I think it was Bryan MacMahon who said that a successful story happens when the author places a male idea in bed with a female idea. The same goes for theatre: in a good play there is usually more than one thing happening at the same time. This, indeed, is the difference between a play and a sketch, writes Fintan O'Toole
That Was Then
Abbey Theatre
Gerard Stembridge's new play at the Abbey, That Was Then, is an exception to this rule. There is, ostentatiously, more than one thing happening simultaneously. What we have on stage are two dinner parties unfolding five years apart, one in Dublin, the other in London. Yet it still feels like an extended sketch. The male idea and the female may be in bed together, but their union is never consummated.
Stembridge, who also directs, seems to sense this himself, for That Was Then is as short and snappy as a baby crocodile. As the writer, he skips briskly along, never elaborating beyond the essentials of the plot. As the director, he drives a fine cast with all the furious pace of cartoon characters rushing over a cliff, knowing that if they or we ever stop long enough to realise that there is only thin air underneath, the whole thing will fall down.
It makes sense that the action should be an exercise in Anglo-Irish bilocation, with the same space serving as the Dublin home of a corrupt property developer and the London apartment of the couple whose "consultancy" serves as a front for sophisticated bribery. For the play itself is an intertwining of the peculiarly Irish drama of the Flood tribunal with the ingenious English farces of Alan Ayckbourn. Its problem as a satire is that the entertainment value of Ayckbourn-style ingenuity overwhelms the more immediate satiric intent.
As in a number of Ayckbourn plays - Bedroom Farce, Absurd Person Singular, How the Other Half Loves - two households occupy the stage at once. There are also two time zones. In one, which seems to be around 1998, the drunken developer, Noel (Stephen Brennan), is trying to get the very English husband- and-wife team of Julian (Nick Dunning) and June (Julia Lane) to facilitate a big backhander to a minister, while his homely wife, May (Marion O'Dwyer), fusses over a Darina Allen recipe.
In the other, five years on, a now sober and filthy rich Noel, new young girlfriend April (Jade Yourell) in tow, lords it over the down-at-heel Julian and June.
Stembridge and his cast handle all of this with tremendous dexterity. They hit the bull's eye of a range of targets: the sentimental belligerence of the Irishman on the make, the supercilious self-righteousness of the English crooks, the pomposity and smugness of the new Irish elite, the idiocy of a culture whose holy trinity is Michael Flatley, TV3 and boy-bands.
Yet it is the structural mechanism, rather than either the farce or the satire, that dominates. Stephen Brennan plays up the farcical staples of high-horse pomposity and falling-down drunkenness, and knocks great crack out of them. But a proper farce needs a lot more energy than the tightly-controlled structure is willing to yield. At the same time, the cleverness and absurdity leave little room for a genuine satiric engagement with bribery and corruption. Once the clockwork of the governing device has unwound itself, the while thing stops, leaving little in the way of either a dramatic or a political conclusion.
Unlike most plays that don't quite work, this one is never tedious and seldom less than entertaining. It just feels very slight, smaller and less colourful, indeed, than the parade of specimens playing at a tribunal near you.
Vincent Sekwati Koko Mantsoe
Project Arts Centre, Dublin
Michael Seaver
Was a shock to see the small frame of Vincent Sekwati Koko Mantsoe as he mingled with the audience after his performance at Project. On stage he looks huge. His body fills the space, every limb and muscle devouring the space, and even his eyes create a gaze that looks out for miles. Three solo dances, with minimal props, show his completely engaging presence, both cogent and playful.
Individual history is at the heart of his work. Phokwane is a reflection and appreciation of family (the name comes from his parent's traditional names, Phoko and Nkwane), while Motswa Hole (which means "person far away") examines an individual's position in a continuing evolution and tradition. A large bowl of water signifies the sum of this remembered tradition, a source of knowledge for him and his ancestors. He constantly delves into the water, either showering himself with handfuls or slowly placing his foot into it and connecting with it in a deeper and more spiritual way.
His movement is the most lucid aspect of the performance. For him, dance is empowering. It is not just a way of telling his story, but a way of making sure that the story is told. "Look at me!" his body demands. His strong, bound and articulate arms and torso contrast with his soft padding feet, almost a direct reversal of our traditional dance with its emphasis on legs and feet. His legs rarely find a place in this individual expression.
Barena seemed to me the most intriguing dance. Championing humanity above power, the warm red lights cloak a journey reflected through contemporary African music and an orchestration of Satie's Gymnopedie 1. Evoking issues of power and vulnerability, inhumanity and civilisation, Mantsoe's performance shows the power of the individual spirit in the face of external forces. As with all of his dances, it ends with him travelling off-stage as if we have just witnessed part of a longer journey of examination and discovery.
