Dog Show: Rex, BOI Theatre, NUI Galway
Garrett Keogh's second instalment in what threatens to be a Dog Show series - or, perhaps, a litter - is apparently unsuitable for children. So unsuitable, in fact, that on my viewing one child was turned away at the door. Is this because the content of Rex, in which a pack of Los Angeleno canines conspire to kill their terminally ill owner, raises uncomfortable adult concerns about euthanasia? Or is it because the form of Dog Show, in which four actors convene in a radio studio to rehearse such a play, but spend more time neurosing, fighting and backstabbing, raises uncomfortable adult concerns about actors? In Keogh's play, where he also directs and performs, acting is a dog's life: you wait in a studio for instructions that never come, your script suggestions are ignored, and you must draw deep from the well of your private pain to portray the essence of tragedy - whether that tragedy belongs to Oedipus or a Chihuahua.
But, whatever about the children and animals, one wonders why a "radio play" is any more suitable for the more sensitive viewers. No amount of green-room anecdotes, backstage gossip or even an onstage fracas will disguise the fact that a staged radio play is dramatically inert. Tethered to their microphone stands, noses deep in their scripts, as engaging as Keogh, Gerry O'Brien, Laura Murphy and Luke Griffin are, they are not there to be witnessed.
This makes the tortuous progression of the script more conspicuous - zipping through the radio play scenes the actors elect to rehearse, then dwelling on character analysis or the lament of the ageing actor, "You should have seen him in his day". Keogh, at one point holding up his script in desperation, seems to sum up the problem: "It's dreadfully underwritten - dreadfully!" he shouts. "And some parts are overwritten." It's a shame, really, because behind all the overwritten underwriting lies a more compelling tale about the realisation of tragedy. Told without the shaggy dog story, Keogh might construct something more moving, more revealing, maybe even something suitable for grown-ups. - Peter Crawley
Until tomorrow, Product, Druid Theatre
At the heart of Mark Ravenhill's gleefully inappropriate and wonderfully crass satire, directed by Lucy Morrison for Paines Plough, is a simple story: boy meets girl. Boys loses girl. Boy gets girl back again. In the role of a film producer frantically pitching his latest project to a wide-eyed starlet, Ravenhill spins much the same tale - with a few "punched up" details. The boy is an al-Qaeda terrorist; the girl has lost her boyfriend in the 9/11 attacks; and their eyes first meet over his knife and prayer mat on board a plane.
In what is essentially a one-man performance, Ravenhill, the father of In Yer Face theatre, is still jabbing his finger in yer eye. There is plenty of wicked comedy, but there are few shades of subtlety in his polemic.
Describing the movie to Maire O'Conghaile's wordlessly responsive starlet, the producer will only ever refer to her jihadi love interest as "dusky". Islam, meanwhile, can be reduced to the stock footage of exotic cliches, and any emotion verging on the complex is reduced to the pre-wrapped sentiment of a Top 40 radio hit. The world may have changed, Ravenhill suggests, but in Hollywood, nobody has learned anything.
Whether Ravenhill's satirical sights are set on the so-called clash of civilisations, the movie industry, or reactionaries who have strayed into Druid Theatre is never easy to tell. But as his extemporary spiel drags on with the motion of an elaborate seduction, the plot becomes more absurd and so the edge of his satire dulls.
"The heart is a bigger organ than the brain," says Ravenhill's producer, which, given the size of his character's heart, makes him a neurological marvel. But Ravenhill too seems to let emotion overwhelm his intellect. If the story becomes too schlocky and coarse, going straight to video while bypassing our engagement, that seems less a result of unchecked provocation than a sign of Ravenhill's genuine disgust with cultural product. And yet, even in these culturally incendiary times, such megaphone irony lessens the impact of a film called Mohammed and Me, providing many uneasy laughs at the expense of the film industry, but ultimately losing sight of the big picture. - Peter Crawley
Until tomorrow, Eric Bogle, Radisson Hotel
Three songs in, and the alarm bells started to ring. There was something familiar with the way Scottish folk supremo Eric Bogle and his playing partner John Munroe bounced one-liners off each other. A quick trawl on the internet confirmed that audiences from Germany to Sydney have received many of the same anecdotes over the years. In some ways it's hard to blame Bogle - his folk-legend status having been secured with songs such as No Man's Land, And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda and Leaving Nancy.
No Man's Land, in particular, still stands up, and was reclaimed here as the powerful anti-war statement The Furey Brothers missed out on when renaming it The Green Fields of France. Bogle was grateful for the Irish balladeers though: "I registered both titles; I'm Scottish not stupid," he noted. A revised version of the song, entitled Hallowed Ground, written 30 years later when Bogle revisited Flanders, was a forgettable affair, with tired lyrics such as, "The old men still talk and argue while young men fight and die/And I still don't know why."
The pattern continued with much of Bogle's recent material, combining the worst aspects of cabaret performance with juvenile lyricism and hammy stage techniques. From Other People's Children to Munroe's own Bless This House, which resulted in pitching problems, this once-fine protest singer was replaced with a Sesame Street type performer, happy to go through the motions. And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, voted the top peace song of all time, came across jaded and under-whelming - bewildering given the current climate.
Despite these criticisms, the extended applause at the end, and the sizeable queue at the merchandise stand after, suggest that Bogle's audience went home happy. There's nought funny as folk, as the saying goes. - Brian O'Connell
