REVEIWS:Irish Times writers review a selection of events from the Dublin Theatre Festival
Cet Enfant
Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin
This child is grieving for the mother who never loved her; this mother for the death of the child she never loved. Based on real-life interviews, Compagnie Louis Brouillard’s Cet Enfant explores the relationship between parent and child in a series of case- studies enacted on stage. Emotional abuse in the family, we find, goes both ways, and the tragedy is Freudian, pathological; as the parent gives birth to the child, so the child begets the future parent.
In Joel Pommerat’s artfully minimalist production, we hear the voices that make these painful confessions with jarring clarity.
However, in the half-light of Eric Soyer’s lighting design, the faces of the confessors are shrouded by shame as, one-by-one, they reveal their failed responsiblities in the vacuum of this suggested purgatorial space. Live musicians incubate in an amniotic, womb-like structure at the back of the stage, punctuating the scenes with an original score that provides an almost celebratory counterpoint to the bleak inevitability of familial dysfunction.
Six actors play the multiple roles, their shape-shifting enabled by the murky shadows of Soyer's light. Their performances are raw and urgent; exorcisms as much as explanations, and there is no elaboration, no deeper psychological probing, in Pommerat's carefully edited text either. Indeed, Cet Enfantseems merely to be naming shame rather than excavating it; forcing the unsaid out into the open rather than probing its origins or potential resolution. It is a beautiful and thought-provoking production about a pertinent and difficult reality, but ultimately it remains rather superficial.
Runs until tomorrow
SARA KEATING
The Manganiyar Seduction
The Gaiety Theatre, Dublin
On first impression, the stage for Can And Abel Theatre's The Manganiyar Seductionlooks like a theatrical in-joke. A four-tier construction with 36 tight compartments, each one concealed by a rich red curtain and lined with the light bulbs of a dressing room mirror, it almost reflects The Gaiety Theatre back to itself – as though someone had decided to seal this ornate space in a sarcophagus of red velvet.
By the time a lone kamancha player is revealed, on the ground floor of the housing scheme, gliding his bow across the instrument in a wavering drone, while, one floor above him, a singer in the lotus position raises his voice in imploring ululations, a pattern emerges. Throughout the evening, performers are revealed in cascades: here a singer, now a dholak player, there a bansuri player. With the opening of each window, the stage resembles an enormous Advent calendar, disgorging music instead of chocolate. The comparison doesn’t stop there, as Royston Abel’s production is more confection than ceremony, its effect often as surging as a sugar rush, its meaning no more substantial. Rooted in the folk music of the Manganiyar, a Muslim community from the desert of Rajasthan whose songs were supported for centuries by royal patrons and more recently preserved by academics, the show is a song cycle of quite discrete components: a devotional Sufi song cedes to a wedding number, or a composition with an elaborate narrative (“she opens his eyes to the beautiful garden, which invites them for a nice walk in the lovely nature,” goes one programme description).
Such nuances of content may elude all but advance-level ethnomusicologists and those with a working knowledge of Marwari, but on the international festival circuit, the show is pitched more keenly on the level of aesthetic.
An unfurling vision which builds its own dynamic and expectations (who’s on the fourth floor?), it is certainly spectacular but hardly theatrical. The massed display of musicianship is impressive. The interplay between the precise percussion of the dholak players and the nimble clack of the kharthal players forms a compelling rhythmic spine. Incantatory verses draw you deeper. Long stretches may frustrate. In the grip of its inexorable momentum, the only entry-level requirement for engagement is to possess a pulse.
A show for the heart rather than the head, it nonetheless hovers free from the “authenticity” trap of pat cultural exports and faddish world music tourist trails. When a tradition is built on centuries of courtly patronage, adapting to the flashing lights of the now while encouraging your festival audience to buy CDs in the foyer seems an apt update. In that respect, the title is commendably unashamed. It is a show made simply to woo, eschewing long-term commitment, coming on strong.
Runs until tomorrow
PETER CRAWLEY
OTHER OPENERS
The Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival runs until Sept 24th
Other festival shows that have opened (already reviewed) include:
Druid Theatre'sproduction o f The New Electric Ballroomby Enda Walsh at the Peacock Theatre
Nomadand Livin'Dred's The Dead Schoolby Pat McCabe at Draoicht, Blanchardstown (later at the Pavilion, Dún Laoghaire and Civic, Tallaght)
Buck Jones and the Body Snatchersby Ken Bourke at Ionad an Phiarsaigh
Dublintheatrefestival.com