger of drowning out Keidis's vocals, but somehow the melodic sheen of Scar Tissue pierced the Dublin sky. Around The World, Otherside and Parallel Universe fared better, pulling the crowd into the undertow of swirling drums, eddying bass and waves of frothing guitar.

The band débuted a couple of songs from their new album, By the Way, including the melodic, time-shifting Venice Queen, but it was the familiar funk of Give It Away, from their 1991 BloodSugarSexMagik album which grabbed the attention.

Californication was the undisputed climax, a cracked ballad which can strike a chord in the coldest climate.

The band encored with their classic, Under the Bridge, Frusciante sitting at the edge of the stage, evoking an image of his former junkie self. The force may not have been with them today, but, as in their naked Abbey Road photo, at least they gave it socks.

Kevin Courtney

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The Wedding

Cork Opera House

Telling two stories which somehow never quite amount to a plot, Kathy Leahy's play The Wedding at the Cork Opera House is a likeable romp through the lives of the Coventry Irish.

People who found an economic and social security unknown at home, they remain stereotypical, unselfconscious and devoutly sexist. As busily directed by Leahy herself, the main event is a family wedding which coincides with Ireland's World-Cup penalty shoot-out; the impact of this conjunction colours the ceremony and the subsequent jollifications, including some Irish step-dancing in a routine with footballs which Michael Flatley might envy.

Underneath these pleasantries runs the reverberating thread of one of the members of the wedding, who cannot help contrasting the family acceptance of the bride's illegitimate son with her own unmarried banishment on the birth of her daughter 30 years earlier - a child immediately adopted in England and never seen or mentioned again.

Yvonne O'Grady's performance as Teresa, condemned to a silent yearning for the rest of her life, is infused with tension and with credibility, and strengthens the impact of a play which is otherwise so cheerful as to be almost vacuous. Its second redeeming point (which is no criticism of the rest of the cast, all of whom work very well together) is the design by Ruari Murchison, whose vast suspended skylight gives an impression of distances untravelled by everyone except, perhaps, Teresa.

The Wedding continues at the Cork Opera House until Saturday June 29th; Box Office 021 454 3210/ 427 0022

Mary Leland

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Dead Boys

Focus Theatre

Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse? There's not much that's glamorous about the sad ends met by the titular characters in Pius Meagher's one-act play, which serves to kick off Focus Theatre's summer lunchtime programme.

An afterworld of sadness greets Dead Joe, and Dead Fred- despite the latter's posturing and bravado-as they meet in the backroom of an undertaker's establishment. Both are ghosts, and both are waiting to see what happens next.

"Death is what you make of it," cracks Dead Fred, who acts as an emissary of the dearly departed for Dead Joe; a suicide, he gives the impression of having chosen his fate, whereas Joe, the victim of a hit-and-run, bemoans his newly stiff status . . . and bemoans it . . . and bemoans it. Fred is exuberant, almost ebullient, delighted at having attended his own funeral, and curious as to what the possibilities of being a restless spirit might entail.

That his story is much sadder than he lets on is the strongest element of a rather repetitive script, and offers up an interesting idea: that once a gobshite, always a gobshite- even when one is a dead gobshite.

Patrick O'Donnell plays the slightly thankless role of Joe, the one who was happy in his past life, and the character's endless whingeing doesn't do much to help the action along.

As Fred, Aonghus Weber makes the most of the flashier, edgier role, and brings a potent energy to the part, doing his best to enliven the rather flat blocking imposed by director Brent Hearne.

A majority of the action is unfortunately played far upstage - this in turn serves to make Emma Cullen's crisp and stylish set seem superfluous; such an unimaginative use of space also points up the weaknesses in Meagher's script, rather than mining the piece for its interest and humour.

Susan Conley