Irish Timeswriters review a selection of events.
Sleeping Beauty, The Point
Something about the Christmas season makes people crave old-fashioned exaggerated theatricality in their performing arts. People flock to pantos, and to ballets - which are in a way posh operatic pantos, with their heightened presentation and storytelling techniques. The Perm State Ballet's production of Sleeping Beauty even had its own version of the Ugly Sister in the malevolent, towering Igor Soloviev's Carabosse Fairy.
The Perm's productions of Tchaikovsky ballets represent the Rolls Royce of these classics. The elaborate scenes and costumes, reminiscent of Watteau's 18th-century stylised French landscapes, made the stage look like an immense doll's house, peopled with neo-Renaissance puppets. Combined with the precision with which the technical staff managed five scene-changes and the legendary Marius Petipa's choreography, the dancers' command of technique presents an audience with an evening of first-rate ballet.
For all that, the performances tended to depend more on their precise execution than on impassioned portrayal for effect. Yaroslava Araptanova's charming Princess Aurora felt very youthful and girlish, although she seemed a bit less secure on her feet at the start. She appeared at times a bit wooden - perhaps due to her extreme slimness - but was well able to bring an elegant shock and dismay into her portrayal of pricking her finger on a spindle and its horrible consequences. Her counterpart, Robert Gabdullin's Prince Désiré, portrayed a gallant and graceful prince, whose leaps often left him suspended in air like a leaf in an updraft. The scene in which Ekaterina Guschina's excellent Fairy Lilac, the good spirit of the story, leads the astonished and eager prince through an undulating thicket of dancers - a graphic description of how to find Aurora - was one of the highlights of the production.
Monica Loughman made an engaging guest appearance with her former Perm colleagues as a playful and teasing Pussycat - and she was in good company with the other well-executed characters in the suite following Aurora's reawakening. Dancing and production values were always exquisite in this very beautiful and enjoyable show. - Christine Madden.
Resurgam, Irish Baroque Orchestra/Huggett, St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin
Handel - Messiah
It wasn't sins, but rather a multitude of virtues, that were hidden in this seasonal outing for Handel's Messiah given by the chamber choir Resurgam with period-instrument ensemble the Irish Baroque Orchestra (IBO).
The villain - not for the first time - was the acoustic in St Patrick's Cathedral, so often a kind of sonic Bermuda Triangle into which musical detail unsuspectingly sails only to vanish without a trace.
And what a wealth of detail. Baroque violinist and IBO musical director Monica Huggett led from the front desk, bringing fresh ideas about phrasing and articulation and loads of pulsing, gutsy energy. Alison Browner stood out from the fine, well-matched quartet of soloists - with Rebecca Ryan, Eamonn Mulhall and Owen Gilhooly - for the intricacy and subtlety of her delivery and stylish ornamentation. And the premiership choir of about 24 voices provided its own intuitive phrasing in tandem with lively responses to Huggett.
However, because of the acoustic, the experience of all this high artistic quality was a maddening and defeating one akin to peering at masterpieces in a semi-darkened gallery or straining to read poetry on faded pages. Much of the colour and shading that Huggett drew from her players and choir were lost, and mezzo Browner - who shines singing alto arias in the Bach cantatas at St Ann's every year - was made to sound weak in her lower register.
That said, it's Christmas-time and this was Dublin, where audiences lay claim to Messiah and where - on this occasion - they happily made do with what they heard, as opposed to being blown away by the exceptionally good performance that I believe actually took place. - Michael Dungan
The Cripple of Inishmaan, Project Cube
There was a time when references to physical or mental disability in a play were regarded as a kind of voyeurism, to be treated with contempt. But that was before Martin McDonagh.
In this play, the first of his Islands Trilogy set in the early 1930s, the eccentric people of Inishmaan refer to the lead character as Cripple Billy, because he has a club foot and a withered arm. He is an orphan, raised by two kindly old ladies, and does little except stare at cows. His neighbours are more handicapped than Billy in terms of personality and psyche.
The gossip, Johnny Pateen Mike, is dedicated to his craft, while his old mother has been trying to kill herself with drink, unsuccessfully but happily, for 65 years. His friend Bartley is an amicable self-seeker, with a termagant sister, Slippy Helen, whom Billy moons after. There is a frustrated doctor, a tough boatman and several others in the scenario.
The play's brilliant gimmick is to align the action with the real-life filming of Man of Aran on neighbouring Inishmór. Billy seeks an escape route to find the answer to the question: would the Yanks prefer an actor who can play a cripple, or a real cripple who can't act? What he learns brings him home, to face a final cruelty.
It is all wholly and improbably hilarious. The characters may be grotesques, but somehow contrive to be also archetypes, accessible and recognisable, created by a writer touched with genius. Dublin Youth Theatre, directed by David Horan, gives an uninhibited interpretation that overcomes some limitations in experience to penetrate to the heart of the matter. Entertainment is guaranteed. - Gerry Colgan
Runs to December 16th
