Irish Timeswriters review Life is a Dream at the Project, Dublin and Moonlighting at Whelan's
Life is a Dream at the Project, Dublin
If dreams provide a stage for our secret desires and guarded fears, their interpretation depends not on the symbols they involve, but the words we use to describe them. That is particularly true of Life is a Dream, the 1635 play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, in which the diaphanous fabric of power, prophecy, free will and honour are woven together with words.
Inherited from a 17th-century Spanish stage where oration provided the exposition, the plot and most of the scenery, Jo Clifford's vigorous translation does not spare the speeches or tamp down the play's jolting self-reflexivity.
The challenge faced by Tom Creed's production for Rough Magic is how to take an ostensibly verbal play, littered with soliloquies and countless asides, and render it for an ostensibly visual age. For the largest part, he and his designers hit a guiding mark of stark simplicity, allowing for occasional acerbic flourishes.
Among an impeccable cast, Barry McGovern as Clotaldo adeptly manoeuvres through a myriad internal and public utterances while Peter Daly's Clarin smoothly negotiates between the audience and the world of the play. For all the invigorating delivery of Hillary O'Shaughnessy as Rosaura and Ronan Leahy as her wayward lover, however, Calderón's verses have little economy (it's not clear why much of it couldn't be honed down). As prince Segismundo, Paul Reid is eloquent and tortured in his expression of injustice and learned brutality, but the play's ceaseless reiteration and recapitulation robs it of its philosophical punch. Peter Crawley
Moonlighting at Whelan's
After a nervy start, Moonlighting found a groove that propelled them through a rip-roaring set. On paper it was a union that reeked of excitement: five musicians extricated from some of the best outfits in the tradition: Capercaillie, Altan, Flook and Solas. In the event, Ciaran Tourish, Dermot Byrne, Mike McGoldrick, John Doyle and John Joe Kelly brought just the right balance of virtuoso playing and shiveringly brilliant tunes to the mix. McGoldrick was the man of the moment, from the gorgeously lyrical quality of his flute on The Abbey Reel to his pairing of flute with John Doyle's percussive guitar on Leaving Friday Harbour. Doyle bristled with a quiet confidence that fed a handful of fine songs into the mix, including a refreshing interpretation of Dick Gaughan's Miner's Life Is Like a Sailor's. Flook's bodhrán-iste John Joe Kelly brought an ideal mix of restraint and dazzling genius to the floor. Tourish and Byrne were a solid undercurrent, occasionally stepping into the light for a blinding solo on fiddle and accordion.
Together, this quintet created an electrical storm that hasn't been witnessed since the flute/fiddle/guitar heyday of The Bothy Band. Chances are that breaths will be held until they drop a bundle of tunes and songs in a recording studio somewhere. Siobhán Long
