Becoming Total: Project Cube, Dublin
Peter Crawley
Okonkwo, the fearsome hero of Chinua Achebe's seminal African novel Things Fall Apart, stands before us, transformed. In the conclusion of African Griot in Ireland, Arambe Production's mini-festival, this imposing Ibo tribesman finds himself embodied by a blonde Finnish actress.
The most striking aspect of Biyi Bandele's stage adaptation is not Arambe's fearless approach to interculturalism, but rather how quickly director Bisi Adigun has found its limits. With just four hours of rehearsals to create a "total theatre" of performance, song and dance, it feels as if quick decisions have informed the performance, leaving stray consequences to deliver uneasy messages.
What, for instance, is the significance of six white performers portraying African characters with muddled dialects while one black performer plays the colonial district commissioner? The spirited defence of blurring both ethnic and gender divides is sweet, but sadly it does not obtain.
Achebe's story anatomises the transformation and destruction of a clan and culture by white influence, and the performers - if not the audience - seem unaware of the irony. If Arambe are serious about invigorating Irish theatre with African influence, it might be better to respect rather than ignore cultural differences.
Adigun insists he is not looking for perfection, he is exploring a process. He would be wise to continue, but also to pay closer attention to Achebe. The story has echoes of colonial oppression, famine and cultural annihilation. But ultimately it warns against a centripetal colonialism, of exploiting a culture and bringing its riches back to the centre of empire. Things fall apart, but sometimes that centre can still hold.
The First Man: T36 (Teachers' Club) Dublin
Gerry Colgan
This early Eugene O'Neill play, written about 1920, is not his best, but is still better than most new plays today. He always dealt in passions, using them to gnaw at the bones of his characters.
Curtis Jayson is an anthropologist about to go on a research expedition to China. His wife Martha has accompanied him on all his earlier adventures, and they have always been inseparable. He has secured permission for her to come with him again, as a gift for her imminent 38th birthday.
In the past, when their two young daughters died from pneumonia, they vowed to have no more children, and to let his work fill the void in their lives. But Martha is now (deliberately) pregnant, believing he will understand her need for a family. He does not, and hates the unborn child who has destroyed his life's plans.
Curtis's large bourgeois family get wind of their trauma, and mistake the scent. The baby, they conclude, has been fathered not by Curtis, but by a reformed womaniser. When Martha's travail has ended, she is dead, and Curtis will not even look at the healthy child. The play ends with some searing revelations, perhaps wrapped up a little too neatly.
But this is undeniably strong meat, spicily served by 12 young actors and directed by Nuala O'Reilly. They are all good, and the leads - Phoebe Toal (Martha) and John Egan (Curtis) - are better than that.
Runs until November 13th
Canzona Cathedral Players: Pro-Cathedral, Dublin
Michael Dungan
Kodály - Psalm 114 Liszt - Missa choralis György Orbán - Missa Quinta János Vajda - Via crucis
Leading Hungarian conductor Katalin Kiss directed the Dublin-based amateur chamber choir Canzona in a Hungarian programme at the Pro-Cathedral.
The concert's second half comprised contemporary music by living Hungarian composers, including Via crucis by János Vajda for mixed choir, small wind ensemble and organ. A sombre mood was set from the outset with a gentle motif played by the winds, music that returned periodically for a strong sense of unity over the work's 20 minutes, which bent but never broke in response to the diversity: plainsong, men's voices, ladies' voices, unisons, harmonies and strong contrasts of tempo. The organ, by Mark Duley, added a further dimension.
György Orbán dedicated his Missa Quinta to Kiss and her choir in 1992. The setting was unusual for such a jolly Kyrie, a plea for mercy after all. But elsewhere there was a refreshingly joyous quality to Orbán's jazz-tinged syncopations and harmonies, complemented by the subtle colours in his unconventional accompaniment of clarinet and double bass.
The concert opened with Kodály's short setting of Psalm 114, which suffered from a severely misjudged balance between choir and organ. Overall, the singers responded with courage and enthusiasm to the demands of both conductor and scores. Kiss's precise direction drew a relaxed quality from her singers and a level of detail and seamlessly-tailored phrasing which I've not heard from this choir before.
