Fintan O'Toole reviews the Tempest at the IFSC in Dublin, Derek O'Connor reviews Kathryn Williams at the Mount Errigal Hotel in Letterkenny, Mary Leyland reviews Tilsonburg at the Everyman Palace in Cork and Andrew Johnstone reviews the National Youth Orchestrqa of Ireland at the National Concert Hall in Dublin.
The Tempest
IFSC, Dublin
When Shakespeare wrote it, The Tempest was a curious mixture of up-to-the-minute novelty and old stock devices, an odd conglomeration of news and romance. In part, it reflects the colonial adventures of the Tudor and Jacobean era such as the large-scale expedition from Plymouth to Jamestown, Virginia that set sail just two years before The Tempest was written.
The play's double-vision of the new world as both the domain of savages (represented by Caliban) and as a utopia of freedom and equality in which "riches, poverty and use of service" are unknown captures the ambivalence of the colonial mindset with great precision.
On the other hand, these contemporary currents run alongside the stock plot devices of a thousand romantic tales: shipwrecks, the separation and estrangement of brothers, treachery and conspiracy, a father losing his son, the love, proven by contrived trials, of the handsome prince and the beautiful princess, reunion, reconciliation and marriage.
It should be an awkward mix, but it is held together by an overarching sense of an ending. The old stories are coming to an end as Shakespeare takes his leave of the theatre. The revels are ending, Prospero breaks his magic staff. A new world, both literal and metaphorical, is taking shape, and the great dramatist is not hanging around to be its laureate.
All of this gives The Tempest a richly ambiguous tone, melancholy but full of life, harsh but escapist, fantastical but rooted in power, betrayal and subjection.
This makes it deceptively difficult to stage. Its mood is as turbulently unstable as the storm that marks its beginning and gives it a name. No one production can ever navigate all its currents, but a successful one has to find a way to keep a fixed course while also responding to the ebb and flow.
Footsbarn's production in their tent in the IFSC is certainly not a complete account of the play but it is a richly enjoyable and wonderfully coherent one. It strikes a dominant note of merriness, emphasising the playful, imaginative side of the drama rather than the underlying bleakness of a world in which only magic can keep vileness at bay.
The bittersweet timbre of the verse, with its luxuriant undertow of sorrow, is largely missing, drowned out in the multilingual babel of voices and the insistent presence of the music and sound effects. But the sheer variety of techniques that this marvellous company has in its armoury creates a richness and complexity of its own, and the driving energy that they bring to the action moves it forward with an irresistible force.
What Footsbarn capture so brilliantly is the meta-theatrical element of the play, the way it reflects on theatre itself. There is undoubtedly an element of self-portraiture in Shakespeare's conception of Prospero as a magician-playwright whose imaginative power allows him to summon people at will to his own domain and force them to fall in love, to fall out, to hate, to forgive.
And what Prospero calls (quote) "rough magic" (unquote) is Footsbarn's own watchword. Their style yolks together a rude vigour and a creative sophistication that makes them quintessentially Prosperous.
The roughness itself is a sleight-of-hand, for the skills deployed here are those of the virtuoso.
They blend circus flying, knockabout clowning, ferocious movement, richly evocative music, Indian and Japanese forms, commedia dell'arte, shadow play, silent cinema, anthropological ritual and puppetry into a dazzling tapestry that is illuminated by a fiery commitment to the elemental joys of performance.
And there is a constant, delightful wit that turns the most awkward aspects of the play into opportunities for invention. The usually tedious Ariel is embodied with a thrilling grace. The sounds and visions of an enchanted island are brought to life with both terror and joy. There is a breathtaking trompe l'oeil when live action melts into a cinematic projection.
There is bawdy Rabelaisian humour and sensuous beauty. So long as Footsbarn are on the road, Prospero's magic staff will remain unbroken.
Fintan O'Toole
Kathryn Williams
Mount Errigal Hotel, Letterkenny
To begin with, let's consider the current wave of choice female singer-songwriter sorts, all shifting units by the bucketload; think Norah Jones, Dido, Katie Meluha, KT Tunstall and, at a pinch, Jem.
Then consider the fact that none of them could hold a candle to Liverpudlian folk goddess Kathryn Williams, a matter that hasn't gone unnoticed by a smitten music press, an ongoing love affair that began her breakthrough record, the Mercury Prize nominated Little Black Numbers.
Five records down the road, Williams has done the unrewarding major label thing and returned to her autonomous indie roots with her most fully realised album to date, this year's lovely Over Fly Over. Thus, the woman's first Irish date in an age, a stopover at Donegal's Earagail Festival, is a prospect to relish.
