Reviewed in today's Irish Times are: Attaboy, Mr Synge at the Civic Theatre in Tallaght and Margherita Gianola/Giovanni Vello at St. Michael's Dun Laoghaire.

Athboy Society Players are celebrating their 25th anniversary, and are about to produce Synge's The Playboy of the Western World to mark the occasion. Rehearsals are just beginning, and the director is, as usual, lackadaisical. But Marjorie, senior committee member and cast member, intends to chivvy him into a proper performance of his duties.

More or less normal complications abound. The girl who is playing the lead role of Pegeen Mike is having boyfriend trouble, and keeps missing rehearsals; that sort of thing. But the really big distraction arrives with Denise, apparently a theatre personage of wide and international experience, who virtually takes over the production with her outré ideas, which start where experimentation gets off. A major mess is in the offing.

The first act is very funny, with roots in recognisable amateurism of the shambolic sort. Building on this solid foundation, the author turns to outright farce in the second act, exposing Denise as a manic tyro whose minor involvements in theatre have been universally disastrous. But she has built up an unstoppable momentum by now, and her aberrations must run their course. The first night finally arrives, and a few highly comic twists wind up the evening.

Deirdre Kinahan has developed the play from her earlier monologue, Summer Fruits, and it is her most enjoyable work to date. Her ear for dialogue is highly tuned, and her characters have, even at their zaniest, the credibility of the familiar. She plays the role of Denise herself, giving the play's most extrovert performance. The writer in her will probably agree that she has enabled Gina Moxley, in the role of a faithful factotum, to steal the show with a lovely portrayal, subtle and hilarious.

Ruth Hegarty, Donal Beecher and Sean McDonagh take the other roles with well- observed interpretations, completing the comedy double of good actors playing crass amateurs. Maureen Collender's direction is wholly simpatico to the play's intentions, which are clearly to seek laughs. It deserves and gets them in ample measure.

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Last Sunday's recital was given by two Italian musicians who have worked together for 12 years.

Their playing at Mass in the morning attracted a large audience to the evening recital, to hear a programme dominated by transcriptions and popular works. This was a reminder that these recitals have their roots in the Church community, as well as in the specialist music and audiences which have given this series its wider reputation.

Some of the most impressive organ- playing was in 17th- and 18th-century liturgical works by Pasquini and Zipoli. In these, Gianola's playing was stylish, and full of the mystery and feeling that must have been part of the music's function. In most of the other pieces, her musicality was more impressive than her technical security. But she is a natural communicator, and made an impact with such catchy pieces as Dubois's famous Toccata.

Vello played modern valve trumpets in true Italian style - strong vibrato, line-driven shaping, and extreme dynamic range. In arrangements of works by Handel, Albinoni and Ennio Morricone, his ability with high, quiet, sustained melody was memorable, but the long pauses in Viviani's Sonata Prima was a misjudgement - this sonata is a series of short, linked sections, not a series of individual movements.

In most of the ensemble items, the organ was too loud for the trumpet and the registration was too unchanging. Yet at the end of it all, one remembered the recital's appealing aspects: persistent cheerfulness and communication and, underneath it all, good musicianship.