Reviews

Irish Timeswriters review a selection of recent events

Don Juan in Hell

36 Cecil Street, Limerick

Don Juan in Hell is the title of the third act of George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman, a dense meditation on philosophy, politics, religion and love. As with all things Shavian, it is a debate about morality, free will and the nature of consciousness, staged as a dialogue between several characters that is dense with brilliant, pithy, quotable lines.

Where the long third act of the play is often cut from productions of what has become a Shaw classic, Duncan Molloy cuts the rest of the play, and instead gives us the third act alone in a 75-minute stylish cinematic production. (However, this is not an entirely original concept: a notorious concert version was similarly staged in the 1950s.) The third act is structured as a debate between Latinate Lothario-turned- philosopher Don Juan (Nathan Gordon), his former lover Ana (Eilish O’Donnell), Ana’s statuesque guardian, (Darragh Bradshaw) and a demagogue and dandy of a Devil, played by Martin Maguire. Each of the four characters embodies a particular attitude to the philosophical questions that Shaw is interested in unravelling.

Emma Fisher’s cobwebbed set is a refreshingly original version of hell, the half-sunken statues and allusively ascending staircase taking an abstract rather than a literal approach to preconceptions, and her transformative costumes are similarly inventive. Meanwhile, Darragh Bradshaw’s puppetry-skills are perfectly realised in bringing the character of the Statue to life.

Molloy's use of music throughout helps to bring a comic and ironic edge to Shaw's voice. However, the performances in this Limerick Hub Production lack clarity. There are terrible problems with diction, but more crucially, the cast fails to bring Shaw's arguments into digestible focus. What results is thus a triumph of style over substance. The production is aesthetically adventurous, but makes no real case for why its' ideas should be relevant to a contemporary generation. SARA KEATING

– Runs until October 24

Bardon, RTÉ NSO/Järvi

NCH, Dublin

Grieg— Lyric Suite. Wagner— Wesendonck-Lieder. Sibelius— Lemminkäinen Suite

Friday's concert brought together Grieg the miniaturist, Wagner the writer of musical love-letters and Sibelius the teller of epic folk-tales.

The character pieces and songs making up the first half were all conceived with the piano in mind, and subsequently orchestrated at least partly by other hands.

Bell-Ringing, which Grieg rejected from the orchestral version of his Op 54 suite, was intriguingly reinstated, although its naive pianistic onomatopoeia transfers somewhat awkwardly to other instruments.

Making his debut with the RTÉ NSO, Estonian-born guest conductor Kristjan Järvi seemed to aim at vividness in all the first-half items, prioritising bright colours over pastel shades, and broad-scale motivation over rhythmic and micro-management.

There was thus some squeezing of the poetic element, be it the patriotic musings of Grieg, or the romantic verse of Wagner's mistress Mathilde Wesendonck.

Notwithstanding the rather confined tempos and often beefy accompaniment, mezzo-soprano soloist Patricia Bardon's account of the five songs was commanding.

Sibelius' Lemminkäinen Suiteis heard in its entirety much more seldom than its best-known movement, The Swan of Tuonela, is heard on its own.

The bulk of this nationalistic tour de force consists of two epic movements that, despite revisions by the composer, would benefit from a little pruning. Järvi addressed the longueurs with stamina, but satisfaction still rested chiefly with the Swan and the flurried finale. ANDREW JOHNSTONE