DRAMA on the stage in Brussels has been getting fierce competition these days from the carryings on off stage in the new genre of street performance - le theatre du boeuf.
Personally, I'm finding it's beginning to drag, though the performance of one Robert Court in the difficult role of the weary British spokesman is worthy of note. He has a particularly good look of pained sincerity - it's reaching the point when more than one of the battle hardened beef war hacks will pull his punches in questioning a man to whom every suggestion that his, bosses may be at fault is quite, plainly a grievous body blow.
But relief was at hand last weekend in the form of real, theatre. The Abbey's Sons of Ulster were in town courtesy of Brussels own sons and daughters of Ulster, the Northern Ireland Group, a brave and costly venture from a groups' which must tread a careful political line.
And, only a stone's throw, from the Commission, a Belgian director, Henri Ronce, was putting on a production of his own new translation of Synge's Deirdre des Chagrins.
The former packed the Royal Flemish Theatre to enthusiastic audiences on the three nights of its run. The production's sponsors, Aer Lingus, W&G Baird and both Irish and Flanders governments, should be well pleased.
The heroic theme of Ulster's finest marching with grim inevitably to their deaths was matched by the heroism or stage of actors battling to survive record June temperature" in full military kit.
It's a fine production, with impressive performances ala round, that has gone down well in Paris, and will, I am sure, do as well in Bonn where it is showing this weekend.
My only caveat is a vague sense that I left the first production in the Abbey 11 years ago with a greater empathy for the tortured soul of unionism perhaps the context of today has changed the effect of the play, or perhaps Patrick Mason's production has got the emotional pitch slightly wrong. The result was some confusion among those seeing the production for the first time.
Henri Ronce and Rene Zahnd's fine translation of Synge is faithful and his production, in the stylised tradition of Noh, with masks and ornate costumes and dramatic poses, played up those heroic elements of Synge which have been so influential in European theatre. This is the stuff of life - treachery, passion and ne'er a kitchen sink - and this agonising over destiny and free will is also very continental.
I'm afraid it's not my cup of tea, and I find it difficult to take seriously. The characters kept reminding me of TV cartoon super heroes. And the music, a strange form of Red Indian war dance - presumably to emphasise the universality of the theme kept on begging the question "where's the cavalry"?
By a strange coincidence, the Abbey in Paris had also staged the Well of the Saints to considerable critical acclaim, but Ronce, a distinguished and clearly accomplished director who has produced Yeats and Synge before, has had less luck with both critics and audiences.
What is curious about the Juxtaposition of the two plays is the differing perceptions of Ireland they offer. McGuinness reflects an attempt to come to terms with ourselves, with different traditions and their painful complexities. The play's importance lies in its rejection of the simplistic categorisation of Protestantism by nationalist Ireland. It is more difficult and inevitably less appealing.
Synge's Ireland is a much more traditional and romantic one. This is the Ireland, perhaps, that Europe wants us to be.
