Irish Times writers review Apocalypse Then at the Everyman Palace Studio in Cork and Takács String Quartet at St Stephen's Church in Upper Mount Street, Dublin.

Apocalypse Then, Everyman Palace Studio, Cork

Two men, one in a box, one in a bath, make up the cast for Apocalypse Then , taking place at the Everyman Palace Studio. Written by Ciarán Fitzpatrick and John McCarthy, this presents a world suddenly under water; wondering if the water might be that of the Atlantic or the Mediterranean, one of them is told that no, it's Mitchelstown. The by-pass.

Even the apocalypse has its local geography, and the play sets up these physical incongruities as a counterweight to the personal dissonance of the characters, one a cynic, the other ostensibly making the best of the situation - the situation being extinction.

The flotsam washing up against the unlikely vessels inspires thoughts of survival along with the realisation that life is a series of half-understood images. Mildly funny, mildly original and with a few imaginative leaps into survival psychology, the play does no harm to the reputation of its writers, its cast Raymond Scannell and Paul Mulcahy or its director Sarah Jane Power, except that it might have been sharper and shorter.

Had that been the case, it might have distracted the audience's thoughts from the sirens and storm raging outside the studio space, which to be useful at all should be made soundproof, although the combined effects of torrential rain and rush-hour traffic provided a suitably cataclysmic atmosphere.

Until March 3rd - Mary Leland

Takács String Quartet, St Stephen's Church, Upper Mount Street, Dublin

Haydn - Quartet in G Op 77 No 1 Bartok - Quartet No 1 Brahms - Quartet in A minor Op 51 No 2

The Takács Quartet, formed in Budapest in 1975, was for a time the most frequent of chamber ensembles visiting Ireland.

This appearance at the Peppercanister (St Stephen's) Church in Dublin was, by the reckoning of the promoter, John Ruddock of the Association of Music Lovers, the group's 78th concert in Ireland.

Most of the Takács's concerts here were given during the 1980s (50 by 1987), and the group's profile has not been so high since the personnel changes of the 1990s.

This concert marked the first Irish performance by the current line-up of Edward Dusinberre, Károly Schranz, Geraldine Walther (the latest arrival, who replaced Roger Tapping in 2005) and András Fejer.

The Takács's style is now more central and balanced than in its early years, a little more sober and a little less spur of the moment inspirational than it was when Gábor Takács-Nagy was leader.

The players' approach to Haydn's Quartet in G, Op. 77 No 1, was sturdy and a little heavy.

Bartók has always been at the heart of the repertoire of this ensemble which came out of Hungary, and the composer's First Quartet, which bravely dared to take up where late Beethoven left off, still sounds imposing in their hands.

Best of all, though, was the second of Brahms's three quartets. These works often suffer in performance from an excess of textural density.

The Takács Quartet managed to convey the full richness of the writing without making it sound in any way over-ripe, and the music's portents of the future - taken in isolation the opening bars of the first movement's development section could be transplanted without shock into a 20th-century context - were still conveyed with fullest impact. - Michael Dervan