Irish Times writers review the Dublin fringe festival, Mozart Conerto Gala at the National Concert Hall and Quirine Viersen at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast.
ESB Dublin fringe festival
Risk Reduction****
Samuel Beckett Centre
Fear sets in as a constant from the first moments Rudi Mineur ascends two vertical poles at the beginning of Risk Reduction, by Australian physical-theatre group Dislocate. Our fear of falling or injury is used to magnify petty fears that haunt the Mr Bean-like main character (played by Geoff Dunstan).
Using harnesses, poles and ropes, the staccato aerial acrobatic sequences map out a gormless and anal office worker's battle with self-doubt. The main threat comes from Kate Fryer, who plays an unattainable romantic interest, cockroach and narky commuter.
Strong performances, quirky video images and some clever set pieces carry things along, but the piece finds it difficult to avoid being tricksy.
Certainly not the "shock of the new" experience festival director Vallejo Gantner claimed it would be, you can't help feeling there is a more sinister and questioning work kicking around somewhere inside.
Runs until Saturday
Michael Seaver
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Work****
Andrew's Lane Studio
How does a garbage man introduce himself at parties? Jim (Jeff Culbert) can fill us in. He also tells us what it's like to be a meat-packer paddling in brine, a waiter, a blocked advertising copy-writer and, unforgettably, a sewer worker.
The character delivering the three linked monologues by Canadian playwright James O'Reilly could be the same person, or three different people on the same painful journey, from childhood poverty and violence in North York, Canada.
O'Reilly's language strains against the limitations of the monologue form, combining brilliant observation and mockery with pathos, to capture the absurdities of routine drudgery.
Culbert gives a riveting performance, slipping from detached wise-cracking into flights of bizarre fantasy, one of which involves the cerebral cortex of a female diner spooling out onto the table, as Jim the Waiter watches in fascination.
He might be slipping through the cracks, but luckily for us he's not going to go quietly.
Runs until October 5th
Helen Meany
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Bag of Piranhas*
Theatre Space
Galway's Catastrophe Theatre Company is well-named, judging by this self-indulgent, disjointed piece of nonsense by Josh Tobiessen.
A man (Josh Tobiessen) is fired, comes home, tells his wife (Bairbe de Barra), has sex and watches television. A mate (Cormac O'Brien) turns up. His wife has sex with the mate. They capture a cheerleader (Katherine McCrann) to cheer up the husband; she turns out to be a murderer, so is short on cheer but long on histrionics.
There are cameos by an Elvis lookalike and a dancing girl (she had a nice dress).
All the actors speak like robots low on batteries, but no matter how they delivered their lines, the weakness of the script couldn't be disguised. The only thing with teeth in this play is its title.
Runs until Saturday
Rosita Boland
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The Eighth of March - Invisible Women
Bewley's Café Theatre*
A tragic story is given a tedious, uneven staging, as Geri Slevin directs her own script concerning women in prison and asylums in Ireland and Australia.
Slevin tries to build a play within a play, as Bridget (Angela Ryan), eschewing the fourth wall, prepares herself for her part in the play that is currently running "behind the wire" in the 'Joy. Her seamless transition from nervous amateur into polished performer is the first in a series of inconsistencies and poor dramaturgical choices that give the show its overall feeling of being a history lesson rather than a play. Scene changes unfold in an unwieldy fashion, and not even the appearance of a prop turd can give the production the kind of hard edge it's searching for.
Exhaustive research rather than drama is the star of this show, resulting in a piece of agitprop that fails to agitate.
Runs until Saturday
Susan Conley
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Booking at 1850 374 643 or online at www.fringefest.com
Mozart Concerto Gala
National Concert Hall, Dublin
As a prelude to the Axa Dublin International Piano Competition, in May 2003, all five previous winners were invited to contribute to an evening of Mozart Piano Concertos. Philippe Cassard (1988), Pavel Nersessian (1991), Davide Franceschetti (1994), Max Levinson (1997) and Alexei Nabioulin (2000) readily accepted, but Cassard was too ill to travel, so at the last minute Franceschetti offered to play Concerto No 21 in C, K467, as well as joining Finghin Collins and Robert Farhat in Concerto No. 7 in F for three pianos, K242.
The Royal Irish Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Cavanagh, had only a few days to learn the new concerto - Cassard had intended to play No. 23 - but their performance was as accomplished as in the other concertos.
Sunday night's concert in the NCH opened with Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K466, played by Levinson. He showed a nice balance between strict form and free feeling; his crisp articulation allowed every note to stand out with clarity and elegance.
Franceschetti took a more romantic approach to No 21; as if Mozart had indulged in some crystal gazing instead of remaining rooted in the conventions of his day; but in No 7 for three pianos - the work which ended the programme - he chose a more airy, if less individual style, ably seconded by Collins. Farhat, though only 13-years-old, played his simpler part with aplomb.
Perhaps the most enjoyable concerto was No. 10 in E flat for two pianos, K365. Nersessian and Nabioulin were the friendliest of rivals: with one's eyes shut it was difficult to tell who was playing what. So engrossing was the give and take that they could almost have dispensed with the orchestra, but it did, of course, supply the necessary background to the action.
Douglas Sealy
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Quirine Viersen, cello/Silke Avenhaus, piano
NTL Studio, Waterfront Hall, Belfast
Fantasiestücke Op 73Schumann
Cello Sonata No 4 in C Op 102 No 1Beethoven
Zwei Neue FantasiestückeMark A. Moebius
Introduction and Polonaise in C Op 3Chopin
concert was the fourth in a series of free Sunday afternoon recitals recorded for future transmission on BBC Radio 3.
This particular concert will be broadcast on October 1st - it will be interesting to compare the balance the BBC engineers are able to contrive with the balance in the studio, where pianist Silke Avenhaus dominated, and at times threatened to overwhelm, cellist Quirine Viersen.
Avenhaus played with a rather hard and bright tone (and a fully-open piano lid) and it was a relief when Quirine Viersen's cello was able to emerge; her tone is not lacking in fullness and warmth.
Chopin described his early trifle as being for piano with cello accompaniment. It was a priority this performance observed faithfully, but one kept wanting more delicacy in the characteristic decoration in the piano part. Imbalance was most problematic in the opening Schumann Fantasiestücke, where the piano part is quite heavily written and the cello part full of short, sighing phrases, with little opportunity for the cellist to soar over the accompaniment, and in the Beethoven sonata, where both instruments are intended to be equal partners.
Mark A. Moebius is an American-born composer resident in Germany. His Two New Fantasy Pieces, here given their first performance, were written for these two players, but one wonders if they were being heard to their best advantage.
The second piece, however, shows a wry wit and an individual voice.
Dermot Gault
