Irish Times writers on a selection of events.
The Bacchae of Baghdad
Abbey Theatre, Dublin
By Fintan O'Toole
Conall Morrison's idea of reviving Euripides's tragedy The Bacchae in the context of the so-called "war on terror" is a piercingly intelligent one. The original play, first produced at the Festival of Dionysus in Athens in 405 BC, sets an Asian religious cult against a Western rage for order. Pentheus, the ruler of Thebes, tries to clamp down on the Bacchae, the female followers of Dionysus, whose ecstatic rites disturb the peace. Their revenge, like that of suicide bombers, is to rip human bodies to shreds. As a subtle analogy, the parallel could provide both an extra dimension and a sense of immediacy to the play's concerns with the excesses both of political power and of religious mania. Unfortunately, subtlety is not on the agenda here.
As the title suggests, Morrison's version (he is both writer and director), which follows on from his recent Palestinian Antigone, makes its political purposes entirely explicit. The Bacchae has sexual and theatrical, as well as political, dimensions, but just one is on offer here. Sabine Dargent's impressive set gives us a snapshot of contemporary Baghdad, electricity wires and fast food ads hanging over a half-ruined mosque. Robert O'Mahoney's Pentheus is dressed as a five-star American general. The messengers are American soldiers in full combat gear. Dionysus, when he is captured, is dressed in a Guantánamo orange boiler suit. Little is left to the imagination and that, for a play in which imagination is everything, is a problem.
Theatrical analogies work best when they are metaphors rather than similes, when they move lightly enough to engage the audience's capacity to make a leap from what we see to what it might mean. The abiding impression of The Bacchae of Baghdad, though, is its heaviness. There is a wonderfully fluid contemporary Irish version of the play by Derek Mahon, and anyone who knows it can't fail to be struck by the contrast with Morrison's text. It has some beautifully limpid passages, especially toward the end, but much of it thumps along with an overly insistent rhythm and monotonously easy rhymes (rule/fool, free/me, chain/pain, root/boot.) The delivery, which is often declamatory to the point of being shrill, tends to underline the unrelentingly rhetorical nature of the verse.
The piece, moreover, seems so high-concept that too little attention has been given to the details that give a piece of theatre its life. Dance and song are at the heart of the play's theatricality. In one of Euripides's most brilliant innovations, the chorus of Bacchic women don't just comment on the action - they are the action. They embody the ecstasy, the fervour, the overwhelming irrational impulse that Dionysus has unleashed. It is absolutely essential that their songs and dances have a rapturous, mesmerising power. Here, Cindy Cummings' choreography is no more than politely efficient and the choral chants are like something you might hear at a dull League of Ireland game on a wet Tuesday evening in Athlone.
The heavy-handedness also affects the basic action of the play. The political analogy sets up a straight conflict between America/Pentheus and Islam/Dionysus. But the whole point of the play is that Pentheus is himself irresistibly drawn to the Bacchic rites, and it is his desire to witness them that leads to his doom. Morrison knows this, of course, and his version preserves this plot. But because Pentheus has been presented to us as a kick-ass American warrior, his transformation into a transvestite Bacchante is so ill-prepared that it makes little dramatic sense.
The pity is that Morrison's central idea is actually a good one and that, when the play slips the leash and rushes towards its tragic climax, it does achieve a stronger grip. The plea for a balance in which competing forces are given their due without fanatical excess on either side is given a more tangible meaning by the political context. O'Mahoney's transformed Pentheus is a compelling presence and Andrea Irvine as the mother who wakes from a trance to realise that she has killed her son adds a real emotional spark. You can see in their performances the lineaments of a production that made its political points with more restraint and devoted more energy to the theatrical mysteries of a great play.
Yukawa Chan Piano Duo
Coach House, Dublin Castle
By Michael Dervan
Mozart - Magic Flute Overture. Debussy - Épigraphes antiques (exc). Mozart - Andante and Variations in G. Debussy - Petite Suite. Mozart - Fugue in G minor. Così fan tutte Overture. Falla/Samazeuilh - 2 Spanish Dances. Mozart - Sonata in C K521.
Piano duets, four hands on one piano, are a rarity in the concert hall. But they have already turned up as part of this year's Mozart celebrations, as well they might, given the high quality of the composer's output in the field.
At the NCH they were performed by the variously paired Philippe Cassard, John O'Conor and Antti Siirala. They're on the menu again for a Music Network tour by the London-based duo of Cassie Yukawa and Rosey Chan. The programme includes Debussy and Falla, and also strays beyond convention to include four-hand arrangements of two opera overtures by Mozart.
Yukawa and Chan are a lively duo. They've been playing together since 2003, and have established a reputation that rests primarily on their handling of contemporary music on two pianos.
Here they played with great animation and zest, engaged in theatrical swapping of places between movements, and fully lived up to the fashion-led imagery of their publicity photographs.
The problems lay in the quality of their pianism and music-making. Their approach tended toward arbitrariness of interpretation and technical compromise - fine distinctions often count for more in Mozart than bold strokes. The duo played fast and loose with explicit markings of phrasing and dynamics, adjusted tempos at will in mid stride, and delivered little of the internal matching or creative contrast of mood and delivery that are to be expected.
In the arrangements of the two Mozart overtures they battered and pecked their way through as if they had no care for the character or sound world of the originals. It was almost as if they hadn't bothered to read the reminders of the original orchestration printed in most duet arrangements of orchestral music.
Elsewhere, the musical lines were also to be found bulging, exploding and fading for no perceptible musical reason. Tempo choices were often unconvincing, and repeats shunned like the plague, even in the finale of Mozart's Sonata in C, K521, where they are surely essential to maintain the overall balance of the movement.
It's hard to imagine that the fastidious Mozart (who famously pointed out the importance of silence in music) would have come remotely near approving.
Tours to Wexford, Bray, Portlaoise, details: 01-6719429
