Helen Meany finds compelling performances but some contrived elements in Take Me Away, while Ray Comiskey enjoys an evening with the Esbjörn Svensson Trio.
Take Me Away, Project Arts Centre, Dublin
Helen Meany
Violence never seems too far from the surface in Gerald Murphy's new play, in which three brothers are cooped up with their father in an airless, featureless, Dublin apartment.
A computer dominates the room, owned by Bren (Joe Hanley) a laconic night security-man, whose solitary web-surfing is interrupted by the unscheduled arrival of his brother Andy (Aidan Kelly) in an overwrought state, and their younger brother, Kev (Barry Ward).
Summoned there by their father Eddie (Vincent McCabe), who wants them to make a collective visit to their mother, they speculate with comic awkwardness on the nature of their mother's illness, as if women were an alien species.
Revelation after revelation follows, as it emerges that their mother is not ill, but has walked out on Eddie.
Each man accuses the other, exposing secrets and lies, probing old wounds and childhood pain in language that becomes increasingly elliptical and inarticulate, highlighting their isolation and powerlessness.
Their longing for intimacy is subsumed into sexual frustration, and it becomes clear that the brothers have learned this from their father.
Their predicament is - if not always subtly - observed.
In different ways, each is trapped: by mind-numbing night shifts, by lack of money, by marriage.
The possibility that their mother may have inherited some money gives Andy a brief glimpse of another life, of transforming his daily grind with his depressed wife and child into a happy family.
While all four performances are compelling, with the tension and pace sustained by Lynne Parker's precise direction, there is a contrived aspect to the emotional pressure cooker that Murphy has created.
The unrelenting probing and serial confessions of the reality of each man's life have a formulaic staginess; it's all too neat and over-determined.
Murphy has written radio plays before his expansion onto the stage: let's hope his next play will open out even further.
Esbjörn Svensson Trio, Vicar Street
Ray Comiskey
The last time I heard the Esbjörn Svensson Trio in Dublin a couple of years ago, it took only a comparative handful to fill the tiny Shelter in Vicar Street .
It was a different story last Saturday for their return, courtesy of The Improvised Music Company, in the many-times-larger main auditorium in Vicar Street .
With ticket touts outside, something which has not happened at a jazz concert here since Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson were in their pomp over three decades ago, there was a palpable buzz of anticipation in the capacity audience.
They weren't disappointed. After 13 years together EST - Svensson (piano), Dan Berglund (bass) and Magnus Öström (drums) - are an overnight success.
And, as a phenomenon now tasting crossover appeal beyond the confines of the jazz world, they have managed to do it without compromise, a fact which they underlined with a high-calibre display of collective and individual musicianship in a slickly lit and presented concert.
The roots of the Esbjörn Svensson Trio's popularity are not hard to understand.
Their music, drawing on elements of jazz, rock, dance and electronica, has an unaffectedly simple melodic grace and great rhythmic drive; this is a group which can groove with the best of them.
The music's complexity owes more to the almost telepathic interaction the trio has available to it than to the usually jointly composed material used as a jumping off point for improvisation.
And the sheer depth of shared understanding allows the trio to maintain a consistently high performance level regardless of circumstances.
With much of the concert devoted to compositions from the group's most recent album, Seven Days Of Falling, released six months ago, this may be why it seemed there was a slight slackening of the creative tension the group can bring to bear on them.
Perhaps it's the associated touring to promote the album since then, but with such undeniably distinctive and attractive pieces as Evening In Atlantis, Did They Ever Tell Cousteau? or Elevation Of Love, for instance, there were occasional hints, amid the music's beguiling dazzle, of the trio on automatic pilot.
That may be why the group also turned to older material for refreshment; The Rube Thing, for instance, is about ten years old, and When God Created The Coffee Break is over three years in the trio's repertoire.
But this is speculation. What the Esbjörn Svensson Trio did on Saturday night was to serve up a dish of jazz music as classy as has been tasted here in recent years, performed with breath-taking skill, taste and imagination by a trio which is now unique and immediately identifiable.
And, not incidentally, hugely enjoyable.
