Dramatic subjects are not always easy subjects for drama. Torture is a case in point.
The physical and psychological assault on the integrity of a human being is a matter of visceral importance. It is also an urgent one: torture has made a big comeback since 2001 and is now in all but name an official policy of the United States.
But it is very hard to represent torture successfully on stage. A direct re-enactment, as in Romeo Castellucci's Tragedia Endogonidia at last year's Dublin Theatre Festival, is never convincing, since one of the few times in life when you can be sure that people are not hurting each other is when an actor is being hit on stage.
Personal testimony by the victim, as in George Seremba's haunting Come Good Rain, can be stunningly effective, but for reasons that go far beyond the artistic. Otherwise, only the very best writers - Samuel Beckett in Catastrophe, Harold Pinter in One for the Road - have managed to convey the experience of torture without bathos.
In both its considerable strengths and its obvious limitations, Tejas Verdes, by the Spanish playwright Fermin Cabal, gets to the heart of the difficulty.
Lucidly directed by Roisin McBrinn on a superbly ambivalent set by Paul Keogan, this second play in b*spoke's mini-season of political dramas is a response to the crimes of the Pinochet regime in Chile, and more specifically to the attempts of the Spanish investigating magistrate Baltasar Garzon to have Pinochet extradited to face trial.
It takes its name from the idyllic-sounding hotel and beach resort (Tejas Verdes means Green Gables) used as a torture camp by the junta and focuses on one of the 3,000-odd "disappeared", a young woman called Colorina.
The problem that Cabal's skilfully constructed and admirably restrained text exposes is that black and grey are more theatrical colours than pure white. Unless we are sadists, innocent people suffering helplessly have our sympathy from the start, and thus there is little at stake in our engagement with their stories.
It is no great challenge for an audience to be made to feel that beating and raping a young woman and torturing her with electric shocks are bad things. And Cabal in fact reduces the challenge even further.
Colorina is a martyred saint, a beautiful young woman from a rich family who volunteers to work among the poor and who is targeted, not for her own actions, but because her boyfriend is a militant.
Wrapped as it is in religious imagery, her story feels much more like Catholic hagiography than political drama. And it represents something of a cop-out. The issue in torture is not the status of the victim, but the act itself. Torturing a poor, ugly man who is not a nice person and who is probably guilty of crimes is no better than torturing a rich, pretty, innocent woman.
The other side of this problem, however, is that the grey areas of moral complexity can be dramatically riveting. Tejas Verdes consists of terse monologues by five characters. One of them, Colorina, is sweet and good, and two - a military doctor and a Spanish lawyer defending Pinochet, are either wilfully blind or cynically corrupt.
Each is presented with economical precision and a strong presence by Sarah Brennan, Jane Brennan and Cathy White. But each is so one-dimensional that the scope for creative performances is severely limited.
The other two characters have a much richer texture, however, because they are drawn into the system of repression. Ger Ryan plays a gravedigger who has to bury the decomposed bodies hauled out of the rivers and canals of Santiago.
This enforced complicity gives her vividly detailed testimony a hard edge that Ryan hones into a cutting anger. Susan Fitzgerald, in an utterly transfixing performance, plays the woman who broke under torture, implicated Colorina and became an informant for the secret police.
This ambiguous story gives Fitzgerald much more to work with and she shapes it with both delicate sensitivity and consummate control into a genuine tragedy.
Eerily calm but with a volcano of hurt rumbling distantly beneath her words, she embodies what we see daily on the news: the fragility of decency in the face of violence. - Fintan O'Toole Runs until July 23
Josh Ritter - Whelan's, Dublin
In the consoling sounds and easy smile of Idaho-born Josh Ritter it is possible to forget the tumult of a day - even a day as dark as last Thursday. This is not due to obliviousness, but testament to songwriting of unusual warmth and compassion.
Preparing for his appearance at Oxegen on Sunday, the 26-year-old is a fetching combination of freewheeling energy and giddy nerves, all united beneath a thatch of curls. Garlanded here with acclaim, awards and even a tribute band, Ireland has been so good to Ritter that it's tempting to consider this a homecoming gig. "It feels like I'm bringing someone home to meet the parents," says Ritter, shyly introducing new material to a venue packed with effusive fans. The crowd beam back with near paternal approval. It's enough to make you sick.
But Ritter - hardly the first songwriter to hitch a lift with folkdrifters like Dylan, Young and Jackson Browne - is accustomed to dodging woolly sentimentality and musical clichés. Opening with new song Idaho, so hushed you strain to hear it, he shrewdly works up the gears: through a euphoric Snow is Gone, then a fist-pumping Me & Jiggs.
At times Ritter plays the sly romantic, as adoring girls cling to the harmony of You Don't Make it Easy Babe. Mercifully, though, the caddish undercurrent of Kathleen sends a sharper signal: He'll win your heart, babe, but he may be gone in the morning.
Forgoing his trademark suit and adopting an electric guitar, Ritter and his excellent band continue to exceed all folksy expectations. Nowhere is this more striking than an astonishing Thin Blue Flame. As the tempo grows frantic Ritter's usually mellifluous tones drain of their music and stark newsreel images amass. Ritter makes no mention of the horror of the day. He doesn't have to. - Peter Crawley
Common - Spirit, Dublin
Common is the long-distance rapper. Over the course of 13 years and six albums, Lonnie Lynn has always followed his own star. Others may have fallen by the wayside or sold their souls for sell-out arena tours, but the Chicago MC has always stayed true to his particular game. A socially conscious rapper musing on life and hip-hop's ups and downs rather than glorifying any kind of thug life, Common nonetheless possesses a lyrical punch worthy of a heavyweight.
He's hawking the Be album on this tour. Produced by Kanye West, it's vintage Common, eschewing the edgy experimental leanings of previous album Electric Circus to harken back to a more funky, feel-good, old-school sound he once explored on Resurrection. Smart idealism and articulate sincerity have long been Common watchwords and Be has these by the sackful.
So if there's an extra bounce in Common's stride right now, it's understandable. Not many rappers get to enjoy a reign of this duration, and even fewer are still producing new goods that their audience is keen to hear. While tonight's show naturally focuses largely on the new album, there are enough reminders of the nuggets in Common's back-pages to satisfy all comers.
Accompanied by a keyboardist, DJ and percussionist, Common sizzles. The host of what he's terming a basement party, he has both energy and charisma to burn. Whether it's pulling a girl from the audience to smooch with for Come Close or conducting old-school chants, you're left in no doubt that the dapper don centre-stage is the one who's running things on this occasion.
As one banger ends, another kicks in. From the new album, it's the likes of Testify and Go which resonate with the most immediacy, but more slow-burning tunes like Faithful and the anthemic It's Your World also strike a note, Common's lyrical flow pulling the audience along in his wake. Older material like The 6th Sense, The Light and Funky For You also get a look-in, each tune snapping and popping like they did back in the day.
A freestyle section is tweaked to include a few crowd-pleasing references to Dublin, but it's where Common is coming from that really triumphs. This is hip-hop with a stirring soul at the heart of it, a sound which has plenty of funky curves and jazzy fringes. When he launches into The Corner late in the show, a track that goes right back to hip-hop's streetwise roots, it all makes perfect Common sense. - Jim Carroll
