Reviews

Irish Timeswriters review a selection of events.

Alice in Wonderland

Helix, Dublin

Sylvia Thompson

andmark Productions and the Helix deserve high praise for bringing to the stage such a well-known yet complex children's classic as Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Often quoted (and misquoted) by writers, artists, musicians, film-makers and even politicians as one of the books which has influenced them most, Alice in Wonderland remains mysterious in an age preoccupied with rational and scientific debate and evidence-based solutions to domestic and world problems.

Grand comment this may be, but Lewis Carroll deserves no less. And the cast and crew of Landmark must agree, because what is most striking about this production is the absolute respect for Carroll's story coupled with a dedication to producing children's theatre of an exceptionally high standard.

Alice (Ailish Symons) gives a consistently superb performance, leaving us in no doubt about the importance of imagination and curiosity even when one is in the strangest of situations.

She willing partakes in the Caucus Race (in which everyone is a winner). She swims convincingly with others in the pool of tears, creating one of the most visually effective scenes in the show. She endures the Caterpillar (a pompous Barry McGovern, who also plays the Mad Hatter wonderfully) as he asks her profound questions about life.

She fearlessly witnesses the Duchess (Barbara Brennan, who also sings her heart out as the Mock Turtle) and the Cook singing their sinister song to the pig baby. And she shows both wisdom and courage when the Queen of Hearts (an appropriately extravagant Clara Simpson) and her bumbling King effect their absurd trial of the Knave of Hearts who stole some tarts.

With a 20-minute interval, the show runs to more than two and a half hours, yet the audience remains almost silent throughout. However, like the book itself, it is difficult to figure out who precisely the play is aimed at.

Post-show comments from children aged between five and 15 appeared to suggest that its most rapt audience members were the under-sevens - and, one must add, the adults. Both age groups seemed most at ease watching a series of seemingly unrelated events strewn with illogical dialogue and argument. It is only when Alice wakes up from her dream to find herself back at the riverside picnic that the older children allow their conscious minds to accept the unreality of it all.

And only then do many adults also remind themselves of the true essence of Lewis Carroll's playful satire on the absurd, mysterious and facetious world that grown-ups inhabit. Runs until Jan 6

Norman, London Conchord Ensemble

St Patrick's Hall, Dublin Castle

Michael Dervan

Music Network turned 21 this year, and the Dublin leg of its tour, by British tenor Daniel Norman and the London Conchord Ensemble, at St Patrick's Hall on Saturday began more as a corporate presentation than an actual concert.

Speeches by Music Network chief executive Deirdre McCrae and chairman Peter Finnegan were given precedence over the musical programme, from which some numbers were actually dropped. There was also a short addition to the programme, a trio commissioned for the occasion from Neil Martin, which is not featuring in the other concerts on the tour.

Martin's challenging brief was for a piece "that would reflect the three strands of music that Music Network supports: classical, traditional and jazz". The work he delivered was scored for trumpet (Vivienne Johnston), saxophone (Richie Buckley) and Seán McKeon (uilleann pipes). As the line-up might lead you to expect, the outcome was neither fish, flesh nor fowl.

The programme which followed lost a complete Haydn trio and four of Vaughan Williams's Ten Blake Songs from the advertised billing, and suffered a number of performing accidents along the way, most notably in Martinu's Second String Trio, and Richard Rodney Bennett's Tom O'Bedlam's Song.

Norman has a pleasing, light tenor voice, and an enviable knack of communicating texts clearly and with musical grace. He was heard at his best in the Chaucer settings of Vaughan Williams's Merciless Beauty, where the string trio accompaniment was handled with beautifully chaste understatement.

The evening included two works for all four players from the London Conchord Ensemble, the Fantasy Quartet by EJ Moeran on this occasion outshining Mozart's Oboe Quartet in vitality.

