Reviews

Irish Times writers give thier verdict on . . .

International Puppet Festival

Lambert Puppet Theatre, Monkstown

Last weekend the Festival, mostly housed in the colourful Lambert Theatre, had something for young and older. The afternoon had Ken Haines from Great Britain with "The Marvellous Magical Coat", an hour-long piece that for its first 20 minutes or so showed not a hair - or splinter - of a puppet.

Not that the wait was dull as our host rummaged through the effects of his late Aunt Dolly, involving his audience in feats of identification. When he discovers the coat Dolly once made for him, he becomes again the boy in her attic transported by the coat to a kingdom of warring neighbours - the red and the blue noses. A baby dragon with a sneezing cold is being unfairly hunted as a monster.

Before it ends, bad neighbours have become good friends, the dragon has been rescued and we have been treated to a superb display of ventriloquism, set transformations and a multiple personalities puppet display by the lone artiste.

The evening was a darker affair called Panta Rhei, presented by Charlotte Puyk-Joolen, assisted by Roel Puyk, from Maastricht. It has no structured story; rather a stream of images open to individual interpretation. In mine, an elevated elliptical space in centre stage begins as a planet enshrouded in cloud-illusions, which soon yield to more specific images. They are the stuff of which dreams - bad dreams - are made.

A tiny man-creature emerges, followed by a huge gnarled hand, soon joined to its misshapen owner. A prehistoric winged creature takes over, succeeded by a huge fly with bulbous eyes. Man-sized human grotesques emerge at the side of the stage to inspect the audience, and retreat. Back in miniature, an eastern priest chants and slowly levitates until we see him sitting on top of an enormous, rotting skull. Copulatory man-insects float through a fetid air.

There is no denying either the creative potency of the images or their often repellent impact. Not for everyone, perhaps; but for those who can buy into it, something special.

The Lambert Theatre International Puppet Festival runs in Monkstown until Sunday. For details, tel: 01-2800974

 - Gerry Colgan

ConTempo Quartet

NTL Studio, Belfast

String Quartet - Debussy. Quartet No 8 in C minor - Shostakovich

The two works featured in this free BBC "one-hour recital" could hardly be more different. The whispering, nervous, evanescent style of Debussy's early quartet (1893) contrasts strongly with the lean textures of one of Shostakovich's bleakest and most intensely personal works, written in the space of three days in Dresden in July 1960.

This young Romanian group, formed in Bucharest in 1995 and now Ensemble in Residence in UCG, met the technical challenges well. The swirling semiquavers in the first movement of the Debussy were transparent, finely shaded and expressive, and the taut, muscular second movement of the Shostakovich was excitingly delivered. The quartet has a good range of tone and dynamic and displays real unanimity of style.

But while the playing was always responsive, one felt at times that the players could have delved more deeply into the music. The final movement of the Shostakovich was moving, but the first movement was a shade literal by comparison, the players' attention the detail notwithstanding. There could have been more irony and point in the third movement, and a greater sense of timelessness in the frozen wasteland of the fourth.

In the Debussy, the quartet's leader, Bogdan Sofei, seemed to be making a point of not making too much of his big tune in the third movement, but the preludial nature of the opening part of the fourth movement, and the gradual acceleration into the passionate main section, were handled understandingly.

 - Dermot Gault