However alien Satyajit Ray's story might seem, audiences for this hope lessly endearing community project should find it curiously familiar.
An unfilmed screenplay in which an alien with rejuvenating powers befriends a little boy, Ray's Bengali-based fable withered under the chicanery of late 1960s Hollywood.
An unhappy experience for India's pre-eminent filmmaker, it became unhappier still when a strikingly similar little film called ET crash-landed in the multiplexes.
With such unlikely source material, German artist Matti Braun stages The Alien as an interdisciplinary and intercultural event: a performance project-cum-visual art installation featuring a cast of non-professional actors. Drawn from artists and the staff of the Project, the motley crew exude a disarming presence; their face-front stance, artificial presentation and frequent inaudibility reminding some of the principles of Brechtian alienation effect, others of the school nativity play.
Yet such innocence of presentation infuses the substance of Ray's narrative, which is less science fiction than magic realism - or even children's story.
The sudden appearance of a spaceship (roundly mistaken for a temple) in a lotus pond inspires diverse reactions across the drought-stricken village, from the phoney piety of businessman Bajoria (mischievously played by artist Alice Maher) and the cultural obliviousness of an American engineer (Project director Willie White, admirably comfortable on his own stage) to the sensitive reflections of a young journalist (Rajiv Lutful Khan) and the growing distrust of the villagers.
Similar tensions exist in the lambent tones of Braun's tableaux, ill-fitted to this nimble edit of Ray's script, while the Indian narrative is guided by an unusually meditative Kantele, a Finnish folk instrument.
Nicely contrasting the rigidity of the adult world, Tom Galione's boy and Katie Richards McCrea's alien dance out their mutual discovery in an engaging special effect. "Hey, it's taking off!" somebody eventually announces, and though we don't quite achieve theatrical lift-off, this gentle exploration of community and folk-tale does finally get Ray's ideas off the ground. - Peter Crawley
Ends tonight
Iron Maiden and Marilyn Manson - RDS, Dublin
When yesterday's bogeyman, Marilyn Manson, finally made his Irish debut proper, it was very much as the undercard to yesteryear's bogeymen, Iron Maiden. The T-shirts told the story, the vast majority of the crowd sporting Maiden's ghoulish mascot Eddie.
Manson's performance, for all the Grand Guignol theatrics, was flat. He was not helped by playing in fading daylight. When your modus operandi is OTT heavy-metal panto, a spectacular light show is essential. In the event, Manson had to make do with lots of smoke and elaborate stage props, including a set of leg and arm stilts that made him look like a Rocky Horror giraffe.
Songs such as mOBSCENE (emphasis on the "Obscene" there, kiddies) failed to ignite. It was only when he started rolling out the covers, Personal Jesus, Tainted Love and Sweet Dreams, that the crowd woke up.
In this sense, Manson is like one of those rappers who trade in unoriginal samples dressed up in hip-hop clothes. In Manson's case, it's an obvious 1980s song given a long black leather jacket and face make-up. It was only by the time of The Beautiful People that the evening light allowed for pyrotechnics, but by then his set was all but over.
If Manson offers a highly polished, if derivative, heavy-metal cliche, Iron Maiden look and act like they invented the cliche. Skin-tight leathers, long hair, feet on the amps, giant animatronic devil beasts, a 15-foot dancing-Eddie puppet, flames and fireworks, it was all here, grist to the cynic's mill, and impossibly entertaining.
After 30 years existing in a bubble impervious to fashion or irony, Iron Maiden still believe in all the campy excess that heavy metal inspires, and the fans lap it up. Frontman Bruce Dickinson is heavy metal's Puck, feverishly running, prancing, coaxing and screaming as the three guitarists and bassist whirl and pose and juggle their instruments.
The whole performance is breathtakingly over the top. After the forced theatrics of Manson, Iron Maiden's sheer energy and exuberance is a model of heavy metal showmanship. - Davin O'Dwyer
