Gerry Colgan reviews Mike Leigh's classic Abigail's Party, while Martin Adams heard Florestan Trio at Powerscourt House, Co Wicklow.
Abigail's Party, Players Theatre, Dublin: Mike Leigh's play, set in 1970s England, has survived the years well, and the young Dandelion Theatre Company's production illustrates why. It is a satiric and scathing commentary on modern society, holding a mirror to its shallow ambition and vulgar escapism.
The play takes place in a suburban house whose owners, Beverly and Laurence, are throwing a small party for three neighbours. This is not the party referred to in the title; Abigail is the teenage daughter of one of the guests, and she is having a bash of her own down the road. Her mother, Sue, has in effect been evicted for the night.
The other guests are Tony, a computer operator, and his wife, Angela, a nurse. As drink loosens their tongues it becomes evident the couples have little in common with their spouses, to the point of barely suppressed dislike. Nerves are stretched, angry words exchanged; the evening ends in tragedy.
Much of this is very funny, but the laughter is of the kind that has been described as the crackling of thorns under a pot, and the realism can make one squirm with embarrassment. Director Justine Driscoll was, due to unfortunate circumstance, forced to take over the role of Sue and earns her double credit for a pointed and polished production. Stephen Wilson, Lynsey Mckeon, Tony McKenna and Andrea Grant complete the excellent cast. This is a short play, but it packs a punch. Runs until June 14th
Florestan Trio, Powerscourt House, Co Wicklow: Piano Trio in E flat Op 1 No 1 - Beethoven. Cinq Pièces Brèves - Martinu. Trio in D minor Op 63 - Schumann.
The Florestan Trio gave the fifth concert in the Music in Great Irish Houses festival. In every respect it showed why these London-based musicians are widely regarded as among the best piano trios working today. This is the sort of group that wears technique lightly and whose purposes are always musical, often profoundly so. During the Beethoven they adjusted to the bass- favouring resonance of Powerscourt's ballroom. Hearing it without having the composer's later reputation projected onto it was a breath of fresh air. It is a young man's work (he was 21) and has bouts of the forceful garrulity of which only Beethoven was capable. It is well not to take it too seriously.
One rarity in the programme was the Martinu. Written in 1930, when the composer was living in Paris, it was played with a panache that suited its hard-driving blend of neoclassical counterpoint and jazz rhythms.
The highlight was one of Schumann's most fascinating yet mystifying chamber works. Despite its scale it is packed with the quicksilver changes one associates with the composer's most sophisticated piano cycles. I cannot recall such a profound reading of this demanding piece. Full of intense feeling, astonishing in its handling of quixotic material and impeccable in the way it tilted at our expectations, this was an absorbing, extraordinarily intelligent performance.
