the loy

ART: The Research Group (NCAD Media Graduate Show, meeting, June 2008)

2008-06-12T16:36:00.003+01:00

Hello...everybody...here is the text of what i was thinking of saying at the conference / meeting to mark the Graduate show of NCAD's Fine Art: Media Degree Show. Check against delivery, as they say.

What i was hoping to do was to say a few words about what i saw in the show, and then as quickly as possible get to the questions and general discussion. I hope to say something at least about the work of everybody who is part of the group, which is everybody who is graduating from Media this year.

I hope, then, that everybody will have some response to the terrible misunderstandings of their work that I will accidentally perform. And maybe even have some more general observations to make.
This struck me as something that was novel for me, to perform this kind of review of a show in the presence of people who can fight back, rather than back at home, safely hiding behind my own screen.

I hope you will forgive me if speaking in this forum means i'm not as tentative as i could be in print.

Forgive me too if i don't say "seems" enough. But, as i say, there is plenty of time set aside to rebut and rebuke.

And if you'd like to start that process while im speaking, please don't feel you need to wait.

A word first about what might be the most contentious area, that is ideas that seem to unite the work. I hope doing this doesn't tend to underplay the individuality of people's work, but all the same might say something about what effects and occupies an artist choosing to work in the most experimental, contended area of contemporary production.

Many of the works channel something which behaves like a perennial in the digital garden: a certain anxiety about the future of the body, its viability in a world of data, code and network topologies.

I saw, or thought I saw, several times a sense of worry, of preoccupation, with what is to become of this complement, this surplus, this thing that we can't get rid of.

Or can we get rid -- or in the more utopian formulation -- escape this incarnation and still have something, still be a something, stil be a subject? Or is the world of screens, the world of networks too impossibly thin, or too impossibly policed, or too impossibly owned for any 'us' to slip inside?

And, of course, is the discourse in which this is all expressed destined to be energised by desire or panic.

And if panic, which of those twin figures of contemporary fear does our interaction with these media represent: a terrorist attack or a virus. And are we the ever-mutating virus, ready to infect, or the terrorists ready to outrage the otherwise Edenic space on the other side of the screen.

I'm thinking there of David Chandler's installation, which dices and remixes the city of Dublin we think we know, describing subterranean passages which collapse familiar geography into a series of apparently playable levels. But as that happens, it leaves the human subject in a situation something akin to a pinball (an artefact that reappears elsewhere). But a pinball, it might seem, in a game of cards. That is, something that the rules fail to envisage.

The idea of screen as a mirror focuses this idea once more: as though we have already redistributed the surplus and lodged that other us inside the machine, the network, an idea which haunts Andrew McGill Coggin's treasure hunt, a hot pursuit of any atavistic magic inhabiting new media, as we watch our onscreen bodies dissolve and turn inside out, replacing externalities with interiors, an action which prefigures the sudden collapse of distinction between the here and the there.

A similar figure of externalised internals appears in Cian Fanning installation, in which a kind of autopsy of the television set is performed. The disorientation here comes from the fact that the television, the machine, is apparently, conducting its own autopsy, using the transubstantiation of text-to-speech to speak its bodies, to describe its own systems of systems out loud, in a kind of masturbatory diode porn.

And speaking off diode porn, in Ruth Chadwick's dream chamber (which calls to mind Michel Gondry's Science of Sleep) the solid world itself proves to be every bit as insubstantial as the virtual world, a skin on which functionless organs have been tatooed. But the image that presides over this fantasy office space, the most embodied aspect, is a pin up of a tangle of libidinally unshielded twisted pairs.

Next door, Dillon Joyce uses the younger technology of video to perform partial -- and temporary -- erasures of an older one: that of paint on canvas stretcher, igniting abstract gestural work with the flickering movement of light itself.

Liam Ward and Philip Kennedy have created work that feeds on the forms of contemporary mass media, Ward's research leads him to ride shotgun into the night, hitching a lift on the death drive, while Philip Kennedy creates a kind of art world science fiction, imagining not flying cars and engineered humans, but instead an art career that spans -- almost despondently -- into the future perfect. Engineered humans do make an appearance in Michael Lathrop's work, which blocks off the exits by which we might escape our responsibilities in a world of exploitation, graphically implicating the viewer in the machinery of instumentalisation.

