Reviewed today are Maria McGarry (piano), NSO/ Chris Younghoon Kim at the NCH, Dublin, Melty Mack at Bewley's Cafe  Theatre, Dublin, and Alan Crosby at Cork's Triskel Arts Centre.

Maria McGarry (piano), NSO/ Chris Younghoon Kim

NCH, Dublin

Concerto in D minor K466......................Mozart

Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes

of Carl Maria von Weber....................Hindemith

The cadenzas Beethoven wrote for Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor K466 are so intense that they cast their shadow across the entire work, and can easily unbalance it. In the NCH performance last Tuesday lunchtime, the soloist Maria McGarry seemed to have taken those issues into account. She presented us with a stormy, proto-Romantic work - which was probably how Beethoven thought of it.

This requires a balancing act between classical coherence and momentary passion; and in most respects the performance worked. Its main limitation lay in defining middle-ground issues, such as making the piano's first entry feel like a suspension of the inevitable orchestral entry.

Nevertheless, the solo playing was impressive for its piano tone and for its control of expression. With fast speeds in the outer movements, strong rhythmic drive, a beautifully played middle movement, and with the piano and orchestra reflecting one another's phrasing, this was a thoughtful, integrated performance.

Chris Younghoon Kim won last year's Dublin Master Class Conductor's Competition, and is currently assistant conductor of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. His view of Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber was enthusiastic and vigorous, but one-sided. It had the martial energy of the American marching band; and even though the composer was living in the US at the time, there is more to the piece than that.

Hindemith's orchestration, which sets blocks of wind against brass, brass against strings and so on, was sharply defined and, on the whole, effectively balanced. And the playing's unfailing rhythmic energy was always engaging. So this was at least an impressive account, which knew what it wanted to achieve and how to get it.

The series continues at the NCH next Tuesday at 1.05 pm, with Colm Carey (organ) and the NSO, conducted by Colman Pearce.

Martin Adams

Melty Mack

Bewley's Café Theatre, Dublin

There is a point to Shane O'Neill's short new play, it escaped me in the hour-long flow of near-surreal dialogue between its two characters. They are two old men, cleaners in the school where we find them, and in which, long ago, their lives were derailed by physical and sexual abuse.

Mack and Matthew are bordering on harmless insanity. Mack is first to appear, talking to the blackboard, using any small objects to hand as mobile phones, into which he directs requests to imaginary callers not to be pestering him. Soon Matt enters, and they heckle each other into reminiscences that may or may not be true.

So: did Mack seduce - virtually rape - Matt's girl- friend, and start a fire that killed some boys? Did the sex-obsessed Father Fletcher abuse Mack and others, and why does the pair want to find and kill him, when he probably died long ago? The two agree to tell each other the truth of these and other past events, and make the attempt in rambling words, at times hardly comprehensible to their listeners. They quarrel, and mend their fences in time to go to sleep on the classroom tables.

If the author wishes to convey to us the obscenity of the abuses to which the old men were once subjected, that is now well understood. The play is neither penetrating nor funny, and its flights of imagination hardly ring true, as when the chalk dust rising from Father Fletcher's fist as he distributes clouts is compared to the mush- room fallout from a wartime bomb. The simile does not fit.

John Anthony Murphy and Jarlath Rice, directed by Ciaran Taylor, tackle their roles with a conviction belied by their appearance as men in their mid-30s. But that is merely one factor in a series that accumulates to a serious lack of credibility.

Gerry Colgan

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Alan Crosby

Gallery One, Triskel Arts Centre, Cork

Alan Crosby's paintings appear to fit quite neatly into the realm of the New Expressionist movement - which has been represented most eloquently in this country by Patrick Graham. The similarities between both artists reside in the dark earthy colours and rendering of the human figure as a distorted entity, tortured by inner demons and fraught with regret and pain.

But the comparison lies only on the surface, as Crosby's paintings appear merely to act out the expressionist role (which some would argue is an artifice in itself anyway) and do not substantiate any real motive, truth or ideal. This impression is a frustrating one because Crosby's nude figures have a beguiling grace, contrasted by their compromised inverted poses. This drives the potential for specific contexts or narrative settings. But the dark back- grounds reveal nothing of location, and are merely suggestive of an enclosed space such as a prison. By turns this could suggest the figures therein are the victims of violence or abuse - but this speculation appears to have little to do with the artist's intent.

This sense of disconnected- ness may have its merits in that it unsettles and provokes the viewer. But it is telling that perhaps the most successful image, What am I, where am I, shows the figure (still anonymous) within a somewhat defined landscape setting. This lends a depth and resonance that is not really seen to the same degree in the other works, particularly as the other motifs, such as the miniature Irish flags and the tiny stick figure doodles, lack cogency and purpose. But also within this painting, Crosby's energetic and confident paint application can be appreciated all the more fully.

Mark Ewart