Reviews

Irish Timeswriters review the highlights of the arts scene

End of the Line

Cork Midsummer Festival: Granary

A crisp directorial style from Donal Gallagher makes the very most of End of the Line, one of the first theatrical events of the Cork Midsummer Festival. The play by Romanian actor and author Paul Ioachim is set on a railway track selected as the ideal suicide method and location by three otherwise unconnected characters.

Ioachim has a light touch, or at least in this translation by Cristina Catalina and adaptation by Jody O'Neill his writing is undecorated. The jokes come without embellishment, but they come and they are so good as to make anyone wonder why this piece is only an hour long and what more Ioachim might do if the plot were darkened even a little or weighted with something more than the skilful inconsequentiality of this work.

Although the players have worked to match and convey the writer's skill, there is a sense of a gleeful seizure of the nonsense as the balding meteorologist, the failed (or at least failing) actress and the man fromGod-knows- where realise they have been waiting at the wrong side of the station, possibly all their lives.

Jody O'Neill, Carl Kennedy and Dan Tudor give performances as precise as the writing and as pleasurable. Lighting and sound design (Adam McElderry and Carl Kennedy) , set and costumes by Medb Lambert and a shared comic accomplishment all add to the distinction of this presentation. Until Saturday

Mary Leland

Iggy and The Stooges

RHK, Dublin

Over 300 years after the Royal Hospital opened its doors to retired soldiers, the past few days have seen veterans of a different kind take refuge in the Kilmainham grounds. After Leonard Cohen's brief residency came to a graceful end, the demented Iggy and The Stooges thundered into town and wailed their way through a blistering set.

The Stooges legend is well known: copious drug-taking, gratuitous self-harm, riotous shows, a frontman with a messiah complex and songs that paved the way for punk rock.

Reunited since 2003, there is no way this incarnation of the band could be accused of going through the motions. Yes, they may be reaping the financial rewards that, until now, went a-begging, but the band also believe they are finally earning the respect they deserve, and boy, are they willing to work for it.

Unsurprisingly, the focus of attention is Iggy Pop. Shadow-boxing his way onstage, wearing only a pair of jeans, and bursting into Loose, Pop never once paused for breath. At 61 he continues to amaze with his attitude and energy. One minute he was atop a speaker stack, the next goading the crowd or writhing around the stage, drenched in water. His smiling demeanour was the only tell-tale sign of a more contented individual, but the show was still peppered with nihilistic exhortations for the frenzied fans.

I Wanna Be Your Dog, TV Eye, Fun House and Search and Destroyall ensured that the endless collection of crowd-surfers stayed afloat as the band raced through the songs. The only hiccup was an over-controlled stage invasion that bordered on Spinal Tap-esque ludicrousness.

While the other Stooges, brothers Ron Scott Asheton, Mike Watt and Steve MacKay remained static, the audience's eyes were continuously drawn to Pop's antics. The sheer physicality of his performance was astounding. These five true originals delivered exactly what the crowd came for: raw power. No more. No less.

Brian Keane