Kanye West

Marquee, Phoenix Park, Dublin

Peter Crawley

Hip-hop, generally speaking, observes a strict code of stone-cold poses and studied machismo. It is rarely comfortable with emotional displays. In fact, its concerts can be so ascetic that it barely allows for any display at all. With an ego that could eclipse that of any of his peers (which is no mean feat in hip-hop) and an unbridled sense of fun that suggests he is actually enjoying himself, Kanye West has always been excitingly, refreshingly different.

Less than a month ago, however, West's mother Donda died following a cosmetic surgery procedure. Continuing with his European tour, which began just days after his loss, West's grief has become a highly public spectacle, with the rapper breaking down onstage during the tribute Hey Mama. His sold-out appearance in Phoenix Park had all the emotional charge of a hugely supportive crowd, together with the inevitable dip in energy that mourning must bring.

He started off with a surge, taking to the stage in a storm of strobe lighting and smoke-machine clouds, decked out in chic aviator gear topped off, inexplicably, with light-emitting gloves. Moving breathlessly through Good Morning, Through the Wire, Get 'Em High and Heard 'Em Say, West's momentum seemed unstoppable, but the venue, a leaky big top, worked against him.

The stage may have been a welcome array of masked female string musicians, ludicrously attired backing dancers and head-bobbing DJs - West understands better than most that live music matters - but he had to sacrifice his video screens for the space, and whenever he left the stage (usually for a flamboyant costume change) the spectacle disappeared in blackouts.

With such urgent, propulsive hits as Gold Digger, Diamonds From Sierra Leone and Jesus Walks at his disposal, West can compensate for such sporadic lags. But though he gave it his all, the show seemed underpowered by his standards. When it came, Hey Mama elicited a wave of support from the crowd, and West got through it unwaveringly to conclude with Stronger, a song that now comes across with more heart-wrenching determination than defiance.

A vulnerable Kanye West is an unusual sight, and affection for him skyrockets. Even at 80 per cent of his powers, he is still the most compelling performer in the game.

RTÉ Philharmonic Choir, RTÉ NSO/Markson

NCH, Dublin

Michael Dervan

Beethoven - Egmont Overture. Eberwein - Proserpina. Orff - Carmina Burana.

One of the oldest tricks in the book is to programme the popular with the obscure. It's the approach the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra adopted on Friday, securing a full house for Carl Eberwein's rare monodrama, Proserpina, by coupling it with the highly bankable Carmina Burana of Carl Orff.

Carmina Burana is in its own way as much an oddity as Proserpina. It's a one-of-a-kind piece, with a catchiness which the composer was never to find again. Proserpina is an example of a small body of work in which the text is spoken rather than sung. And in both pieces the debt to other composers' work is so blatant it simply can't be ignored.

Orff and Eberwein both worked from good models, and Eberwein's instrumental solos show a range of imaginative touches. And the passage with cello-sweetened solo strings is not an imitation of the William Tell Overture. Eberwein put pen to paper 14 years ahead of Rossini.

Proserpina, however, seems likely to remain a curiosity, in spite of the fact that its young composer collaborated directly with the author of the text, no less a figure than Goethe. In terms of drama, Eberwein's skills of preparation are rather greater than his skills of delivery. If you can live just in the moment, the sense of anticipation he manages to create may keep you going. But with the human voice denied what, paradoxically, almost seems its natural role, of joining in the music, he never quite delivers on what he sets up.

The RTÉ NSO projected the work firmly under Gerhard Markson, and Elfi Hoppe delivered the German text of Goethe's take on the queen of the underworld with a fervency which didn't quite distract one from the fact that her voice had little of the sense of youth the text surely calls for.

Markson's approach to Carmina Burana was again firm. He secured strong choral projection from the RTÉ Philharmonic Choir and the young voices of RTÉ Cór na nÓg, though overall he favoured an opacity of texture which served to highlight the ritualistic primitivism of the music.

The three soloists - soprano Cara O'Sullivan, tenor Robin Tritschler, and bass Leigh Melrose - all made good contributions. Tritschler was in commanding form, and although O'Sullivan sounded surprisingly challenged by her high notes, her tone was often meltingly beautiful when not under strain.

