The Chairs: Northern Bank, Belfast. Belfast is currently basking in something of an Ionesco Fest. After Kabosh's stunning, unnerving Box comes the absurd slapstick of Tinderbox's The Chairs.
Jimmy Fay's production is a marvellous piece of other-worldliness, its characters a mixture of two-dimensional animated figures and Guignol puppets; its environment a claustrophobic, circular room, inset with eight single doors and two tall windows; outside the room lies nothing but water and silence; the lives inside are fuelled by a constantly-repeated mantra of rueful memories and word games, reaching back almost a century. It is difficult to find an adequate description for the extraordinary physical transformation, achieved by Sean Kearns, as the towering, bowed Old Man, and Carol Moore as the tiny, birdlike Old Woman.
In the insulated security of their island retreat, they are entirely dependent on each other, with their funny little jokes and recitations, their pet names and touching mutual devotion. These are two quite remarkable performances, which will long linger in the memory.
Now, after 75 years of disappointments and unfulfilled expectations, the Old Man's day has finally come. In front of an audience of friends and supporters, he will share the experiences of his long life, relying on a professional Orator, who will speak the words for him. Owen McCafferty has brought new life to the quick-fire ricochet of words, in our own vernacular, and has crafted an hilariously ridiculous gallery of people, gathered to listen to the couple's often-rehearsed reflections. Stuart Marshall's and James McFetridge's spare set and lighting designs turn spookily surreal, as the distorted shapes of the rows of empty chairs are reflected off the bare, driftwood-coloured walls. And all the while, Conor Mitchell's plinky, burlesque music rises like a crazed barrel organ. At the climax, a great flash of blinding light heralds the arrival of, first, their Great Leader and then the Orator himself. And just as the hapless real-life audience is beginning to wonder where this bombardment of poignant, surreal, evocative moments is leading, the Old Man and Old Woman contrive a final separation in order to do what we are prevented from doing. They make a dramatic leap into freedom, leaving the last laugh with Ionesco. So was it just an insubstantial pageant, a deep allegory of human existence - or was it all done with mirrors?
Runs until April 5th
By Jane Coyle
Leaving
Samuel Beckett Theatre
The always interesting Monaghan-based Quare Hawks theatre company is currently touring with Philip Osment's Leaving, a play with the suicide of a young man at its centre. It does not attempt any facile diagnosis for what statistics reveal as a national problem, but explores the event itself and its repercussions on those most affected by it - the dead man's family.
It begins at Christmas on a farm that supports a married couple and their two sons, one (Sean) helping to work the farm and the other (Noel) away at a Dublin university. Noel comes home for the holiday a little early, and it is soon apparent that he is a sensitive and troubled youth. Sean is the reverse, lusty and irresponsible, a fun-loving extrovert. And yet, in the next few weeks, he is the one who hangs himself in the chicken-house. Under the pressure of the tragedy, the close-knit family begins to disintegrate. The mother accuses the father of self-indulgence and a lack of authority, and he tells her that she nagged her son to death. Noel alleges that she would have preferred him to die, and she lashes back by agreeing and suggesting that he may be gay - not a real man. Sean's fiancée is caught between them all, no longer knowing the direction of her life.
Time passes, and the family seem reconciled to their loss; but now we know the abyss that lies under their feet, and how fragile their normality is. The play, while leaving a sense that there is more to be said, still manages to be poetic without being precious, and convincing in its under- emphasis. Liam Halligan's direction of Brendan Laird, Deirdre Monaghan, Colin O'Donoghue, Conan Sweeny and Laura Jane Laughlin is impeccable in a very worthwhile production.
• Runs until Mar 29th; then tours to Clones, Kiltimagh, Limerick and Moate
By Gerry Colgan
McManus/Begley/Sanders
Mother Redcap's, Dublin
It was a session that would have stricken fear in the hearts of lesser musicians. Faced with a small but perfectly formed audience, what more could Tony McManus, Seamus Begley and Jon Sanders do but abandon normal operations in favour of a freewheeling knees up where pretensions of headliner billing were rendered redundant.
They're a curious trio: take one Scottish guitarist, another from Kent and a box player from the bowels of west Kerry and what do you get? A cross between a rottweiler and a labrador: enough bite to leave a lasting impression and enough plamás and tender loving care to salve the most vulnerable wound sites. For every yin there was an unmistakeable yang and so, the lonesome olagón of Dónall Óg was countered by the kitsch and bawdy Aisling Óg, the perfect foil for Begley's black humour.
The circumstances that encouraged them to share the stage inevitably resulted in an initial awkwardness as McManus and Sanders in particular struggled to cross paths in unison, on tunes they had never played together previously. Their solo tunes set a pace that demanded a decent cardiovascular system to keep up; McManus's coupling of The Easy Club Reel and Janine's Reel left most of us gasping at its rhythmic double-jointedness, while Sanders's initially effortful Sliabh Na mBan gave way to a rake of more fluid jigs and reels that betrayed his new-minted Kerry roots with impish delight.
Eventually they joined at the hip to tackle two versions of King Of The Pipers, and from there it was plain sailing home.
Begley trawled through his songbook to unearth An Chiarraíoch Mallaithe, McManus knit up every ravelled sleeve of care with a magnificent reading of the lullaby, The Clan Of Ulster, and Sanders and McManus duelled with gentlemanly politesse through Music For A Found Harmonium. Sometimes life forces us to take chances we might otherwise avoid.
By Siobhán Long
Leonard/Collins
Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin
Violin Sonata No 1 in D, Op 12 No 1 - Beethoven. Second Sonata for violin and piano (1978) - Wiliam Bolcom
Some musicians endeavour to impose their personality on the music they play, others seem to act as a conduit through which a composer's thoughts can flow, unimpeded. Catherine Leonard (violin) and Finghin Collins (piano) played with a clarity and freshness which places them in that second group.
In Beethoven's Op 12 No 1 there was forcefulness, there was tenderness, there was joy: but it issued from the music, it was never added to it. Everything was under control, but imperceptibly so; the adherence to classical forms was not seen as a limitation but as a facilitator.
Bolcom's Second Sonata is a sort of mood music; easy on the ear and hypnotic in its use of jazz-inspired rhythms and melodic turns, it was beautifully played without exaggeration of its jazz features, so that a delicate balance was preserved between the various sources of its inspiration.
By Douglas Sealy