Exuding a chatty, irreverent charm, Williams's particular ability is to deliver choice personal vignettes in a fashion both wilfully direct and achingly poetic, eschewing de rote rhyming dictionary couplets in favour of a heartfelt lyricism that tips the hat to everyone from Leonard Cohen to poet Stevie Smyth (herself the subject of a new Williams song, simply entitled Stevie).
Sympathetic, nay symbiotic, support comes from guitarist David Scott and cellist/pianist Laura Reid, providing layers of musical sophistication to a sterling catalogue of happy/sad songs neatly encapsulated by Over Fly Over's Beachy Head, cheerfully introduced on the night as "a nice sunshine song about suicide".
Then there are the sublime cover versions, an impeccably chosen range of musical touchstones from Big Star's 13 to Ivor Cutler's Beautiful Cosmos, by way of Lou Reed, Pavement and a stunning take on the aforementioned Laughin' Lenny Cohen's Hallelujah that finally sees Kathryn Williams unleash the Big Voice she's been keeping in check all night. A sublime moment.
Why, then, does the evening never truly take flight? An uninspiring venue? An unnervingly quiet (albeit appreciative) audience? An all-too-brief set? We can't be sure. The artist in question, however, remains utterly deserving of your attention.
The Earagail Festival continues until Sunday, July 17th. For programme details, go to www.eaf.ie or call (074) 916 8800
Derek O'Connor
Tillsonburg
Everyman Palace, Cork
The lack of tension in Liam Heffernan's direction of "Tillsonburg" at the Everyman Palace invites a more forensic critique than a livelier pace might have warranted. The story of an Irish friendship foundering under the conditions of summer-time work on an American tobacco farm is built around two key confrontations.
One is the mystical relevance of native American ownership, the other the distinctly un-mystical events of an earlier holiday experience shared by the two young Irishmen. The junction at which both these themes come violently together is heralded by an otherwise unexpected thunderstorm.
The revelation of something nasty in the subway has, unlike the weather, been indicated earlier but its impact is dulled by the long narrative passages in which relationships are explained with an eye to the denouement.
The writing by Malachy McKenna while focused and clever in itself depends on the unwinding of each character's history yet evades the responsibility to knit them into the shared patterns of the play. A well-built set by Joe Stockdale and Liam Heffernan and the spirited and committed cast can only do so much to cover the gaps, the largest of these being not so much the stalking presence of Indian Pete as the playwright's own query, suggested as the recurrent question of the plot.
Why did these two young Irish friends avoid each other for nearly a year before re-uniting to take on this American job? On this showing the far more compelling question is why they got back together at all. The implied authenticity (and occasional comedy) of bunk-house language, beer binges and telephone calls from an Irishmammy cannot erase the uneasiness of a play whose different elements never fuse into a coherent entirety.
To July 23rd: 021 450 1673
Mary Leland
Leonard, NYOI/Grant
NCH, Dublin
Declan Townsend - Aisling. Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto. Rachmaninov - Symphony no 2.
The newly renamed National Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ireland has handed over its old title of National Youth Orchestra to its under-18 section, founded in 1980 and conducted since then by Gearóid Grant.
Grant's youngsters concluded a 9-day nationwide tour in Dublin with their 7th performance of two Russian masterworks and a tone poem by Cork composer and musical educator Declan Townsend.
Aisling is a tuneful, neo-modal work that blends the avowed influences of Gaelic poetry and Hollywood westerns with a certain Sibelius-like layering and spaciousness. Curiously, in this music conceived specifically for instrumentalists of school age, the NYOI held their best in reserve.
Some superior wind playing and commendable pianissimo balances greeted solo violinist Catherine Leonard, who skilfully combined her transcendent virtuosity with an evident sensitivity to her young accompanists.
Especially in the cadenzas of Tchaikovsky's concerto, her playing was rich in delightful effects. Nor did it loose its charm at moments when Grant heaped so much encouragement on the orchestra that its tread became a little too heavy.
It was in the two central movements of Rachmaninov's mighty 2nd symphony that Grant stirred his forces to their most impressive achievements of the evening.
There was keen attention to detail in the bustling scherzo, which bounced along with appropriately dramatic dynamic surges, and was signed off by neat chording from the brass. There was promising solo wind playing in the mellow adagio, whose tempo was subtly tweaked in all the right places.
In this seamlessly scored symphony, the strings are coloured by ever changing additions of wood and brass, but rarely go off duty themselves. It was an inspired choice, therefore, for an orchestra with a string section that's so technically well equipped and mature sounding. In their cantabile playing particularly, they seldom lost a thoroughly professional finish.
Andrew Johnstone
