Reviewed today are The Dresserat the Everyman Palace in Cork and Lloyd Webber, Chowhan at the NCH in Dublin

The Dresser

Everyman Palace, Cork

THERE ARE two enormous and intertwined conflicts in Ronald Harwood's The Dresser. The second World War is the almost overwhelming background to the battle being waged within and about Sir, an ageing actor- manager discovering that, while the show must go on, he doesn't understand any longer why he has to be the one to keep it going. Or so he says, and perhaps so he believes.

Máirin Prendergast's direction for Skylight Productions strongly establishes the play's context, like a globe in which the two chief characters, Sir, and his dresser, Norman, are captured in a blizzard of air raids.

They are preparing for a performance of King Learby Sir's tired and understaffed company on a provincial tour, with England itself storm-beaten, anguished, frightened and confused. This is exactly how Sir feels, and it is from a state of explosive despair that Norman must rescue him, making sure he is costumed for the right play and reminding him, once again, of his opening phrases.

The fact that these two leading roles have all the best lines doesn't diminish the quality of the playing from the rest of a very competent cast, not least Martina Carroll as Her Ladyship (these are spurious titles, achieved through the nobility of make-believe). But the fact that these two parts interlock as the fulcrum of the play, carrying its defiant message of Lear-like constancy and bewilderment, brings them, and all about them, into the brightest spotlight.

Both Conor Dwane as Norman and Alf McCarthy as Sir sink their teeth into Harwood's writing. This is more subtle than perhaps either man has time to convey, and Dwane especially is hampered by an accent which he sustains gallantly even when the vocal pitch, set at crescendo, makes it impenetrable. As Sir, McCarthy uses a fuller tonal range, so that his swoops from physical and mental agony to the soaring elation of performance are entirely plausible.

Although he has to struggle with a costume which, while consistent with the period, makes him look like a demented Father Christmas, both he and Dwane convey the equivocal nature of their relationship and the tension of a dressing room besieged by uncertainty and terror.

With such a terrific writer as Harwood, there are scenes within scenes and meanings beyond the obvious. While these are all succinctly realised by a clear- speaking and disciplined cast, a little more attention to production details would have brought this credo to the transformational power of the theatre close to perfection. Until Nov 22 MARY LELAND

Lloyd Webber, Chowhan

NCH, Dublin

Debussy - Sonata in D minor. Britten - Sonata in C.

William Lloyd Webber - In the Half Light. Nocturne.

Brahms - Sonata in E minor, Op 38.

This recital by English cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, presented at the National Concert Hall by the Music Network, was a frustrating experience.

Lloyd Webber plays as if the performer is always altogether more important in the scheme of things than the composer. It's a high-risk proposition that can be extremely effective when it comes off. Sadly, this time it didn't.

Lloyd Webber's approach to the three major sonatas he offered was patchy at best, and he made the music his own in ways that seemed to take it away from the composers.

The rashness of his approach to the sonata by Debussy resulted in a severe loss of rhythmic stability. The sonatas by Britten and Brahms sounded over-stressed and effortful, with little sense of a solidly co-ordinated partnership with pianist Pam Chowhan, whose intentions generally seemed to communicate themselves more clearly than Lloyd Webber's.

The interplay at the opening of the Britten was one of a number of moments which suggested what might have been. It was delightful in its caressing freedom and every note seemed perfectly placed.

There were other passages, too, where sheer gorgeousness of tone won the day. But these were few and far between in an evening where the simple nostalgic romanticism of two short pieces by the cellist's father, William Lloyd Webber, was altogether better served than the major fare that made up the bulk of the programme. MICHAEL DERVAN