Reviews

Two short years ago the Performance Corporation made its début at Dublin Fringe Festival with Voltaire's Candide, an electrifying production that thrummed with talent, invention and playfulness and set the bar impossibly high. The fiercely entertaining Dr Ledbetter's Experiment raises it again, writes Peter Crawley. Woodstock 2004 and Chamber Made - Room 409 are also reviewed.

Dr Ledbetter's Experiment, Departs from Rothe House

It's a rare company that abandons the stage for a tour through a macabre historical secret. It's a rarer one still that equips us with headsets and leads us down a time spiral, from the new technology of radio-miked performers through the Gothic shiver of science and horror fiction (sci-ho-fi?) and into the musty tombs of medieval Kilkenny.

Writer Tom Swift and director Jo Mangan never stumble on the gimmick, though: the radio-wave drama and poker-faced historicism are perfectly engrossing and designed to disorientate. Just as sensitive Dr Saul Ledbetter (a terrific Rory Nolan) is assailed by the conflicting voices of piety, passion and reason (torn between Genesis and The Origin Of Species), so we swivel between spoken words and unspoken thoughts. Origins are hard to trace. The voices are in our heads.

"These echoes can deceive and confuse," whispers one while time softens and bends within Rob Canning's grab-bag soundtrack and Paul Brennan's fiendishly dial-hopping sound design. So can the witty touches of Swift's script: after his wife's mysterious murder our man of science sees apes in Victorian dress and launches terrifying experiments to defeat humanity's aging process - a shocking descent into madness indeed, from Darwin to cosmetics.

Ultimately it's the cast who are really worth it. Niamh Daly, Aoife Molony, Damien Devaney and Fergal McElherron thrive on audience interaction, guiding us through the streets with fretful schoolmarms and obsessive-compulsive constables.

It's the typically superb McElherron, though, who gets the award for ad lib of the year. Shepherding us into a dark cell with sinister good humour and uncertain motives, he grumbles: "That's it. Everybody in. . . . No loose ends." - Peter Crawley

Runs until Sunday

Woodstock 2004, Woodstock Gardens, Inistioge

In 1969, in a place called Woodstock, a music festival defined a generation. In 2004, in another place called Woodstock, a much smaller music festival might, worryingly, have done the same thing.

Singer-songwriters are perfectly fine in moderation (so is moderation), but as one troubadour steadily replaces another on the small, low stage in Woodstock Gardens the acoustic guitar seems to stay the same.

There's nothing here to get worked up about, and that is precisely what the event and the sedentary crowd seem to want. Today is a day for eating soft cheeses and olives on picnic blankets, cooing at infants, watching toddlers toddle uncertainly from their strollers to their mothers and watching young couples toddle uncertainly from the bar to their mates - all without ever being troubled or challenged by the music.

It is barely past 6 p.m. when Mark Geary or Mundy or somebody takes to the stage, and already the banquet feels stodgy. Would you like chips with your baked potato? A side plate of mash? OK, Geary and Mundy are entirely distinguishable. With an imminent new release to follow his affecting debut, 33 Grand Street, Geary is certainly one to watch.

But in his solo set the usually fail-safe folkateer is off the ball. Awkwardly trailing the end of his Suzanne into the song of the summer, The Streets' Dry Your Eyes, he routinely whets an appetite for music he can't provide. Glimmer Man even staggers into Groove Armada's I See You Baby before Geary hits on the theme of the day: urging the audience into a drearily depressive chorus. "We are only learning to die," he chirrups. "Sing it!"

One reason why Rodrigo y Gabriela, the Fred and Ginger of Mexican guitar, have become so venerated is that they're tougher than the other guys. Pipíye, a number inspired by Will Young's personal assistant, is a case in point. Watch the blur of Gabriela's hand as the agitated melody gets harassed, tripped up, slapped around between them and bullied into its brisk pinched refrain.

Then Mundy appears, disappointingly hatless and cleanly shaven and playing a song called Mexico. Gin & Tonic Sky leads into the benign ephemera of July, then cedes to the difficult, depressive chorus of Carpound. "Everybody!" he cries.

Our compère, Jerry Fish, and his Mudbug Club are good at both themes - songs and sentiments that are heading down south - from the Mexicali brass parps of Upside Down to the musical pacifier of True Friends. Each constituency of toddlers is catered for.

With such brief sets it's probably a good idea to book acts that are hard to care about: headlining Hothouse Flowers is therefore a masterstroke of scheduling. With Liam Ó Maonlaí shaking out his mane to Sí Do Mhamo Í, there's almost some hope that they'll reinvent themselves as a pub-shaking trad band, but, alas, there's a listless new album to promote and the fatalistic mantra of an unconcerned zeitgeist to conclude. "This is do or die, for you and I," sings Ó Maonlaí, "This is the end of the road." Everybody! - Peter Crawley

Chamber Made - Room 409, Kilkenny Ormonde Hotel

Hotel rooms aren't necessarily generic, but most are formulaically laid out. There's the bed, the lockers on either side with Gideons Bible, the lamps and the phone, along with the ensuite bathroom. Variations may occur, but choreographer David Bolger and director Katie Read are highlighting the conventions in Chamber Made - Room 409.

Taking place in, you guessed it, Room 409 of the Ormonde hotel, the stories of the individuals who inhabit the room may also appear varied, but at the heart of all is a yearning for love and happiness.

On one side of the room the audience are free to spy on an elderly man (Des Nealon) with a suitcase of memories, on an exuberant but unravelling young relationship (between Emma O'Kane and Miguel Angel) and on a man about to propose (Eoin Lynch): happiness past, present and future.Muirne Bloomer, a dreamy chambermaid, keeps literal and metaphoric order as the room becomes more active in shaping the direction of people's lives. The more characters begin to lose control of their lives the more unfamiliar and isolating their surroundings become.

The bed dominates, both spatially and as host to the action: a peaceful sanctuary for the chambermaid, a reminder of the elderly man's past dreams and a playground for the young couple's romps as they somersault or fling themselves from the other side of the room. But it's not long before stories intertwine and characters end up in the wrong narrative, creating one universal story catalysed by the appearance of Ester Ó Brolcháin.

Aside from a few moments of hamming, the performances are witty, self-knowing and committed, with Rory Pierce's music pushing the action or quietening for reflection, as appropriate. And, in spite of the self-imposed restrictions, Bolger and Read have created a substantial plot that has depth behind its simplicity and humanity peeking through its witticisms. - Michael Seaver

Ends August 12