Waiting For Godot - Smock Alley

A country road. A tree.

Evening.

"Nothing to be done"

Beckett's absurdist masterpiece is resurrected by Smock Alley for a limited run before touring Brazil. With a very sparse set; consisting of a box, two suspended stretches of cloth: one bearing an abstract expressionistic background, and the other bearing the tree. Patrick o' Donnell (Estragon) and Charlie Hughes (Vladimir) are manic, charging around the space showing a great command of emotional extremes: sporadic joy, terror, confusion; emotional switches come at the drop of the hat making for an uneasy watch (paradoxically a good thing).

Best described as a very "in your face" performance, Didi and Gogo have no trepidation about getting right up into people's faces. The madness of this production reaches even higher realms of absurdity with the introduction of Lucky (Simon Stewart) and Pozzo (Ronan Dempsey). Dempsey's Pozzo is an absolute tyrant, completely overpowering the tramps as the cower from him, and Stewart's convulsing , drooling, zombified Lucky is a particularly chilling counterpoint to Pozzo's barking.

Waiting for Godot remains a very poignant play over sixty years since its initial performance, though what this production demonstrates in its emotional jumping about is that any form of meaning or consistency to this poignancy remains elusive. Much like the play's abstract background, the content of the painting may be guessed at by a viewer, but it will ultimately fail as a summary of the painting's content; the best description of it is simply layers of paint which encourage imagination. This method is apparent in the play: every moment, every dialogue exchange operates as a theatrical brushstroke which rings with some allegorical truth, but any attempt to pin down these truths ultimately fails. It is in this elusiveness that this play mirrors our lives. It is a monument to human futility. This is best emphasised in this production by Didi's excitement over the tree showing signs of life; when in actuality, it is only a single leaf on a very unhealthy tree, which is really just a piece of canvas anyway. The play shows our inability to interpret our world, and the distractions we give ourselves and each other as we wait for our own Godot.

But this again is another mere interpretation. Godot remains monolithic. Impossible to pin down but  eternally fascinating.

The Lonesome West - Everyman

Martin McDonagh's tale of warring brothers takes to the Everyman's stage in Cork in a new production by Blood in the Alley. The last of McDonagh's Leenane trilogy, The Lonesome West begins on the day of a funeral; the father of two brothers, Colman and Valene, who was shot in the head by Colman in what he describes as a pure accident, triggering a downward spiral in Colman and Valene's relationship. Well... it would have triggered their falling out if they hadn't despised one another from the time they were children.

Martin Lucey (Colman) and Denis Foley (Valene) complement each other perfectly in the brothers petty battles. Lucey's laid back taunting and Foley's tightly wound fussiness make their interactions immediately attention grabbing. For all their pettiness and violence, the brothers almost appear to enjoy this: the taunting over poitín, the statue smashing; it's as if they simply wait for opportunities like this to appear and explode at one another. Rowan Finken (Father Welsh) and Féadha ní Chaoimhe (Girleen) also give solid performances, though, ní Chaoimhe fairs better with Girleen's sensitive side more so than her filthy mouthed, poitín slinging side.

Beyond the performances the play suffers from crippling issues. Scenes are broken up by dimmed lights and music which make the scenes feel very disconnected. It doesn't help that during these breaks stage hands appear to make very minor changes. This coupled with the semi-constructed set makes it seem as if director Geoff Gould was attempting some Brechtian style illusion shattering, though what benefit that would be to this play is highly questionable. This issue is most likely brought on by a failure to overcome a  difficulty in the script, this difficulty being the small number of characters and locations which means for very limited options when it comes to transitions.

The script is something of a double edged sword for this production. While it made for pacing issues, it's also incredibly funny; the relentless quips, slapstick and bottom-of-the-well darkness of this script will leave you breathless from laughter, as long as you're not overly fond of religious icons and dogs.  While it's a mixed bag of a production, the performances and sharpness of the script overcome its unevenness.

The Importance of Being Earnest - Smock Alley

Smock Alley presents Oscar Wilde's 'trivial comedy for serious people': The Importance of Being Earnest. Directed by Kate Canning, this production takes Earnest from the lavish period sets viewers of The Gate's productions of Wilde's works would associate with his works, and places it in an expressionistic garden; other than that, everything is as expected. Period dress, Wilde's paradoxes and epigrams, cucumber sandwiches etc. If you have seen a production of Earnest before you will not have many surprises here. That being said, the plays (mostly young) cast deal competently with the material with a good sense of timing and emoting which is benefited by the intimacy of Smock Alley's main stage. Aislinn O' Byrne brings the most notable performance here with her squeaky Cecily, who, at times, appears on the verge of bursting into a psychotic rage.

I was partly disappointed by such a straight-forward adaptation, taking the set prior to the actors arrival as something of a promise for the unexpected, but really, this is more of an issue with the source material rather than anything else. Oscar Wilde's showcases of shallowness aren't especially flexible. They don't say much more than 'these are very very shallow people' thus they don't really provide much opportunity to experiment;  they're shallow and deeply rooted in the time in which they were written.  The quality of Wilde's  plays that maintains its popularity, and is maintained here, is the humour. The quickness of the wit. It may not matter from which mouth the epigrams come from because, simply, they're very funny. Wilde's charm simply oozes through The Importance of Being Earnest, to the point that it negates reinterpretation or revaluation. Being able to witness that witty shadow of Wilde that looms over performances of his plays become the reason to see them, rather than to see if anything new will be brought to the table.

 That being said, this is a perfectly competent performance; despite that irrepressible shadow of Wilde.  

