Tonight at the Belltable Arts Centre in Limerick is reviewed byPatrick Lonergan and Beauty at the ICD, Firkin Crane is attended by Mary Leland
Tonight:
Lola Blau
Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick
Patrick Lonergan
Unfringed Festival mightn't be Ireland's biggest arts event, but it still occupies a significant place on our cultural calendar - as shown by Tonight: Lola Blau, its opening production. Jointly produced by Co-opera and the Belltable, this one-woman cabaret is a triumph for Camille O'Sullivan, who plays the title character.
Lola is a Viennese actress who is forced to flee Austria after the Nazi invasion. Reaching America, she achieves fame, but struggles with alcoholism and loneliness - before eventually returning to her home country.
It isn't a particularly original plot - but this story is much less important than the songs, performed in cabaret style, that represent these events.
Impressively balanced between exuberance and restraint, the music vividly captures Lola's vampish onstage persona - while giving us room to understand the singer's vulnerability as a refugee fleeing persecution. The show's strongest moments are when these two parts of Lola's life are contrasted: we watch the performer sing with weary cynicism about the necessity to never tell a man the truth, and then observe the individual singing backstage about her needs and anxieties.
This clash between Lola's public and private selves encapsulates the challenge faced by this production. With cabaret, we expect to form a wink-and-nudge rapport with the performer; but with theatre, we expect the action to remain at a distance, fixed firmly on stage. To be successful, the production has to overcome the clash of these two different expectations.
Furthermore, although the Belltable has been transformed into a cabaret setting, O'Sullivan is asked to work in difficult circumstances - to fill a stage that is excessively sparse, while working with an audience whose space is somewhat cluttered.
With assistance from Stephen Gutman on piano, O'Sullivan tackles these challenges admirably, showing that she's not just a fantastic singer, but a skilful actor too. Well directed by Michael Hunt, she knows exactly when to involve the audience, and when to reinstate the theatrical fourth wall.
Inviting us to rethink our attitudes to both theatre and cabaret, Tonight: Lola Blau is warm-hearted, thought-provoking - and great fun.
Running in the Unfringed Festival at the Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick, the show ends tonight. The Unfringed festival runs until February 8th, information from the Belltable (061) 319866.
Beauty
ICD, Firkin Crane
Mary Leland
Studio productions always pose a problem for reviewers: how much of this work is the finished product, how much is an example of an idea slowly (in this case very slowly) taking shape as a concept which may, some day, become a finished performance? The question - and a response that perhaps no performance is ever completely finished - arises with the presentation at the ICD of three interpretations on the theme of "Beauty" by Deborah Hay. An internationally reputable choreographer currently resident at the Firkin Crane, Hay works with immense interior concentration which, in her own rendering of Oh Beautiful (2002) allows some comic recognition within a desolate evocation of the American Dream.
The movement is tense, almost spastic, a feature which also restricts and internalises the performances of Ella Clarke and Cindy Cummings.
Sometimes suggestive of improvisation these are not without their own beauty: Clarke's intricate quivering to the Sleuth Wood-like sounds of Loonscape by Mara Helmuth and the blended colours supporting the unaccompanied postures of Cummings are imbued with the devotion of acolytes, but neither these, nor Hay's cracking coca-cola cans, are quite enough.
Rita Duffy: Beatland
Vangard Gallery, Cork
Mark Ewart
Rita Duffy's paintings have always set out to communicate a particular message or personal narrative. The driving force behind her concepts has mostly been informed by an exploration of themes such as gender issues, childhood experiences and political strife within her native Belfast.
In these new paintings, Duffy concentrates on the position (or indeed imposition) which frames women against a spectrum of social, political and historical contexts.
The format for conveying this within each composition is handled in a uniform way, as a small central panel showing a nude female figure is set against a dark, atmospheric background.
In each piece, the women are posed to reflect a particular aspect of womanhood, be it fertility, social stereotyping or simply the acts of resting or travelling.
The figures are painted in a fairly tight illustrative style, but coupled with this is a substantial interest in the textural surface of paint itself found in backgrounds behind the figures.
The two contrasting styles are unified in a purposeful way, as the manipulation of paint often reflects the title or action of the figure.
For example, Forest has foliage textures within the paint, Henwife has egg-shaped motifs, while the fluid style of Cascade relates to menstrual flow or afterbirth.
As surfaces unto themselves, there is a lot going on, with paint applied over lead foil or mixed with wax to give a translucent effect.
The unified compositional format along with the singular earthy colour range could be seen as somewhat repetitive.
However, the reasoning behind the homogenous approach gains credence as it has obviously allowed Duffy to merge ideas with painterly concerns with unbridled authority and conviction.
Runs until Feb 8th
Lynda Lee (soprano), Alison Browner (contralto), Eamonn Mulhall (tenor), Nigel Williams (bass), Canzona Chamber Choir, Orchestra of St Cecilia/Blanaid Murphy
St Ann's Church, Dublin
Douglas Sealy
All the works in this concert were originally intended for performance on Easter Sunday, so the predominant feeling is one of joy at Christ's resurrection, even in Cantata 4 which begins Christ lag in Todesbanden (Christ lay in death's bonds) and is a setting of Luther's solemn hymn of that title. Each verse ends with an Alleluia, but the gloom is only gradually dispelled.
In Cantata 31 and the Easter Oratorio, the abundant use of trumpets and timpani create a blaze of jubilation which casts its radiance over both works from the instrumental beginnings to the final choruses. The orchestration also has parts for flutes, oboes, recorders, and bassoon so Bach can realise effects not attainable by the strings and continuo to which he confined himself in Cantata 4.
It may be partly because the Easter message is so clear that soloists, choir and orchestra were very much at one in their approach and immediately established a rapport with a receptive audience.
For once it did not seem to matter that theological points were lost in the at times extravagant ornamentation of the text. Indeed, in the Easter Oratorio, (a Cantata in all but name for the two brief recitatives for Gospel characters lack any dramatic emphasis) one of the most beautiful Arias, a duet for soprano (Lynda Lee) and flute (Madeleine Staunton) repeats the words so often that they lose their meaning; nevertheless the effect was magical.
Alison Browner (contralto) is perhaps the singer with the most feeling for the meaning of the words; she brought great intensity to the sad phrase "My heart without you is full of affliction".
Blanaid Murphy's choice of speeds allowed the music to bloom.
