Irish Timeswriters review a selection of recent events
Benefactors
Samuel Beckett Centre, Dublin
There is a blueprint for every housing project, every well-meaning social scheme that ends in failure, and every relationship that simply splutters out, argues Michael Frayn’s play from 1984. A cerebral writer with a polished wit, Frayn generally seeks to uncover elegant structures within the messy tangles of history, politics and love, and Lynne Parker’s dutiful production for b*spoke theatre company handsomely accommodates the architecture of his thought.
Frayn’s play is centred on an architect’s efforts to redevelop a London slum called Basuto Road and designer Paul O’Mahony takes his cue from the text, constructing a three-cornered set of subtle levels and domestic trimmings, around which we sit. Parker has staged Frayn in the round before, with Rough Magic’s extraordinary Copenhagen, but here she attempts theatre in the triangle; something similarly intimate, albeit with more awkward angles.
Trigonometry is not incompatible with emotion, but Frayn’s characters, speaking inside the dialogue or directly to us, often come off as schematics of various political attitudes. The architect, David (James Wallace), is a liberal-minded progressive who wants to restore grey, disadvantaged Basuto without building towers. His wife, Jane (Jennifer O’Dea), is an anthropologist, not a social worker, and, strained by competing attitudes and architecture, their relationship gradually becomes semi-detached.
It is exacerbated by their hopeless neighbours Sheila (Ali White) and Colin (Peter Hanly): she a gentle, impressionable hysteric; he a sly, morally suspect troublemaker – a journalist, in other words. Over the course of 16 years, measured out in dinner parties and arguments, each person will betray the other, intellectually and politically, if not physically, while the well-being of offstage characters – children, residents – hang in the balance.
With Dublin’s “regeneration” and “gentrification” schemes now curdling under the recession, Frayn’s play is chillingly precise as to how mistakes get made and communities suffer. The play’s failing, though, is that while it acknowledges colonial guilt and exhorts the value of community, it never thinks to portray the benighted residents of Basuto Road. Instead, these middle-class do-gooders are dashed by regulations, statistics, jealousies and mendacious political manoeuvres. It isn’t the design, says David, it’s the material. A high-rise flat, a marriage and even a society each resembles a house of cards.
Performance is also a careful construction based on a blueprint, and Ali White gives the abused, impossibly naive Sheila some beautifully delicate curlicues – an actor with real presence tackling a character with none.
Wallace is believable and endearing as a thwarted idealist, but Hanly has the tougher part, offering a neat study in smarm. His character slips close to the hateful rhetoric of the BNP as O’Dea realises her dawning Conservatism, but neither performer has chosen to root their accents – their chipped Radio 4 enunciation seems placeless and timeless.
Parker is more specific, though. Frayn's play can creak with age, and, needlessly confirming our suspicions or elaborating on every character motivation, his intelligence will often neglect that of his audience. But with Parker's closing tableau, where one character possesses the stage and the others satellite on the peripheries, comes an astute triangulation of personal compromise and political consequence. Things fall apart, says Frayn, without passing judgement. But Parker is perfectly alive to who holds the centre. PETER CRAWLEY
Runs until July 18th
Rod Stewart
RDS Arena
Some guys have all the luck. More than 30 years after his ground-breaking album Every Picture Tells a Story, Rod Stewart is still on the road -and still in demand. The critics may have long since abandoned him but the fan base is still there in huge numbers. Best of all, that distinctive, raspish voice is still holding up even as Stewart heads for the bus pass.
For those of us of a certain vintage, Stewart was an outstanding songwriter and a peerless interpreter. Those early albums in the 1970s showcased both of these gifts memorably on self–penned songs like Maggie Mayand Tim Hardin's Reason to Believe. These days, indeed for much of the last quarter century, Rod has been a performer first and foremost. The songwriting ability has faded and his choice of old favourites to rework has become rather less inspired; his most recent album covering rock classics is dull and insipid. But Rod the Mod is still a magnetic live performer. Yes, there is a lot of Las Vegas sheen but Stewart knows how to work an audience better than most.
There were times in the RDS that you wished he would sit down, relax and roll out Mandolin Windor I was only Jokingbut the boundless energy of the man and his astonishing charisma swept you along.
Highlights included a wonderful I Don't Want to Talk About Itand the old PP Arnold standard, First Cut is the Deepest. Even the torrential rain failed to dampen the spirits of the capacity crowd who cheered at every mention of Rod's beloved Celtic Football Club. Rod dedicated a fine version of Dirty Old Townto the magical Celtic winger, Jimmy Johnston.
There were low points. The boring disco schmooze of Baby Jane, the awful Hot Legsand a overblown version of It Takes Two.
But this concert rarely flagged as Stewart – who is still kicking those footballs into the crowd – kept up the momentum. There was a blistering version of Sam Cooke's Twistin' The Night Awayand a strong rendition of Tom Waits' Downtown Train.
There was also plenty of camp as Stewart lovingly fondled his spiky rooster hairstyle and worked his way through no less than four costume changes. At various times, he pirouetted around the stage dragging the microphone along in his trademark way.
The guy may have his faults; but taking himself seriously is not one of them.
The 10.30am curfew did not allow for any encore so Stewart quickly slotted in Sailingand, of course, Maggie May.
How many 62-year-olds could sing a lyric about "going back to school" with such emotional power? Stewart may not be the saviour of rock and roll But he knows how to put on a show. SEÁN FLYNN
Ensemble Madrid/Sisu
Imma, Dublin
The 60th birthday of internationally admired composer Kevin Volans was marked at the Irish Museum of Modern Art with two concerts by an appropriately international pairing of contemporary music groups: the string players of Ensemble Madrid, and the three-man Sisu Percussion Ensemble from Norway.
Works by three living Spaniards performed by Ensemble Madrid made up the first half of concert two. Arild Suárez's Sexteto No 2(1996) was a dark feat of determined non-coordination, José Luis Turina's quartet movement Lama sabacthani(1980) a discontinuous though purposeful exercise in interchanging textures, and Alberto Iglesias's Cautiva(1992) for string trio a study in frustrated rapture, cut from the same cloth as many a romantic piano showpiece.
Concert one had consisted chiefly of Volans's own work, and had included the Irish première of his Chakra("wheel") for three drummers. Fortunately for those of us who had missed it, this remarkable item was repeated in concert two.
Though he is now an Irish citizen, Volans was born in South Africa, and after working with Stockhausen in the 1970s his work was strongly influenced by studying African music in the field. Chakra, however, written for Sisu in 2003, is far from being a derivative essay in bush telegraphy.
To experience this piece is like being locked up for twenty minutes with some immense and terrifying machine – in the engine room, say, of an infinitely vast ship. You run desperately for a quiet corner, but each time you find one the wily machine redirects its clangorous onslaught. Then, boom, and you’re suddenly back in the real world.
A lesser composer than Volans would have attempted this kind of aesthetic of the neo-sublime through mere brute force. Yet Chakraowes its success to a myriad of thoughtful calculations, fascinating in their awesome effectiveness. ANDREW JOHNSTONE