DruidShakespeare - Kilkenny Castle

What is the Irish Shakespeare? This is not to ask for an Irish equivalent, but to define an Irish approach to a British icon. It could be said, from recent Irish productions of his works, there's an effort to undermine some ideas that form the foundation of the plays; such as The Abbey's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which took a story thematically orientated to youth and vitality and dropped it into an incongruous nursing home. Or perhaps more relevant: The Abbey's King Lear with its Celtic aesthetic; a synthesis continued here with Garry Hynes' slimmed (but still hefty) Henriad.

DruidShakespeare brings us Shakespeare's History series: Richard II, Henry IV (part one and two), and Henry V, a sequence of plays some refer to as The Henriad, and give it a distinctly Irish flavour. Its "England" is a minimalistic stage of soil and steel, appearing as a happy marriage between a bog and a meat factory. Richard, the doomed monarch of the play's first part is brilliantly moody, played by a spookily white Marty Rea; full of explosive joy and plummeting despair, dancing between comic and horrific. This dance continues past Richard's downfall into Henry IV, as the grave, guilty seriousness of Derbhle Crotty's Henry is contrasted with Rory Nolan's bumbling Falstaff and the Eastcheap crew. It's this point of the (very) long play that interest begins to wan; the loss of Marty Rea's Richard is only partially compensated by  Derbhle Crotty's noble and sympathetic Henry IV. Aisling O' Sullivan makes for a much too haughty and stiff young Prince Hal; his pranking of Falstaff is more mean-spirited bullying rather than charming ribbing, and the expressionistic take on the battle feels much too anti-climactic after the tense build-up to the confrontation with Harry Percy and co. Henry IV part two follows this lull, though it benefits greatly from its abridgment (Part two unabridged has a few too many acts). The play once again finds it's comfort spot in Henry V; Aisling O' Sullivan is a much better  King Henry than a Prince Hal, as she gives the plays numerous speeches with the necessary grandeur; and peppering of Aaron Monaghan ludicrous, growling Pistol adds some welcome levity.

Drama critic Fintan O'Toole wrote that DruidShakespeare asks "How can a state rid itself of the chaos and violence from which it emerges?" That key words, "violence" permeates the play, with deaths accompanied by spurts of blood. Similarly, "chaos" is a good descriptor of the play; its mood is borderline schizophrenic with its shifts from serious drama to farce. Henry V's comical French opponents prance around the stage with their ineffectual fencing one moment, and not long after we see them brutally executing Henry's soldiers. If the play offers a solution to Fintan O' Toole's question , it's by purging the state of its misfits, of its loose cogs. As Henry V's rejection of Falstaff breaks him, through his war with France, Henry cleanses his state of the rest of the comic misfits, petty thieves and fools who have no place in Henry's vision. Astutely, DruidShakespeare has these misfits rise from their deaths as a lingering elegy to flawed humanity crushed in the machinations of a state.

Is this a definitive Irish take on Shakespeare? Who can say. But DruidShakespeare c certainly delights itself in its wrestling with its source material, with small ironies such as Henry IV referring to himself as a true born Englishman when this play's Henry is neither English nor a man. It delivers on drama and laughs; and manages to entertain despite a slight dip in the middle, which is impressive for a play five-plus hours long.

A Midsummer Night's Dream - Abbey Theatre

The curtain pulls back as Johnny Cash's Ghost Riders in the Sky welcomes us to Athens.  Front and centre two walking frame-bound Athenians duel with rapiers, while others dance (slowly), and a crude blue moon is painted on to the back wall. It becomes apparent very quickly that this Athens' high white walls do not contain a kingdom. It's a nursing home. At this point you may think you have it wrong, then a familiar speech pattern crackles through the nursing home's intercom: ""Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour/ Draws on apace.." Our lovers are older than Theseus and Hippolyta, Egeus is Hermia's son rather than father, and the fairies in the forest are no more than the vivid dream of nursing home residents; this is Gavin Quinn's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The inversion of characters roles, may seem like a gimmicky, superficial change at first, but it becomes apparent that this change adds a different texture to the play. The lovers chasing after each other is no longer the obnoxious folly of horny teenagers, but is instead a meaningful attempt to rekindle this folly, a goal only achievable in the absence of authority, controlling children, and with the liberation that only dreams can bring. This effect is aided by the interspersed, dreamy deliveries of Shakespeare's sonnets throughout the play, most aptly by Sonnet 27 delivered as the Athenians are on their way to bed and fairy time is coming: "Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,/The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;/ But then begins a journey in my head.." The journey here is a journey to rejuvenated youth. The lovers are the highlight of the play and this is due in no small part to the performances of John Kavanagh (Lysander), Barry McGovern (Demetrius), Gina Moxley (Helena), and Áine Ní Mhuirí (Hermia) whose transformations from sluggish retirees to warring youths is endlessly entertaining.

Entertaining is a key descriptor of this production as it's full of playful cues, such as the painted on moon and sun in the background to simulate day and night. The lighting is similarly toyed with: Puck taunting the hand-torch wielding lovers, projectors casting shadows to simulate the woods, and in one of the play's funniest moments: Peter Quince (played by David Pearse) stepping out of a spotlight during the delivery of Pyramus & Thisbe's prologue to whimper. It is in the Rude Mechanics performance  that the production truly expresses its intent: to be irreverently fun. Despite the presence of the solemn sonnets and more serious moments like Oberyn and Titania's initial confrontation, as well as the influence of age inversion on the play's themes: It's a lot of fun. This energetic fun is presented from the opening cacophony to the  Mechanics "Burgomask" dance finale, or in this instance:  awkward dancing to Darude's Sandstorm. Puck may ask forgiveness if "we shadows have offended", but the play doesn't care if you are. More power to it.