Review: Songs from a Car Park

Songs from a Car Park

The Square, Tallaght

****

There's an air of 1950s Americana around Jessica Kennedy and John Kilduff's drive-in dance show, with the smell of popcorn, whirr of roller-skates and a marching band miming Irish-American classics.

Audience members are seated in cars facing the car park, empty save one car from which two women and a man emerge. They dance a unison sequence, but fault-lines emerge and the synchronicity unravels as jealousies and bullying emerge. The audience remain excluded, safely cocooned, but occasionally become part of the action as chases and skirmishes are played out on or in their cars. Although the physicality can veer towards barbed and visceral, the overall visual sense leavens the proceedings, thanks to a simple and effective design by Sarah Jane Shiels and David Fagan, and the natural descent from daylight to dusk.

Along with Denis Clohessy's pitch-perfect soundscore, the overall result is a fable-like exploration of exclusion and belonging, however they may be experienced in our lives. Moves to Drury Street Car Park, September 12-14