The Play's the Thing

NOT A LOT doing this morning, apart from the usual ramblings on the noble mosaic of human endurance and survival, the old battle between the intellect and the heart, and the niggling doubt that Cicero ever felt really comfortable using the future participle impositurus in the nominative.

How to get the thing started then? One could take a leaf out of the late Lennie Bernstein's book by lying down on a sofa and dissolving into a trance-like state. This, confessed Lennie, "doesn't exactly sound like a very ideal condition for working but rather a condition for contemplating, but there is a very strong relation between creative work and contemplation".

And what might be conceived in this trance? "Well, at the best, the utmost that can be conceived is a totality, a Gestalt, a work . . . The next to greatest thing that can happen is to conceive an atmosphere . . . which is not the same as a totality of work, because that doesn't involve the formal structure . . .

"But if you're not that lucky, you can still conceive a theme . . . It can be a basic, pregnant idea of motive which promises great results, great possibilities of development. You know without even trying to fool with it that it's going to work, upside down and backward, and that it's going to make marvellous canons and fugues . . . This is very different from conceiving only a tune. Tunes can't be developed; themes can."

We may stick to the tune then.

You may have seen that Dublin comic Brendan O'Carroll's latest play was not favourably reviewed in this newspaper. No. Our critic, David Nowlan, did not like Mrs Brown's Last Wedding, at the Gaiety, one little bit, describing it as "gross, crass, coarse and without a trace of wit". The direction (by the author) was "inept" and there was "an almost total failure to maintain any narrative drive".

Despite all this, the opening night was recognised as a huge success. The play won sustained applause. It romped home "on waves and squeals and laughs to a rapturous reception". And our critic concluded that it "seems set to pack out its five-week run".

What do you make of this? That we are far too snooty here at The Irish Times? That the tastes of our critics are so rarefied that we cannot connect with popular culture? That if a play does not grapple with suitably exalted themes of life and death and the meaning thereof, The Irish Times will pooh-pooh it, even though the unthinking public goes mad for it?

Well . . . yes and no. Though some of us here lay claim to a sense of humour, and will take a drink in company, and can make small talk if absolutely necessary, we remain ever conscious that this is a serious newspaper for serious readers, and under no circumstances will we ever recommend vulgar pseudo-theatrical drivel in the guise of comic drama.

We make no apologies in this regard.

But why then, you ask, do we review this sort of stuff at all, when after all it is hardly the kind of thing an Irish Times reader would dream of going to see?

Well, we would prefer to ignore it. The embarrassing position we sometimes find ourselves in (or placed in, if you like) is that when a play of any kind is given a run in a prominent venue, we feel obliged to review it.

The Gaiety for example is a large theatre with a long history, and we simply cannot pretend it is not there, that a substantial section of South King Street is invisible.

The very name of the Gaiety, however, tends to induce nervousness among our critics and reviewers here in D'Olier Street. It suggests frivolity and facetiousness, which are all very well during the Christmas pantomime season, but are hardly to be otherwise encouraged.

Ever conscious of the frailty of human nature, and its regrettable tendency to accept low standards, vulgar characters and cheap laughs, we are tolerant to a point. But at The Irish Times, that point tends to be reached rather quickly.

We are generally happier with the plays and performances put on at the Gate, which has a distinctly more upmarket profile, though "upmarket" is not in our vocabulary.

All kinds of European things go on at the Gate, both on and off the stage, and yet you can still be fairly sure of a bit of narrative drive, a titter of wit and a certain standard of direction. The new bar is a great blessing, too, and why it was not itself reviewed on opening night is (nothing short of) a scandal.

Towards the Abbey we have very mixed feelings. Always conscious of the huge dollops of public monies expended on our national theatre, and the enormous historical shadow it casts, we demand from it the very highest standards and let it away with nothing.