Reveiws of The Trials of Brother Jeroat the Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin, Il Divo at the O2 and Mum's the Wordat the Tivoli theatre, Dublin
The Trials of Brother Jero
Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin
Before we even meet Brother Jeroboam, the sham prophet and preacher at the centre of Wole Soyinka’s 1963 satire, we already harbour suspicions about his true nature. It’s no surprise when he contentedly introduces himself as a fraud, a womaniser and a con artist. But Arambe’s production, daubed with playful local and contemporary references by director Bisi Adigun, adds one more detail to Jero’s ignominious CV. Now he is a banker.
This is never stated directly, but when we see the Pentecostal pastor in a business suit, hovering over a laptop and a cheesy brass nameplate, talking about spiritual investments and referring to his congregation as “customers”, we know what they’re getting at. It lends a enjoyably piquant topicality to Soyinka’s Nigeria-set satire on faith, gullibility and materialism in a society addled by rapid transition. But for all Adigun’s added timeliness, the play frequently shows its age.
Soyinka's career may have been distinguished by pugnacious political engagement and a command of both tragedy and myth, but The Trials of Brother Jeroranks among his "earlier, funnier stuff". Despite the breeziness of its comedy, here accentuated with choruses of bright musical worship, there is something ugly lurking in its punchlines. Jero's acolyte, Chume, hounds his pastor for permission to beat his nagging wife. Jero denies him this, not for any moral or spiritual reason, but because it would dispel Chume's frustrations and lessen his need for religion – Jero likes to keep his customers dissatisfied.
Hanging a goading biblical quotation from the rafters (“Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands”), Adigun is setting a cat among the pigeons, yet his production would rather have fun than raise hackles.
This causes problems. The modern updates are fun, with Elizabeth Suh’s surly fish trader balancing her wares on her head while listening to an iPod, and Jero upgrading his delusions of grandeur from “Articulate Hero of Christ’s Crusade” to the far loftier “Barack Obama of God’s Democratic Party”. But when it comes to domestic abuse, it loses its modern articulacy.
Gabriel Akujobi wisely stresses the timorousness of Chume – all spectacles and shirtsleeves, he seems ludicrous and harmless – but when his wife, Amope (fiercely played by Nole Liberty), is written as a hen-pecking caricature, it doesn’t dilute the violent intention or deflect the aura of misogyny. Perhaps the subversive rush of a taunting polemic might have helped, but Adigun allows the pace to slacken and the production seems fretful.
More smooth talker than fast talker, Yomi Ogunyemi’s beamingly insincere Jero still sermonises his way towards a career in politics, which is where this play leaves us. Those who find it an abrupt conclusion should know that Soyinka wrote another Jero play. And anyone who reads an economic allegory into its cheery depiction of fraudulence and confidence tricks may reflect on that with a rueful chuckle: Jero’s trials are just beginning. Until Mar 7
PETER CRAWLEY
Il Divo
02, Dublin
Il Divo are the operatic offspring of Simon Cowell, a group of classical singers with a token pop singer and enough good looks to give a boyband a run for its money. The nagging feeling that this is simply Westlife with the odd word of Spanish and Italian thrown in never goes away.
The group take pop music and fling their operatic stylings at it, hoping that a bit of culture or passion might stick. But the tracks are bludgeoned by blandness and wrapped up in the cheesiest stage show imaginable. The four stroll nonchalantly in slow motion around the stage, getting dangerously close to the over-excited, largely female crowd. The opener, Somewhere, sets the bombastic tone for the evening: string sections drenched in reverb; a polished backing band that struggles for space with the orchestra; and a quartet of over-amplified tenors and a baritone with none of the lustre that you are entitled to expect from classically trained singers.
This "popera" genre should never have seen the light of day. The operatic elements in Il Divo are threadbare, while the pop elements are mawkish. Toni Braxton's Unbreak My Heartcould be performed in ancient Sumerian, but it still wouldn't make this shallow number any more soulful than a broken lift.
Carlos Marin (Dirty Divo perhaps?), the Spanish lothario who seems to be marked out as the most, eh, romantic of the four, slathers his libidinous charms around the stage in greasy spoonfuls. "It has been nearly two years since we've been in Dublin – did you miss me?" he purrs. David Miller (Wholesome Divo) tells us how delighted the band are to be playing Dublin as part of their UK tour. But the band quickly make amends with a version of Bridge Over Troubled Waterthat's as maudlin as molasses, in no small part thanks to the slick French stylings of Sébastien Izambard (Pop Divo) and Swiss tenor Urs Bühler (Adonis Divo).
A song dedicated to all the mothers in the crowd means most of the audience go home happy, €20 programmes clutched in hand. I, for one, feel like I need a wash. Il Divo return to the O2, Dublin, on Mar 7 and 8
LAURENCE MACKIN
Mum’s the Word
Tivoli, Dublin
The celebrated theatrical franchise, Mum's the Word,receives its Irish premiere starring five leading Irish actor-mums. Written in 1993 by five Canadian actors, it is The Vagina Monologuesfor mothers, a series of confessions and anecdotes about motherhood that are both cathartic and communal (the first-person addresses are directed candidly at the audience, while the other mums on stage nod in knowing agreement).
The women’s stories range from the mundane (the daily routine of nappies and napping) to the grotesque (terrycloth nappies and buckets of poo), taking in everything from labour to the letter-writing that becomes necessary between partners who are unable to talk because of tiredness. There is also a sobering story of struggle with a sick child, and Alison’s tale reminds us of the privilege of motherhood and the fragility of life.
The cardboard cartoon trees at the back of the stage and the primary-coloured fridge vaguely evoke the pre-school world in which the women are trapped. However, it is surprising that a popular commercial production should rely on such rudimentary design, and sound and lighting effects are similarly basic.
Performers Neilí Conroy, Anna Fox, Eileen Gibbons, Adele King, and Flo McSweeney relish the audience’s vocal identification with their stories, and Conroy brings vivid physicality to the part of Robin, most notably in the labour scene that opens the play.
It is Robin, however, who is responsible for one of Mum's the Word'smost bizarre theses, when she says that motherhood made her into a feminist. It is bizarre because there is no political depth whatsoever to the play's content, which confines its characters to the most basic physical aspect of womanhood: the ability to bear a child. And yet, by merely providing roles for actors who are also mothers – actors so often struggle to fight their way back into the theatre after starting a family – Mum's the Wordactually represents an important political intervention. Until Mar 14
SARA KEATING
