A selection of reviews
A Picture of Me
The Ark, Temple Bar
Gerry Colgan
The traditional Christmas spirit is flourishing in this unconventional play by Louis Lovett, an hour-long look at the life of Pee, a young man with intellectual disability but unlimited imagination and unrestrained affections. By its end, audiences young and old will have come to know and empathise with him.
The play opens with Ronan, brother of Pee, wandering around the latter's apartment, and going off to find a seasonal present for him. Enter Pee wearing a tracksuit and carrying some paper. As he hears his record player belting out White Christmas, he shreds the paper and changes it to falling snow.
His room is a phantasmagoria of paper cut-outs of every shape and colour, dominated by a life-size figure of George Clooney. George is his best friend and confidante, even if he doesn't say a lot. Pee talks to all sorts of people directly or on his paper phone, which he uses to call Baby Jesus and ask him how is the father, the mother, the wife - oops! - etc. Next, he is cooking a (pretend) Christmas dinner, setting out the table for his guests - his deceased parents, Ronan and his wife with the big nose - all represented by cardboard figures. Louis Lovett was inspired in writing this by the spirit of Jacques Tati, a comic famous for his bumbling innocence, but the creation and character of Pee are his own. Mikel Murfi directs this heartwarming play.
Until Jan 6, then at Solstice Arts Centre, Navan
Mamó Gé
Taidhbhearc na Gaillimhe
Patrick Lonergan
In his programme note for this pantomime, Peadar Cox writes that the story of the golden goose has lasted for more than 2,500 years, originating in Aesop's Fables. Its ongoing popularity is easy to understand. All societies are fascinated why those who least deserve wealth often have more of it than everyone else. Anyone who's bought a lottery ticket can relate to Aesop's assertion that a sudden windfall is more likely to produce greed than happiness.
Under Diarmuid de Faoite's direction, this production succeeds because of Cox's ability to blend the story's universal qualities with local relevance: his Mamó Gé is a magical fairytale about transformation and redemption that will delight young audiences, but it's also a good-natured send-up of Celtic Tiger Ireland. Parents will appreciate the satirical jibes at property developers, celebrity culture and the obsession with youth and beauty. They might also recognise Mamó Gé's frustration with her children, whose response to newfound wealth is to demand an endless supply of electronic gadgets.
Meanwhile, children in the audience will have a ball. Cox gives them a strong child character to identify with (played by the excellent Úna Ní Fhlatharta), and provides plenty of opportunities for interaction with the characters - notably, the delightfully grotesque Mamó Gé (Donncha Crowley), and the villainous sorceress Dubhréalt, played by Eithne Nic Enrí with a hilarious blend of seductiveness and lunacy.
With a strong ensemble and a lively musical score (performed by Nuala Ní Channain), Mamó Gé skilfully controls the attention - and the emotions - of the audience. When Dubhréalt smugly asks whether anyone will be able to stop her from completing her evil plans, the children leap from their seats and shout "Mise!" You might also have heard one or two adult voices in the clamour . . .
Until Dec 19
God's Grace
The Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers House, Dublin
Peter Crawley
"Watch your step," command two stern figures in lab coats as we enter the first space of Semper Fi's site-specific performance. This seems like sound advice. With a company that has previously lured audiences into sordid dealings in dank public toilets or stranded them in a warehouse during a shoot-out, it is best to tread carefully.
Whatever our expectations, though, Paul Walker and Eugene O'Brien's co-written play, God's Grace, is the company's most restrained piece of work to date: a promenade performance which follows a family drama as it unfolds between the rooms, the hall and the stairs of The Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers House.
This short, understated play may be the most effective way to wrong-foot anybody who has come to recognise Paul Walker's work by such subtle climaxes as a decapitation or a hail of bullets. And, given his previous tendency to paint with such broad strokes, some will suspect - perhaps unfairly - that O'Brien was a tempering influence.
Suzy Lawlor plays a young girl whose father commits suicide, leaving an emotional vacuum in which her imaginary friend (a quietly menacing Anthony Morris) grows into something more sinister, while her mind, occupied with guilt and worried thoughts of rats behind the wainscoting, becomes more disturbed. With the child's sickness comes her mother's near indigence, Phoebe Toal struggling to maintain the family home before Andrew Bennett appears as a gauche but kind-hearted lodger.
As a new family tentatively develops, Karl Shiels directs with great sensitivity to the space. Its high-ceilinged rooms and large windows are modestly lit by Sinead McKenna (who puts enough lamp shades askew to suggest a domestic situation out of kilter) while its creaky atmosphere is accentuated by a discrete, unsettling soundscape from Ivan Birthistle and Vincent Docherty.
It is this fine-honed atmosphere that ensures the house remains the production's most intriguing character; the scenes glide through it as though each room has summoned its own troubled memories. Despite the bracing proximity of the actors, they are not so vivid, the elliptical script giving their characters a lingering sense of mystery.
Although it is so sparse in detail it can at times feel opaque (no one could accuse Walker and O'Brien of over-writing) the play functions best as a mood piece, its climax coming not with an overblown gesture, but a blown fuse, and its resolution carrying the soft glow of hope.
The Kooks
The Ambassador
Kevin Courtney
It's the second of The Kooks' two-night stint in Dublin's Ambassador, and the screaming still hasn't died down. Upstairs in the grown-ups section, you can hear the high-pitched keening of (mostly female) Kooks fans, as they squeal their approval of England's newest young indie heartthrobs.
Skinny, curly-mopped lead singer Luke Pritchard looks like a young David Bowie circa Hunky Dory, and when he strums the first chords on his acoustic guitar, he causes a near dam-burst of teenage hormones. A (very) small item of lingerie is thrown onto the stage, and Pritchard picks it up. "You were wearing these? Wow." A demo CD follows soon after, no doubt proffered by a male fan who dreams of the day when the girls will throw their smalls in his direction.
Pop glory comes to those who seize the moment, and The Kooks have seized theirs with particular gusto, nabbing themselves a runaway hit with their debut album, Inside In/ Inside Out, and soundtracking the summer with the single She Moves in Her Own Way.
Much is made of the album's stylistic diversity, a sunny blend of rock, pop, punk, folk, reggae and psychedelia, but nearly all the songs share a jaunty, devil-may-care swagger and a ramshackle rockiness that is sometimes samey, but always endearing. Hugh Harris's guitar playing is clean, crisp and uncluttered by effects, sounding like a cross between George Harrison and Hank Marvin. Drummer Paul Garred provides the weight to keep the tunes from flittering away.
The fans recognise every song from its opening, but they reserve a special welcome for such hits as Sofa Song, Niave and most recent single Ooh La. Every now and then the influences will flit in and out: a Bowie here, a Kinks there, and a Pink Floyd moment that reminds you that Kooks are just another brick in a constantly building wall of rock 'n' roll fame that stretches right back.
