IF it took an Anglo Irish man to capture the language and voices of the Aran Islands, then why not a Polish French poet living in Kerry to dramatise the curious history of the Blasket Islands?
The arrival in Galway next week of Wladyslaw Znorko's new work Ulysse a l'Envers for a five night run, marks the culmination of a lengthy world tour that has seen the work garner huge acclaim from Paris to Ecuador.
Using very little dialogue, Znorko and his theatre company, Cosmos Colej, have created a unique spectacle from the story of the Irish government's evacuation of the population of the Blaskets in 1953. The story first caught Znorko's attention during a visit to the Galway Arts Festival while on tour with La Cite Cornu.
Before long he bought a house at Dunquin in West Kerry, facing the Blaskets, and had begun assimilating the multi faceted visual concepts which make up this production. Using light and sound to accentuate very physical performances from his cast (with eight nationalities between them), Ulysse a l'Envers is performed through three theatrical pieces, centred in turn around the islands, the sea, and the shipwrecks.
Touching on Flann O'Brien and Tomas O Criomhthain, the story of the island's evacuation is portrayed through a panoply of illusion and fairytale, incorporating ballet and other forms of dance, as well as live music.
International critics have deemed it everything from a mirage to a miracle. Synge, no doubt, would have had his money down just to see how many of us could recognise the difference.
