Reviews

A one man show about the struggles of being a homosexual and Bruce Springsteen at the Point reviewed today.

Bruce Springsteen

Point, Dublin

Those who search for the meaning of life in the nebulous shape of a song gathered at the Point this week to witness the daddy of narrative-driven music deliver a performance of depth, humour and insight. If you didn't leave the venue thinking long and hard about the mixture of often unwittingly cruel tricks that life can play on a person, then you probably shouldn't have been there in the first place.

At the core of Bruce Springsteen's art, the parameters that define his songwriting, is the blend of fortune and the pitiless hand of fate. Fortune could be the way a man meets a woman, the way that woman saves that man from his self-destructive nature, and bears him children - the redemptive qualities of which can give shape to an otherwise unstructured life - but into this fitful picture comes the pitiless hand of fate, which intervenes in the form of temptation, stupidity, bad luck, or a combination of stuff that mitigates against happiness. As Springsteen so often implies through lyrics about "deceits, betrayals and bitter fruit", shit happens. It's how you deal with it that makes or breaks you.

This gig, as you have probably gathered by now, was not a happy-clappy one with costume changes and light shows: instead we sat down, we listened, we learnt. If Springsteen was cast in the role of intuitive storyteller, it was a role we were happy to have him in. Promoting his mostly acoustic new album, Devils and Dust, he was similarly unadorned: guitars, harmonica and a few keyboards were the basic tools utilised. Some smooth banter between songs aside, the atmosphere was unselfconscious and raw, the sound veering from almost Tom Waitsian growls to Springsteen's own rough-hewn, melodious singing.

The songs? Well, they were just terrific - honest documents all, and delivered with a heart beating in time to the thumping headache of tragedy. Devils and Dust was represented by the title track, Long Time Comin', All the Way Home, Silver Palomino, Jesus Was An Only Son, Leah, The Hitter, Matamoros Banks, and Reno - the latter surely one of the most heartrending story songs in Springsteen's entire repertoire. Slipping in and out between tracks from the new album were the likes of Racing in the Street, The River, Nebraska, The Rising, and I'm on Fire.

Telling stories of ordinary people that fall prey to a "meanness in this world", Springsteen remains a unique touchstone for anyone that cares about, well, anything. Tougher than the rest - and better, too.

Tony Clayton-Lea

A Cure for Homosexuality

Centre Stage Café, Dublin

The title of Neil Watkins's new one-man play, in which he also performs, is anomalous insofar as it is now generally accepted that homosexuality, being natural, is not amenable to cure, and does not seek one. So what is it about? It opens with Paddy Doyle, manager of a gay bar in Dublin, clad in a leather Nazi uniform, re-enacting his time as a penurious gay in Berlin. He enjoys the sex, but has to play slave to a sadistic older man, which is not always fun. After a litany of perverse practises, this phase ends in violence.

Next he returns from America, apparently heterosexual, with an evangelical message for his gay brethren: God is the key to sexual behaviour; pray, and you shall be made straight. A TV set shows clips of gay people who have made the transition, only to relapse later.

In his next incarnation, he is a cabaret performer in drag, telling a horrific story about a new US concentration camp for gays with HIV. He is freed, thanks to an influential lover, and returns to Dublin. Finally, he is again a gay club manager, drinking heavily and going nowhere.

This is clearly not good news for gays, and it is difficult to identify a credible theme developed by the play. What is good news is the pyrotechnical display offered by Neil Watkins in his several incarnations. His account of the debased life of his Nazi interlude is horrifying, hard to listen to. As the returned Yank, he is versatile and persuasive. His drag act equals that of Danny La Rue, and his final freefall is truly pathetic.

John O'Brien directs in a tiny venue that tends to inhibit perspective on the play, but not on the commanding performance of an actor who belongs in mainstream theatre.

Runs until Sun, May 29

Gerry Colgan