A review of some of the shows from the Dublin Theatre Festival

Aalst

Project Arts Centre

"What were we supposed to do?" A child-murderer's refrain becomes a real question about choice, rather than a defence mechanism. As two parents sit through a cross-examination about the events surrounding their killing of their infant child and seven-year-old son, their responses draw us into their inner landscape. They bear witness to the only existence they know: sustained by social security and credit cards, amid bouts of violence and drugged indifference, they are incapable of taking care of their children.

Sometimes faltering, but more often speaking with calm confidence, husband Kurt and wife Kathy (superbly played by Jeroen Perceval and Lies Pauwels) present their position with an undeniably consistent, if distorted logic; the father protests at the social mores that decree "having a child to save a relationship, that's okay, but destroying a child to save a relationship, that's not right."

Based on a real murder case and a heavily publicised trial and television documentary, the Belgian company, Victoria, has created fictionalised versions of the murderers and used the trial coverage and the documentary's narration as the basis for the script. Not quite "verbatim theatre", then, but a "faction" theatre piece, which caused problems for the company when the real mother attempted to have the Flemish production banned. Fictionalising the lives of living people is not new, of course, and it happens with or without the subject's consent. In this precisely calibrated, pared-back presentation, the facts are not asserted as the truth. Instead, we are asked actively to engage in the question of where the facts end and where writers Pol Heyvaert and Dimitri Verhult's inventions and interpretations begin.

Occasionally exasperated but essentially sympathetic, the character of the interlocutor - a disembodied voice - goes beyond the conventions of a legal interrogation to try to understand how parents could kill their own children. The accused are given an opportunity to explain themselves in ways that suspend fixed moral judgment. The dogged love of Kathy for Kurt, despite his violent sexual abuse of her, is presented through their prison letters. The admirable restraint of the writers' - and director Pol Heyvaert's - treatment of such sensitive issues lasts until the final scene, which unnecessarily draws attention to the theatricality of the trial, which was already implicit.

At first glance, there doesn't seem to be much connection between this stark production and White Star, the company's freewheeling philosophical carnival at last year's festival, except for a welcome determination to push audiences into questioning what theatre is, or can be.

*Until Sat

Helen Meany

Cabaret Decadanse

Laughter Lounge

Created by Montreal company Soma International, this is billed as the ultimate puppet show for adults, suggesting a come-on ambience that is misleading. Certainly it is too sophisticated - the music, characters and sketches - for children, but you could safely bring granny to it. And she'd probably have a ball.

Since it is a cabaret, there is no story, just a rapid succession of numbers delivered by three extraordinary puppeteers and their charges, although just who is in charge of whom sometimes challenges the observation. The first original touch is the MC, with the body of a young woman and a bird's head, belting out her introductions. She brings on Conrad, a world-weary transvestite who drawls out his song, and moves gracefully as guided by two young men in black.

The male duo quickly become an integral part of every act, wholly visible and often merged with the puppets in a flurry of limbs. They move to every rhythm offered by a wide variety of music - jazz, Broadway, Latin American, blues and pop - from recorded sources. It is a kind of karaoke, but with a professionalism far beyond the reach of pub entertainers. The recordings inspire and support, but in no way challenge, the creativity of these performers.

Next up is a black singer from the Eartha Kitt stable, a Diva who belts out the song Love Me or Leave Me to sinuous movements of her hips. She then moves into the Gershwin song Summertime in interpretative mood, and does it proud. She is followed by a starlet named Mauve, who does a swinging version of Honeysuckle Rose, complete with an infectious tap dance. Two large and very feathery birds make the next venture into a world of uninhibited movement.

A simple sock on a manipulative arm, looking like a Muppet, becomes a Shirley Bassey-like singer belting out Where Do I Begin? And there is Kiko the blonde male star, twisting his tonsils around the Van Morrison version of Blues in the Night. A couple of Broadway-type songs bring the proceedings to a close; a rousing Take Me Back to Manhattan and a showbiz number entitled Acts of Desperation that sealed the evening. By this stage, it was hardly possible to distinguish the puppets from their flesh-and-blood partners, and the thunderous applause was meant for all of them.

*Until Sat

Gerry Colgan