Reviewed: Three Sisters, Joan As Police Womanand Thérèse Fahy (piano)
Three Sisters
Abbey Theatre, Dublin
It's a coincidence, of course, but opening Three Sisters on a day when the news features bleak warnings of economic recession and hard times to come carries a shivering sense of timeliness. Brian Friel's masterful translation of Chekhov's play sees the Prozorov siblings on the precipice of their own negative growth; handsome, idle creatures in rural isolation, they pine for the old comforts of Moscow, suspended between the rosy past and an uncertain future.
Alert to the stasis between polished memories and fruitless hopes, director David Leveaux punctuates his revival with the heavy snap of a camera exposure, as though measuring these fading lives in frozen moments. Under that lens, Justine Mitchell's dotty Olga frets her way towards spinsterhood, Emily Taafe's girlish Irina is steadily shorn of illusion and Derbhla Crotty's remarkable Masha transforms caged boredom into a riveting, coiled display. All the while the entire household, populated by family, servants and visiting soldiers, seems poised on a knife-edge between ennui and delirium.
The delicately unreal dimensions of Mike Britton's shifting set - an initially dwarfing expanse in which characters lie supine, twirl idly, or clown around to fill its oppressive emptiness - accentuate that uniquely Chekhovian tone of tragic decline and comic absurdity. Leveaux seizes on motifs within Friel's version, interrupting the simmering tensions and tangled desires of the ensemble with potent moments - leaving the entire company transfixed, at one point, by a child's spinning top. But though he nudges at the prevailing naturalism with subtly self-reflexive gestures (mingling conspicuous stage managers with the actors between acts, for instance), the focus of the production remains faithfully on language and beautifully considered performances.
"We Russians are a people whose aspirations are magnificent," says Lorcan Cranitch, excellent as Vershinin, "it's just the living we can't handle." For Russians, read humans. In Friel's lucid rendering, the trivialities, romance and sustaining illusions of existence, not to mention its suffering, are as universal as individual - as Crotty's Masha says of discovering love, "You are the first-ever explorer." Friel is more sympathetic to the fate of these sad creatures than Chekhov, who often appears gently mocking. But neither is optimistic about the pursuit of happiness. Three Sisters may be no barrel of laughs, but given a production of stark beauty and a cast of great assurance, it offers consolation - even catharsis - during times of poor fortune. There is as much weary resolution as unquenchable hope in the sisters' final determination: "We have to go on living." Until August 2 - PETER CRAWLEY
Joan As Police Woman
Tripod, Dublin
Fun would not be a word you would use to describe either of the two albums released by Joan As Police Woman. Adjectives such as haunted, contemplative and uncompromising lend themselves more readily to Joan Wasser's refined brand of jazz-tinted and soul-flavoured tales. But for someone who has mined much of her material from the bereavements that have affected her life, in particular the passing of her boyfriend, Jeff Buckley, and her mother's unsuccessful battle with cancer, Wasser exudes an arresting enthusiasm in her live demeanour.
It helps that the 37-year-old is blessed with endless charm. Resplendent in a gold glitter dress and space cadet boots, her between-song banter was droll and self-deprecating. The laid-back set-up for the performance, with most of the crowd seated and those standing availing of the side walls for support, warranted her mid-show quip: "If anyone wants to storm the stage, feel free." There is no denying that Wasser's music occasionally approaches the murky waters of Norah Jones-style MOR, but for the most part she managed to keep the set invigorated by varying the delivery of her songs.
The brushed drumming of Parker Kindred and the sympathetic bass-playing of Rainy Orteca brought poise and balance to Honour My Wishes and Start of My Heart. The duo joined Wasser in three-part harmonies throughout the show and some of the biggest reactions of the night were reserved for I Defy and To America, with Kindred and Orteca ably filling in for the vocal parts originally recorded by Antony Hegarty and Rufus Wainwright.
Wasser appeared more comfortable when playing guitar and crowd favourite Christobel was rapturously received.
The Connecticut native is at her most magnetic, however, when alone at the piano. To Be Lonely and Real Life were highlights of the evening. Encapsulating the heartache hinted at in both songs, her soaring voice and deft musicianship filled the venue and were enough to persuade any doubters that this is a performer well worth cherishing. - BRIAN KEANE
Thérèse Fahy (piano)
Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin
Messiaen Vingt regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus (extracts)
Coinciding with this week's playing by David Leigh and Tristan Russcher of Messiaen's complete organ works, Thérèse Fahy's recital was a timely reminder that this was one organist-composer who could write with equal success for the piano.
Come December it will be 100 years since the giant of French modernism was born, and Fahy will continue the centenary tribute in October with a performance of his Réveil des oiseaux with the National Symphony Orchestra.
Her nine selections from the much-loved two-hour cycle of nativity meditations, Vingt regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus, were sequenced with judicious symmetry. The three most substantial items - Regard du Père, Je dors, mais mon cœur veille and Le baiser de l'Enfant-Jésus - were placed first, middle and last, and were interspersed with two groups of contrasting shorter movements.
Fahy pulled off a tour de force of memorisation and technique, trouncing a few vertiginous moments when the music seemed unsure of its next step. A sustained impulsion to string together the music's often segmented ideas kept her in unbroken communication with the listener. In the reverberant surroundings, some liberal pedalling brought sub-aquatic sensations to the slow-rolling chords of Regard du Père, and the flamboyant L'échange retained a mildly studious feel.
Je dors, however, achieved a moulded soft-heartedness that never became sentimental, Le baiser touched high points of sweeping elation, and Regard des anges flurried from tinselly beginnings to a bitingly brittle denouement.
- ANDREW JOHNSTONE