Phoebe Dick closes the gap even more, in a tiny image which loomed, for me, over the exhibition. It's an image of a human in the form of a circuit, its brain a tiny diode awaiting current. It's an image of massive change reduced in scale until the detail of foreboding blurs into charm and humour. As a counterbalance to the levity of Phoebe Dick's engagement, we might add Enda McNally's apocalyptically pessimistic approach, which refuses even dystopia as somehow too idealistic, taking solace in mark-making as an activity that threatens to reunite the ages, as though the US promise to "bomb Pakistan back into the stone age" might be some sort of desirable form of time travel.

It also calls to mind Bourriaud's insight, that fruitful thinking often comes "from artists who worked on the basis of possibilities offered by new tools, but without representing them as techniques" -- which is maybe something we will return to in a couple of minutes.

Sinead McGuinness and Leigh San Juan use the diorama and the toy theatre respectively as analogues, or perhaps prototypes of monitors, effective for exploring relationships with screen images. Both coincidentally also conceive the domestic interior itself as part of thought chain. Leigh San Juan reconfigures toy theatres to reframe a world, to take it home and place it on the mantelpiece of memory. Sinead McGuinness is hacking the eye, seeing how it can be made to fail creatively in task of discerning the world about it, in the interests perhaps, of seeing if it is indeed the eye that fails, or the world. Her's is a process that also reclaims photographic space as a virtual world.

Sharon Phelan watches as patterns form, wondering why they do, taking note of the steps in what Andrew Pickering calls "the dance of agency" in complex work that quickly leaves behind as unimportant all questions of media, in favour of an engagement with emergent content. It is a work which is occupied with rethinking the nature/culture divide in ways that might reformulate many of the anxious questions that we keep asking about the relationship of one to another.

On the face of it, Fintan Ryan does pretty much the opposite. he uses performance to activate the projected screen - activate in the sense of throwing the switch on a machine we already thought was running, but which proves to have been inert all the time. Content here dwells in the act of driving content out, an activity that happens all around us, though is seldom so usefully acknowledge. But as that happens, as content is evacuated, another richness floods in. Content, after all, is not susceptible to extinction.

The title of Sarah Lawson's thesis -- which i look forward to reading -- The Obsolete Body, crystallises for me many of the ideas that seemed to emerge in one form or another from many of the works here.

Animation is a curious word. it represents a technique by which life is breathed into the undead, the never lived, turning objects into subjects. And as such "Animation" may, i think, propose (as it does here) a powerful and acute fashion of observing fears and aspirations, involved as we busy ourselves softening the boundaries between the human and the non-human.

REVIEW: Love Letters (Tivoli Theatre, Dublin)

2008-05-06T14:14:00.002+01:00

What is this thing called celebrity, that even crumbs of which can turn a play into an event, a few pages of script into a going concern?

The shtick in AR Gurney's Love Letters, a play written in the form of a lifelong exchange of letters between two posh Yanks, is that the show has been built to allow big name stars slot into it easily, since the action requires them to be "on the book" -- reading out loud the 'love letters.'

Preseto! Gone is the irksome need to commit the thing to memory before it's time to catch that first class flight outta here.

That, at least, is one view of Love Letters, a just-add-celebrities drama along the lines of The Condemned, or even earlier, The Vagina Monologues. But the truth is – and it's not a big secret – there is a bit more to acting, and to making a show, than knowing the words.

David Soul plays Andy, a studious boy who grows into a stolid Senator, while Jerry Hall slips into the role of Melissa, a restless, Paris Hiltonish gal, given to booze and 'necking'. All of this we glean from their letters, for they rarely meet.

The performances are perfectly adequate – anything more, it feels, would be superfluous. And while Soul initially seems a little overawed by the occasion, even that hiccup can make sense here. A good laugh from the audience, and soon he and Hall hit a storytelling stride that gains momentum as the evening progresses.

Earlier dramas have often used this 'on the book' form as a way of rounding up celebrity names to generate publicity for social causes. But Love Letters has no real political axe to grind. It is, finally, a simple love story in a broadly humanistic vein, the strongest message of which is that the rich have feelings too. A point with which the celebs, presumably, enjoy some sympathy.

But none of that really diminishes this superbly-designed piece of writing, utterly without flab, in which the gentle story flows so gracefully between the lines that the sharp concept fades into the background, leaving a clear and emotionally resonant tale.

Circo del Sombra circle The Abbey

2008-03-30T13:26:00.001+01:00

It had to happen. There have been so many 'new circus' companies through Ireland lately, eventually somebody was going to think up the daring wheeze of calling their company a 'traditional' circus. And that is exactly what next month's visitors to the Abbey, Circo de la Sombra have done. Around these parts, of course, you have to be pretty precise about what you call "traditional". Don't look for any bears here.

