Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi and a stage dramatisation of the Hollywood movie Swimming with Sharks reviewed today.
The Vivaldi Experience
The Helix, Dublin
The Nigel Kennedy experience has become pretty familiar to Irish music lovers since last summer, through numerous concerts and Christmas TV exposure. Kennedy does an unusual line in self-deprecating stage banter, and he mostly knows how to get an audience onside and keep it there.
There were some sharp intakes of breath on Tuesday when he referred to himself as "this motherf***er" and announced the interval by prophesying that everyone in the hall was hoping "that f***ing punk violinist goes away and you can get a beer".
Language apart, the stage manner was very much on the same lines as in last year's programmes of Bach and Vivaldi, and the audience's response was enthusiastic. There were the to-be-expected additions to the printed programme of seven Vivaldi concertos (including some Bach Two-Part Inventions for violin and cello and a violin sonata by Vivaldi), the over-the-top announcements of other players' names (bringing to mind the intonation of dart-contest score-keeping on television) and a kind of shaggy-dog-story running gag about the catalogue numbers of Vivaldi's works.
No matter. The playing was very much as it was last year too. Which is to say it was of a very high standard indeed. Kennedy is an invigorating if at times controversial advocate of Vivaldi's music. He likes a manic pressure in fast movements. He swirled through the opening movement of his first concerto (in A minor, RV356) as if he were some kind of folk fiddler, and he treated the finale as a rocketing firework display.
He added a mouth-organ solo to the opening flourishes of the Concerto in C for two violins, RV507, and encouraged the Irish Chamber Orchestra's Katherine Hunka to do a turn on kazoo. Another eccentricity is his fondness for punctuating the music with unexpected chordal swells, a gesture that, by the second half of Tuesday's programme, had certainly become overworked.
But, quibbles aside, Kennedy's approach to Vivaldi is both alive and alert. He has a great sense of line and an unusually fine gift for gentle cantabile, both of which help to ensure that the lyricism of the slow movements is particularly well served. And his gutsy enthusiasm sidesteps the sense of strain so many violinists show in this repertoire.
He is generous onstage with his colleagues (who, on this occasion, included Aisling Casey on oboe and Juliet Welchman on cello), and, as in previous appearances, he brought out the very best from the Irish Chamber Orchestra. In short, in Vivaldi, he's a force to be reckoned with.
Michael Dervan
Swimming With Sharks
Civic Theatre, Tallaght
Mark Nagle adapted and directs this Hollywood drama, based on the film of the same name. Guy, an idealistic young man with a lot of movie memories, comes to work as an assistant to Buddy, a top producer in the industry. He has been warned of the impossible working hours, the exploitation and the personal humiliations in store, but he is willing to take it on the chin to learn and succeed in his chosen milieu.
Little does he know. The wolfish Buddy is a vicious, self-serving monster who abuses him daily, turning him into a work slave, a pimp and a drug carrier. Then Amy turns up, trying to sell a film script, and Guy falls for her. In a final humiliation he discovers that she has been ordered to Buddy's bed, and the worm begins to turn. The first act is thoroughly engrossing.
Next Guy breaks into Buddy's apartment and proceeds to beat and torture him. They begin, improbably, to talk, and Buddy is psychologically the stronger, spelling out life's realities to his rebellious but confused menial. Guy has no clear idea how his revenge might end or of the consequences for himself. Amy arrives on the scene, and all logic departs. The play has the kind of surprise ending that one should not reveal but that can, at least, be described as wholly unrealistic.
So: one very good act, one whipped up to a phoney climax. At least the acting, notably by Mark Van Den Bergh (Guy) and Charlie Kranz (Buddy), is strong and convincing, and Amy Hastings and Eoghan McLaughlin do well in supporting roles. But the whole lacks depth and conviction, and the dread word reminiscent comes to mind.
Runs until November 20th
Gerry Colgan
