Rather like someone who is dressed up for a party only to blurt out something embarrassing in front of the guest, The Point was tarted up to welcome the Tchaikovsky Perm State Ballet, only to reveal its true self by warning patrons against moshing and crowd-surfing in the safety announcement.
The ballet company has a better upbringing than that, safely housed in a beautiful 19th-century theatre in Perm, but coming to The Point meant it had to take on the values of other visitors, like West End shows.
The company has a rich history of Swan Lake, most recently with ballerina Nina Ananiashvili, but this touring production was dismissive of that tradition. There was, or course, the traditional Russian happy ending - a Tzarist legacy which still haunts today's productions, where Prince Siegfried and Odette live happily ever after - and more emphasis on dance than on drama, but neither the static choreography or the dancing compensated for the dramatic uncertainty.
Cinderella, a notoriously difficult ballet to produce, due in many ways to Prokofiev's episodic and darkly toned music, fared better. Natilia Moiseeva played the dual role of Odette/Odile (white swan and black swan) but seemed to revel in the part of enchantress rather than the enchanted. Odette's fearful idealism was difficult to find, but her characterisation of Odile was both coy and powerful. Elena Kulagina, as Cinderella, had a more rounded performance and combined earthy realism with wide-eyed wonderment. The principal males also differed: Roman Geer was commanding and cocky as the Prince in Cinderella, whereas the younger Sergei Meshin, as Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, seemed less certain, particularly in his partnering.
The corps de ballet and minor characters all gave strong performances. Irina Kozyntseva, Natalia Makina and Yuri Khiguchi as stepmother and stepdaughters and Irish ballerina Monica Loughman as the Fairy Godmother took full command of their roles, while the national dances in both productions were full of character, aided by Valery Platonov's conducting of the NSO. - Michael Seaver
The Borrowers
The Helix, Dublin
Watershed Productions are back in The Helix again this festive season with another show adapted from a novel (last year's was Charlotte's Web). This time, director Chris Wallis has chosen the first two books from Mary Norton's series The Borrowers.
Many children will have seen the film adaptation of the books already, so they will know about these little people who live under the floorboards of an old country house in England while life goes on upstairs with a certain sense of the mystery below.
The show gets off to quite a slow start as we are introduced to the lives of the Clock family (so-called because they enter and leave the big house to "borrow" things for their home through the grandfather clock in the hall) and the boy upstairs, who is back from India to recuperate from rheumatic fever under the watchful eye of a stern and unsympathetic cook and housekeeper, Mrs Driver (Helena Breen).
The story gathers pace when the energetic daughter, Arietty Clock (Sarah Dillon), befriends the boy (John Fitzpatrick) while out on her first "borrowing" mission with her father, Pod (Jack Walsh). The use of puppets at this point gives the story the magic it needs, which is then quickly followed by clever use of a large face and arm reaching into the borrowers' home with gifts from a doll's house upstairs.
The friendship, however, endangers the Clock family's very existence, as Mrs Driver - in her drunken moments - has seen these little people.
Soon, the Clock family are forced to make a quick escape under threat of being gassed to death. The second act has them wonderfully in proportion (as real actors) to an enlarged garden, where they make a boot their home.
A wild borrower, Spiller (Stephen Kelly), helps them find their long-lost relatives, who also had to leave the house in a hurry, and the story ends happily as the boy appears relieved to see that they have survived.
The special charm of the show lies in the scenes where the puppet borrowers interact with the "human bean" characters. It would have been nice to have some more of this juxtapositioning. That said, the entire cast carried off a difficult adaptation with great respect to the original story, even if one had to read the production notes to realise that Mary Norton's Borrowers were, in fact, an allegory for Czechoslovakia and other countries in the former Eastern Bloc under the political rule of Soviet Russia.
All in all, it's a show well worth seeing - especially if you've already overdone the all-singing, all-dancing, all-smiling festive fare in other venues. -Sylvia Thompson
Continues at The Helix until January 2nd (Tel: 01-7007000)
The Republic of Loose
The Ambassador, Dublin
With Dublin's music scene shrinking into a rake of one-man bands, and "Americanisation" now considered a dirty word, by rights The Republic of Loose should be musical outcasts. Steeped in soul, funk, gospel and hip-hop and contemptuous of rock's hang-up on "authenticity", they are instead one of the most brilliant - and fun - groups to emerge from this country in many a year.