"Circus arts are expanding really fast since the past 20 years," says Johnny Torres. "Today we can find all kind of types of shows involving circus skills. Every circus has his own magic, from the most little and simple to the most complex. Our desire is to build a bridge between traditional and contemporary circus. An homage to the travelling women and men bringing illusion everywhere."

Although Torres sees Circo de la Sombra as following in the line of The Traditional Circus, founded by Philip Astely, in England in the 18th century, Sombra's style uses strictly human performers, displaying some of the traditional techniques of the game, from acrobatics and trapeze, to rolla-bola (in which a somebody balances on a board which is balancing on cylinder), and the German wheel (a big wheel shaped frame, which one or more people can get inside and spin across the floor).

Circo de la Sombra was formed three years ago from several smaller outfits who had been plying their trades around Europe. "We met in Geneva and Madrid training at the circus schools. We were basically three very different and particular duets at the same level of understanding, the same tune. We spent a year and a half meeting and doing acrobatics, then decided to jump together into the ring."

What the company has to offer, according to Torres, is an approach to making performances which is very intimate and human scaled. It is a style which evokes a golden age that perhaps never quite was, but which people are feeling a lack. The best term to describe that might be, then, nostalgic.

"Yes, we call our show nostalgic. We think we can make people fall in love with traditional circus, with the charm of hand-made and simple things..."

While the company avoid the narratives that have became common in "new circus" as a way to give coherence to a group of disparate acts, Torres and his fellow performers have given themselves a storytelling crutch to lean on, involving a mysterious character called Alejandro Sombra, from whom the company "inherit" his collection of sets and props.

"We have to bring it to life again," says Torres. "The thread is to make it possible, to entertain people with everything we find around. The starting point of the narrative is the doubt, the accident, the fall. It is an exercise for the audience and for us, we evolve together to the final act."

Selina Cartmell's Macbeth

2008-03-07T01:26:00.001Z

"The thing about Macbeth is…" Gasp! It is a few minutes into our interview, but there it is: director, Selina Cartmell has done it. She has used the "M" word that generations of actors have superstitiously avoided, fearing that it would bring ill fortune down upon their productions.

But Cartmell, director of theatre shows that plunge unflinchingly into the dark side, has no such fear. So are the actors in her forthcoming production of "the Scottish play" also using the title willy-nilly?

"Yes. I took that curse out of their hands. It had to be done. Otherwise you are just walking on egg-shells all the time in rehearsals."

As it transpired, the actors were walking on something more solid, if every bit as unusual for a stage. Cartmell's Macbeth will be stage in The Empty Space, an 'empty space' theatre established by Michael Scott, which has the pretty much unique featuring of using the bare earth as a stage.

Despite her reckless use of the M word, Cartmell's career seems to have been charmed, so far. She trained as an actor in Glasgow, before deciding that she had a far stronger calling: to direct. She first came to Dublin in 1998, as an Erasmus student, and returned a few years later when had grown tired of being an assistant director in London and "seeing the same faces, the same people all the time..."

Since then, she has made the kind of impression on certain section of the Irish theatre world that a hot knife makes on a pound of butter, creating blockbuster shows for her own company, as well as at the National Theatre, Project and The Gate, where she recently directed, Sweeney Todd.

Last year she won the The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, which saw her working in LA and New York with her hero, director, Julie Taymor, the woman who created the stage version of The Lion King, as well as a film version of Titus Andronicus, but who also works on large scale opera productions.

"I'm not that interested in the mentor and pupil side of things. But luckily, we were able to just talk about our work, and thought that we were able to develop a friendship, and a relationship. And then it just became two women working in theatre talking. Which was great."

Getting to know the legendary director, Cartmell suggests, made her realise that she might so far have been imposing some limits on herself. "I was with her in LA when she was directing Grendel, and there it was in a huge theatre, with 3000 people in the audience. And I thought, I'd like to do that…she taught me you must always, always keep pushing yourself to make sure you are never defined as just theatre director…"

Don Wycherley is a Fool for Love

2008-02-21T18:37:00.000Z

"Shepard is a real man's man: there's testosterone all over the play!" says Don Wycherley, of his latest role, as the no-good, two-timing cowboy at the centre of American dramatist, Sam Shepard's Fool for Love.

In fact, Shepard's play is so drenched in males hormones, it seems, that its writer was rather surprised to hear it was to be directed by Annie Ryan. "'He was kinda incredulous..." says Wycherley, dropping rather smoothly into a cowboy twang "'There's a woman directing the play!!?' But they met after that and they got on great…"

As it happens, Wycherley sees Annie Ryan's directorial style, an extremely souped up and modernised version of the comedia del'arte made famous by the director's Corn Exchange theatre company, as pretty close to ideal for performing this play. "The play is very heightened theatrically, so that is exactly what it needs."

