My first intimation that Shakespeare could be fun came via The Comedy of Errors in a film version called The Boys from Syracuse, with music by Rodgers and Hart.
The Comedy of Errors
St Stephen's Green (Yeats Monument), Dublin
The discovery was subsequently confirmed by several hilarious productions of the original, now added to in an outdoor romp by graduates of the Gaiety School of Acting.
The sun shone benevolently on the picturesque park arena as an old man from Syracuse, in search of his lost sons, is sentenced to death in Ephesus, where his people are banned; and the game's afoot. His twins had two male servants, also twins, and the two pairs were separated in the storm that sent them all astray in the first place. One master-plus-servant grew up in Ephesus, now married and settled; the other pair have just arrived there to cause serious confusion through mistaken identities. It all sounds, and is, very complicated, but only in print; the direction and acting guide the audience enjoyably through the maze. We know, of course, that love will find a way, that the father will be freed, and that the whole tangled skein will unravel nicely. It is all very funny, with that sardonic take on human nature that gives the Bard, even in frivolous mood, his special depth.
The young actors are uniformly excellent, with the double-double act of twins convincingly delivered by Graham Boland and Brian Glancy as the nobles, and with Darren Connolly and Simon McDermott in fine comic form as their servants. Aideen McDonald and Deirdre Brennan take the lead female roles as a distraught wife and her confused sister, while Patrick Kelly is a commanding Duke of Ephesus.
All the support roles are in convincing harmony, sealing a composite testimony to the efficacy of Kristian Marken's direction, which energised the performances and added imaginative touches to the production. Admission is free, but contributions are naturally welcome. - Gerry Colgan
Runs until Sunday; 1pm & 5pm
Five Women Wearing the Same Dress
Andrew's Lane Studio, Dublin
It's a canny choice by a fledgling theatre company: select a work by a writer whose career is positively stratospheric, and his name recognition might serve to carry their efforts along. Hysterics Theatre Company have done so, producing an early work by American Alan Ball, now famously known for the screenplay of American Beauty, and the hit television series Six Feet Under. But it's one thing to choose correctly, and another thing to pull it off.
Ball's 1993 text is practically a boilerplate for the issues that continually turn up in his work: drink, drugs, homosexuality, "big issues" like AIDS and Jesus and sexual abuse. A motley crew of women, ranging in age from college-leavers to early 30-somethings, are in various states of physical and emotional disarray, as they come together as bridesmaids to support a woman that all of them hate.
Each of the women represents a certain type: the angry one, the pious one, the jaded slutty one, the one who thinks she's too fat, the gay one. They come and go from the bedroom of the sister of the bride, bearing champagne and hors d'ouevres, and proceed to smoke cigarettes, get stoned, bitch about men, fight with each other, and basically pass the time.
Nothing much happens; despite a sad and dark confession or two, and a few screaming arguments, it's a slice-of-life scenario that very much needs a brisk pace and fully-blown characterisations to carry it along. Under director Arthur Sheridan, the piece fails to live up to its slight but amusing potential. Apart from Carol Rooney's Georgeanne (the one who thinks she's too fat) and Donal Thoms-Cappello (the sincere guy who's keen to pull), none of the cast has a real grasp of what is, despite having been somewhat successfully "Irished up", an American text that demands mastery of American speech.
Unimaginative blocking drags the production down further, and the real stars of the show - those five dresses - simply weren't grotesque enough. - Susan Conley
Runs until Saturday
Fredrik Burstedt (violin), RTÉCO/Niklas Willén
National Concert Hall, Dublin
Estrella de Soria Overture - Berwald
Two Sentimental Romances - Stenhammar
Serenade for Strings - Wirén
Pavane pour une infante défunte - Ravel
Carmen Fantasy - Sarasate
Dances of Galánta - Kodály
The first half of the Summer Teatime Concert by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra was an all-Swedish affair, with pieces by three Swedes performed by a Swedish conductor and soloist. The best-known item was Dag Wirén's delicately Stravinskian Serenade for Strings, written in 1937. It was also the work which received the most stylish performance under Niklas Willén.
Fredrik Burstedt, leader of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, took too long to warm up in the Two Sentimental Romances for violin and orchestra, which Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871-1927) wrote in 1910. And the "tragic overture", Estrella di Soria by Franz Berwald (1796-1868), the most important composer in mid-19th-century Sweden, was rather underpowered in Willén's hands.
The evening's second half ploughed more familiar terrain. Burstedt didn't have quite the virtuosic swagger that's needed for Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy, but the audience's response left no one in any doubt about the pleasure they derived from his handling of Sarasate's violinistic re-workings of Bizet's great tunes.
Ravel's haunting Pavane pour une infante défunte was delivered without that unique glow which can make the piece so special. But Kodály's Dances of Galánta were done with boisterous high spirits, clearly intended to bring the concert to a rousing conclusion. - Michael Dervan
