Irish Times writers review Doldrum Bay at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin, In the Bedroom, Town Hall Theatre, Galway and threeseconds Pavilion, Dún Laoghaire
Doldrum Bay
Peacock Theatre
Hilary Fannin's second stage play confirms her flair for comic writing, and her ability to create credible characters through that medium. Two married couples and their intricate relationships are at the heart of the story, and two characters outside their artificial world throw their ambitions and desires into sharp contrast. It is consistently funny without ever drifting into farce.
Francis is a novelist manqué who has recently escaped from the job of writing advertising copy to focus on higher things, including pretty young women. His wife Magda, whose artist father is dying, is coming to an end of her tolerance for her husband's infidelities.
Chick, a former colleague of Francis, is stuck in the advertising groove, and is now close to dismissal. Louise, his scatter- brained spouse, is in constant verbal and emotional overdrive.
Then there are Java, a sexy waitress at a trendy theme club who has a fling with Francis, and Mousey, the tough young advertising executive who offers Chick a final project: an ad campaign to restore the Christian Brothers to their former status. Each character has a distinct and convincing personality, and their relationships are developed through laughter-inducing dialogue that rings true.
If there is a problem with the play, it is indeed that its people and the hilarity they generate tend to overpower the somewhat thin story, leaving a residual sense of something insubstantial. The proposed ad campaign is inherently improbable, taking on the air of a sustained gag. Emotional depths are touched on, but not deeply probed. It is not unlike coming in at the middle of a story, and leaving before the finish.
The intelligence of the writing and quality of its wit tends to shelve these negative considerations until the play is over. In the meantime, the acting is a joy to which each actor contributes. Owen Roe is a revelation as the blundering Chick - funny-sad and perfectly timed. Ali White's Magda and Karen Ardiff's Louise hold the stage with authority as marital misfits, and Risteárd Cooper delivers an interpretation in depth as Francis. Ruth Negga and Darragh Kelly complete the top-drawer cast.
Mark Lambert directs it all with balance and an engaging sense of purpose to shape an enjoyable experience, and something more.
Runs to June 21st
Gerry Colgan
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In the Bedroom
Town Hall Theatre, Galway
With a title like In the Bedroom, it isn't surprising to discover that Anthony Caleshu's play for Catastrophe theatre company concerns love, fidelity and sex. But there's nothing predictable about this perceptive look at the tangled relationships of four young men and women.
The action begins with an unnamed couple arguing. The man, played by Josh Tobiessen, feels unloved and insecure; the woman - Jennifer Harnett - is frustrated by his need for reassurances. The basis of their disagreement is quickly revealed: the woman has been having a loveless but passionate affair with someone else (Duncan Lacroix) - and, interestingly, the man is also being unfaithful, sharing a surprisingly affectionate relationship with another woman (Claire-Louise Bennett). These four characters' lives begin to intertwine intriguingly as they fall into patterns of manipulation and masochism, dishonesty and self-deceit.
Throughout the action, performed in the appropriately intimate Town Hall studio, a bed dominates the playing area, clearly indicating the centrality of sex in these people's lives. Caleshu is exploring the idea that the "most sincere act of love is to do bad things for good reasons". With such subject matter, there was a risk that the play could have yielded to the temptation to be sensationalistic and crude. But its treatment of the conflict between love and self-interest is presented with sophistication and humour.
This is Caleshu's first play - and it's a début that blends skilful plotting with wit and insight. Together, he and Paul Hayes direct a very interesting young cast, who all give strong performances. With memorable characters and sharp dialogue, In the Bedroom sets out to tell an interesting story well - and it achieves this aim admirably, delivering a refreshing and enjoyable production.
Nightly at the Town Hall until May 17th
Patrick Lonergan
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threeseconds
Pavilion, Dún Laoghaire
Critics use language to explore dance, but this time acclaimed Austrian choreographer Willi Dorner turned the tables to use dance to explore language. His latest piece, threeseconds, took as its starting point the linguistic concept of "atoms of language", the search for the smallest building blocks of spoken communication.
Dancers Anna MacRae and Matthew Smith from New Zealand, and Martha Wildman from the UK, whipped and jolted their limbs, in solos and in "conversations" with each other, always attempting to find that lowest common denominator of the body vocabulary. We saw Wildman in a solo of robotic fascination with the body itself; Smith's rubbery crabwalk across the breadth of the stage; MacRae's arms and legs fidgeting, testing themselves and the environ- ment like the tongues of snakes.
Dorner interspersed and frequently backed the dance elements with video images of geometric patterns and, in one witty segment, computer- generated demonstrations of hygiene products and the stick men used in international signs.
Language itself played a role as well: the dancers spoke English, its impact as both a universal mode of communication and as an abstract sound backdrop a bit muted on an English-speaking audience. Nevertheless, voiced- over syllables like pronunciation exercises from a language tape often perforated the dance with a numbing mechanical rhythm - both language and dance dissected themselves.
Three videos screened after the interval explored different concepts. The first rendered a cubist view of a dancer; a second monitored the same dancer moulding herself again and again against the flat and unforgiving expanse of different floors, grounds and walls.
Threeseconds was cleverly successful in exploiting a concept through a number of visual and sound exercises. The dancers displayed mastery over their movement and employed their skill to drive home the central theme of the piece. Whatever about the atoms of language, the communication lines of Dorner's choreography were open and humming.
Christine Madden