It was a rather unkind gesture to Eberwein to have opened the concert with Beethoven's powerful Egmont Overture, even if Markson's slow speeds did diminish the music's impact. The overture would certainly have sounded a lot better had the players managed to begin all their arresting chords together, rather than in staggered fashion.

Justice

Marquee, Phoenix Park, Dublin

Davin O'Dwyer

There surely haven't been this many crosses in Phoenix Park since pope John Paul II visited in 1979. When the Justice duo of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay are in town, cruciform accessories are obligatory, whether illuminated, glow-in-the-dark, tinfoil-covered cardboard or just regular crucifixes dangling from the neck. Religious leaders they most certainly are not, but inspiring religious fervour in their fans comes easily to the Paris pair, and the reason is their debut album, (Cross), sure to top plenty of "best of the year" lists at the end of this month.

It is 10 years since Daft Punk released the landmark Homework, and Justice are the natural heirs to the French dance throne. Since their 2003 remix of Never Be Alone, by UK rockers Simian, became a dancefloor anthem for the age under the name We Are Your Friends, a succession of remixes for the likes of NERD, Franz Ferdinand and Fatboy Slim allowed Augé and de Rosnay to develop a signature sound (all choppy cuts and scuzzy riffs) and gradually prove that they could match the spectacular crossover success of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo.

From the moment the first foreboding beats of Genesis filled the giant marquee in Phoenix Park, the skull-shaking bass and pounding rhythms slowly building to an ecstatic release, the crowd were left with no option but to dance. Behind their wall of Marshall amps, blinking lights, tangled cables and, of course, a giant glowing cross, Augé and de Rosnay bounced rhythmically at their decks, both inscrutable and charismatic.

The crowd ranged from the sort of people who were at the vanguard of the original rave revolution to wide-eyed kids avoiding their homework. The need to keep the momentum up resulted in a live show that was considerably more house than their records. D.A.N.C.E., with extra heavy beats and funky detours, substantially improved on the album version, but some of the material just meandered, and Waters of Nazareth in particular lost much of its brutal power. Inevitably, though, the highlight was hearing the large crowd emphatically chant: "We are your friends, you'll never be alone again."

Et Justice pour tous, indeed.

The Wizard of Oz

Lyric Theatre, Belfast

Jane Coyle

Talk about going out with a flourish. Ruby slippers were de rigueur for the opening night of the show with which the present Lyric building will close its doors for the last time. Richard Croxford's joyous production of The Wizard of Oz is beautifully staged, with terrific live music and performances to match.

Croxford's revival of John Kane's 1987 stage adaptation for the Royal Shakespeare Company is faithful to the 1939 film classic, with Rachel Tucker's Dorothy looking and sounding uncannily like the legendary Judy Garland.

From the moment we first meet this impressionable girl and her family and friends in their little house on the Kansas prairie, the production presses all the right buttons - from wholesome farm boys Hickory, Hunk and Zeke (Richard Clements, Conleth Kane and Nick Shorney) to loving guardians Aunt Em and Uncle Henry (Karen Rush and Richard Orr), mysterious travelling man Prof Marvel (Karl O'Neill), interfering Miss Guitch (Tommy Wallace) and cuddly four-legged friend Toto (Jaspar the cairn terrier). Thus is set up the confrontation between good and evil, reality and illusion, which has inspired endless interpretations since L Frank Baum's novel appeared in 1900.

When Dorothy's break for freedom is precipitated by the chaos caused by the twister, the characters morph effortlessly into their alter-egos, leading a merry dance along the yellow brick road towards the Emerald City and the lair of the all-powerful Oz, magnificently voiced by the Lyric's patron, Liam Neeson. He finds himself in good company, with the cast - including Seán Paul O'Rawe as evil Nikko the Monkey and a gaggle of tiny, wellie-wearing Munchkins - working their socks off. Strong support comes from Siobhán Ferrie's design, Deborah Maguire's choreography, James McFetridge's lighting, Paul Bosco McEneaney's illusions and Mark Dougherty's music in this truly wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Runs until Jan 13