This week The Irish Times reveiws O Iphigenia, Iphigenia and Andy Laster's Hydra.
O Iphigenia, Iphigenia Civic, Tallaght Gerry Colgan
I had not previously heard of Caer Sidi, a castle reserved for kings, poets and druids where a Cauldron of Revival is kept. This new play opens with two people lost in strange gardens, in search of the castle gates. Voices from above speak to them, and they are made to relive their past as Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, the royal couple familiar from Greek drama.
The actors don masks to assume their former characters, and re-enact the major tragedies of their lives. Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia to appease the goddess Artemis, so that he may bring his fleet to Troy to free the kidnapped Helen. He is absent for 10 years and, on his return, is murdered by Clytemnestra, who has never forgiven the death of her daughter. Their children, Electra and Orestes, conspire
to kill their mother in revenge. This compressed version of ancient superstitions and savageries is bilingual, in Irish and English, and is primarily aimed at schoolchildren of 12 and over. For this audience, it has some obvious attractions. With its use of masks, sound, melodramatic dialogue and action, it is sufficiently theatrical to sustain their interest for its 60-minute duration. My fellow viewers - some 60 of them - seemed fully absorbed during its unfolding. An adult audience would, I think, have more difficulty with it. There is a simplistic, almost naive ring to its language and plot layout, which unavoidably transfers to the committed performances of Maolíosa Ní Chleirigh and Leonard Hayden, who must work with the material they are given. Armelle du Roscoat directs within the same limitations and with similar shortcomings. Exit critic, pursued by Furies.
Runs until March 9th (Monday- Friday 11am; Saturdays 8.15pm); bookings at 01-4627477
Andy Laster's Hydra Project, Dublin Peter Crawley
Imagine a suicidal Hydra, busily decapitating itself, and you can appreciate the difficulty in Andy Laster's balancing act. Sharing the same body, Laster's quartet features many heads vying for dominance, proliferating into myriad themes. This created something alternately engrossing and frustrating within the idioms of avant jazz.
If Laster's performance as bandleader was challenged by the scalding trumpet flurries of Herb Robertson or, more frequently, by the blistering performance of Tom Rainey on drums, the saxophonist had only himself to blame.
As composer, Laster constructs densely scored, rhythmically flippant pieces from which agitated solos erupt like wriggling fish escaping a net.
Hydra invited these aquatic comparisons, performing such compositions as Jelly Fish, Soft Shell and Tentacles. It is, perhaps, an agenda to keep the complex stylistic elements afloat. Certainly, the taut base of Laster's angular structures prevents the listener from sinking too far below the abstractions.
Drawing obvious comparisons with the atonal pioneering of Ornette Coleman, Hydra were equally capable of fleeting swing and momentary bebop, while the spirit of Charles Mingus wafted through an atypically smoky Black Pond.
Robertson rarely moved eyes from his music stand, but involuntary spasms and frequent knee jerks belied too close an adherence to the music sheet. Dissonant abrasions between the two brass men yielded to rare moments of harmonic congruence, while the enthralling rhythm section negotiated running starts, frequent time shifts and abrupt halts without raising an eyebrow between them.
Rainey, a blur of sticks, brushes and elbows, distressed every surface of his drum kit, literally reconstructing his hi-hats during School.
Favouring thought over emotion (in true downtown New York fashion) Hydra were more atmospheric than evocative. And although they came off as a tag team of virtuosos rather than a symbiotic quartet, Hydra offered a rare commodity - a challenge.