"Stay true to your own culture," slurs lead singer Mick Pyro on their debut album, This is the Tomb of the Juice. "My culture is this and that."
To prove the point, the concert opens with Ride With Us, cruising over laid-back beats, a clean guitar motif and uptight harmonies. The song is pure G-Funk, one of several black American music genres hotwired for an Irish joyride.
The pinched soul and sleazy groove of Girl I'm Gonna F*** You Up still sounds fantastic, the hysterical "Whatchu talkin' 'bout?" burst of Kiodin Man is perfectly pitched and Tell More Lies is taut and infectious over its rhythmic bounce. But at times Pyro sounds tetchy. "Ah dance, will yis?" he calls, as though we're spoiling his illusion.
The band, however, keep things tight, lulling us with consummate musicianship into the extended gospel-influenced Something in the Water. Convincing the crowd to face away from the stage (which they eventually do), Loose risk ridiculousness because, when the chorus breaks, the musical pay-off will be enormous. With such unswerving faith in their adopted sound, it's time to save some for their audience. - Peter Cawley
The Nativity
Riverside Theatre, Coleraine
It is always refreshing to see a new take on an old story, particularly when the story in question is the most familiar one of them all. This year, Riverside artistic director Andrea Montgomery has gone all-out to create not so much a new twist as a root-and-branch revision. It is difficult to imagine a play conceived with so much honest-to-goodness love and integrity, inspired by a piece of Montgomery's own Canadian family history and centred around her uncle, who was shot down in a Lancaster bomber during the second World War.
Writer Stephanie Young has crafted a script which precisely captures the climate of life in a small American midwest town in the 1940s and cleverly incorporates passages from the gospel versions of the Christmas story. Uncle Gabe here becomes the Angel Gabriel, a pilot who has missed the last flight to Heaven and is sent back to Earth to safeguard the arrival of a very special baby, before taking his place with the next batch of upwardly-mobile souls. Siobhan Ferrie's set and Lisa Westerhout's delightful music hit just the right note, reflecting the jaunty simple pleasures enjoyed by people who are emerging from the bleak days of war.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the performances. With the notable exception of the excellent, versatile Marty Rea - who plays Gabriel, a hilarious Shrek-like donkey and a pert secretary with pin-sharp attention to detail - the rest of the cast do not appear to have engaged their hearts and minds in this charming little play. Sarah Clive's Mary, a sweet-faced soda-fountain attendant, would be just right were she not overwhelmed by Tom O'Leary's domineering Joseph. John Lovett, Miriam Devitt and Neil McMaster, as three journalists following the biggest story of their careers, seem equally disengaged. There are some lovely set-pieces - such as the long ride into Bethlehem on a donkey - which makes one long for them all to get their collective act together and deliver Montgomery and Young's inventive vision, hovering tantalisingly just over the horizon. - Jane Coyle
Runs until December 23rd.
Irish Baroque Orchestra, Resurgam/Laurence Cummings
St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin
Handel - Messiah
Beethoven was sometimes asked who was the greatest composer ever. His most frequent answer was Handel, because that composer knew how to achieve the greatest effect with the smallest possible means.
Thursday's concert by the Irish Baroque Orchestra made you think he was right.
Laurence Cummings, the English specialist in historical performance practice, was directing Messiah, but with his back turned on its weighty place in the English choral tradition. With just 20 instrumentalists, 20 voices in the choir, Resurgam, and with two of the four vocal soloists drawn from the choir, this was an attempt to recreate aspects of Messiah's premiere in Dublin in 1742.
With the IBO in strong and lively form, with Resurgam and the soloists providing terrific singing, Laurence Cummings's direction produced a force of communication that was often startling, and as impressive as that achieved by groups three or four times this size.
The performance was provocative, too. The Pifa (Pastoral Symphony) was no gentle cradle song for the infant Jesus - it was a rustic dance for the shepherds; and many of the choruses, too, were paced as if they were theatrical dances. Despite generally fast speeds, there was little sense of things being rushed, the chorus "And the Glory of the Lord" being a rare exception.
The theatrical element was complemented by the soloists - soprano Rebecca Ryan, tenor Eamonn Mulhall, bass Owen Gilhooly, and Iestyn Davies, who proved himself to be that rare creature, a truly virile and sensuous countertenor. He was a star in a Messiah that managed to combine earthy vigour with the dignity demanded by its subject. - Martin Adams
