Reviews

I'm a Dad? - Get Me Out of Here!

Pavilion, Dún Laoghaire

Tony Coleman's monologue is pitched somewhere between a play and a piece of stand-up (and sitting down) comedy. Jim, husband of American wife Barbara and father of Leo, their 7-year old son, has been left to cope when Barbara goes on an extended Stateside holiday to visit her folks. It proves to be a traumatic, but ultimately therapeutic, experience.

Jim has been left a mountain of notes, from emergency telephone numbers to little maps showing where everything is, and resents the lack of confidence shown in his ability to manage. He knows that what boys like to eat is good rubbish - who ever died from it? - and sees no harm in interminable TV if it keeps Leo out of his hair. We meet him in a hospital where Leo has been brought after a car accident, and his verbal odyssey gets under way.

He is now middle-aged, and his 15 years of marriage have virtually emasculated him. Notions of being the virile head of the house have been supplanted by one of a lowly provider, a suburban nonentity. His wife is clearly the boss, and he has little paternal feeling for Leo, who can outstare and outmanoeuvre him.

His mind goes back to his own boyhood in a poor area of Dublin, and to the school in which Brother Ignatius painted frightening pictures of limbo and purgatory, and called him a little bastard. He got little love from his own father, and has now only a distant relationship with him.

Most of this is related in a self-mocking, comic vein with a deal of fanciful exaggeration, and is good for a quota of laughs. The play element comes when his mood is darkest, and in a concluding catharsis when he finds that Leo's injuries are slight, which puts it all into a healthier perspective; instant therapy. The story amounts to a pleasant but slight 90-minute entertainment.

Runs until October 30th, then tours - Gerry Colgan

Michael Canning - Psalms

Vangard Gallery, Cork

Michael Canning's paintings look back to the golden age of the Renaissance masters. In part this is reflected through a style that hints at illustration, imbuing various flowers and weeds with a suitably iconic status, reminiscent of Albrecht Durer and Leonardo Da Vinci. Therein, his paintings convey an atmospheric, timeless quality, which was certainly the staple of Leonardo's dramatic landscape backdrops.

This element of austere melancholy sets the tone for the entire show, as his consistent exploration of botanical imagery is at times almost overwhelming. Canning's paintings are far from straightforward, however, particularly the wonderfully arresting contradictions within the paint finish itself, which draw you right into the work. On the one hand the surfaces appear utterly flawless, as a glass-like sheen floats like an invisible barrier in front of the imagery, suggesting photography rather than painting.

Closer inspection reveals that the paint may initially have been applied with bolder strokes, but a combination of factors such as the use of wax, sanding of the surface or perhaps a gesso base suppressed the original expressive marks.

The production of these paintings aside, there is also a certain spiritual intensity as the title Psalms suggests. But this association is not an artificial one or a coincidental afterthought, as there is an undeniable sanctity to the work. Of course the flowers are not objects of religious veneration themselves, but rather redolent of pagan ritual, or perhaps items revered for their curative properties. The paintings, in their own right, seem to have a similar power to heal jangled nerves, such are their beguiling qualities.

Runs until November 7th - Mark Ewart

L'Orchestre des Musiciens de la Prée/Memarzadeh

NCH, Dublin

Fauré - Pavane Boëllmann - Symphony in F Op 24 Berlioz - Rêverie et caprice Saint-Saëns - Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso Bizet - Symphony in C

L'Orchestre des Musiciens de la Prée, founded by Pejman Memarzadeh in Paris in 1994, brings together "professional young musicians from some of the most illustrious music schools in Europe".

For the all-French programme of its Irish debut at the National Concert Hall - a concert in aid of Friends of the Elderly - it fielded a string section just 20 strong.

There were downsides to this, especially in the symphony by Léon Boëllmann, where the presence of just a single double bass was clearly insufficient to provide the foundation that was necessary in certain passages.

Mostly, however, the balances between strings, wind and brass were nicely judged, with Memarzadeh relishing the opportunities for clear woodwind presentation.

The string playing, though limited in volume, was pliable, sensitively shaped, and musically responsive. Like the approach of the orchestra as a whole, it had plenty of spirit and character. Memarzadeh presented himself and his players as observant collaborators, with a keen desire to avoid cliche.

The opening and closing works showed well the range of which the orchestra is capable, Fauré's Pavane relaxed and sensual, Bizet's youthful symphony full of pep and brio.

The soloist in Berlioz's extremely elusive Rêverie et Caprice and Saint-Saëns's sultry and virtuosic Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso was the Japanese violinist Daishin Kashimoto. His tone was attractive and he showed an easy command of his instrument. The Berlioz rather eluded him in spite of the polish of his playing, but he sounded fully at home in the glittering passage-work of the Saint-Saëns. - Michael Dervan

Rufus Wainwright

Vicar Street, Dublin

Rufus Wainwright carries his genetic lineage lightly. Contrary to what his father's tortured paeans to the complexities of family life might suggest, Wainwright Jr seems to have reconciled himself to the volatility of his parents' relationship with remarkable panache. So having Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle as your mom and pop doesn't have to result in an eternity in therapy - particularly if you can vent your grievances via an abundance of high octane song cycles.

Rufus has been in lurve more times than most of us have had cooked breakfasts. His tales of l'amour are suitably drenched in melodrama, and manage to amuse, titillate and occasionally stop his audience dead in its tracks. Tales like Vibrate (a canny capturing of the modern equivalent of monogrammed towels or matching bathrobes as a sign of love and fidelity) might declare their allegiances from the rooftops, but step back just a few paces and they shine in all their three dimensional glory, with enough pathos to fuel an entire season of Shakespearean drama.

With nothing more than piano at his disposal, Rufus struck every chord from momentary disappointment to full-blown heartbreak, but left little room for more pedestrian meditations. And there lies the rub. This is a singer-songwriter whose vocal chords can stretch and bend with Nijinskyian elasticity, whose reference points swing from Jeff Buckley to Cole Porter, but who chooses to orbit in the outer reaches of the musical stratosphere, rarely bothering to venture towards the more quotidian concerns that spur most of us to get out of bed in the morning.

Tales like Memphis Skyline, Dinner At 8, and a magnificent cover version of Leonard Cohen's Halleluia might sketch an outline of the artist as a young man, but his weakness for eternally camping it up eventually wears a little thin. That said, it's likely that his band offers precisely that tempering influence that was missing on a cold night in Dublin. Having basked in his family gathering last March, this was a performance that peaked early and then flatlined all the way home. - Siobhán Long