"In this play there is a lot of turning on a sixpence as far as an actor in concerned, flipping suddenly from tears to anger, and Annie's style is ideal for that. Flip now! And again! I'm loving it, but my body is rejecting it…"

On stage with Shepard is proving it seems, far more of a physical challenge that the film and television work which Wycherley has been doing a lot of lately. Ever since his appearance as the likeable loser in Batchelor's Walk, it has been pretty much illegal to make an Irish movie or TV drama without Wycherley. Everything from Showbands, to Shrooms, The Running Mate and Garage, have benefited from the West Cork-born actor's particular charms.

His first serious television gig, however, was on the dearly departed Ballykissangel. "That was a couple of years on BBC money, which was quite extraordinary. Money has actually gone down since then," says Wycherley, keen to scotch the rumour that if your face is seen as often as his on TV, you must be 'coining it'.

Next up he will be on the Abbey's main stage, in Conor McPherson's directorial debut, a five-hander, set at Christmas time (though opening in May) and marking the return to the Irish stage of former Druid director, Maeliosa Stafford.

But until then, Wycherley will be engaged in trying to apply the correct volume testosterone to Shepard's cowboy.

"I met Shepard for a coffee over in the pub when he was over doing Kicking a Dead Horse. And I just sort of sat there like an awestruck drama student. He said: 'how's the ropin' goin'. And I produced the rope I'd been practicing with from my bag, and he said: 'That's not the right rope -- you can't rope with that, you need a 16 ¼ inch rough chord…' Well, I went and got the right rope now. And It's a grand piece."

So, did he not do any lassoing back in West Cork, then?

"God no, we just asked them out…"

The Wednesdays Nominated for an IFTA

2008-02-14T01:53:00.002Z

if you havent heard (and why on earth would you have) The Wednesdays was nominated for the IFTA award for short films. Nice, eh. Even better than that (possibly) it won the Audience Award at Clermont-Ferrand Festival of Short Film, which im reliably informed is way cool all in itself...

As for the IFTA, who knows. That's Sunday, and a hired tux away....

Ben Hennessy's Boy Soldier

2008-02-07T01:32:00.000Z

Theatrical lineage can be very direct sometimes. Take Ben Hennessy's play, Boy Soldier, which tells of a group of Waterford lads who, for various reasons found themselves fighting in the First World War.

That scenario might instantly bring to mind Frank McGuinness' Observe the Son of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, which covered similar events from an Ulster perspective. Well, the connections between the two plays is more than skin deep.

"The idea for Boy Solider really first came back in 1990 when we did a production of Observe the Sons..," says Hennessy, who is also Artistic Director of Waterford-based, Red Kettle Theatre company. "Sean Lawlor from the cast had done a lot of research on WW1 and told me about John Condon, the youngest allied soldier to die in that war."

As Red Kettle had hired eight WWI one uniforms for McGuinness' play, the company even took time out to make a short film about the subject. Hennessy has since essayed the story in a play for children, a radio play, and finally in 2006, premiered their full scale stage contribution to the mini-canon of Irish world war one plays.

"I think lots of people would be aware now of the Ulstermen's contribution there, but other Irishmen who fought were, for various reasons, left unacknowledged. For us it wasn't just acknowledging John Condon, but equally about acknowledging all the Irish soldiers who fought in that war."

And there were many. When Hennessy and his company took a research trip to Flanders, they discovered that as many as 12 men from Waterford had died on the same day as Condon. "And when we went to the Irish Peace Park our Michael Power found eight other Michael Powers inscribed there."

The Flandres grave marked John Condon, giving an age of 14 years, is, Hennessy says, the second most visited grave in the world; topped only by that of the unknown soldier. There has been much debate, however, about what age Condon actually was, and even if he is buried in that spot.

"We cover that debate in the play," says Hennessy. "But in a way, I'm not sure that it matters if that is where he is buried or not, or if he was indeed 14. John Condon, from Waterford, has become famous as the symbol for child soldiers all over the world."

And particularly in Waterford?

"I think there is definitely a much greater knowledge of John Condon in Waterford now than there was even two years ago. A plaque has been put up, and there was a move to put up a monument. But that met with some opposition. Y'know, a statue with a British uniform…that still hasn't happened."

Tom Creed's Heights

2008-01-24T00:48:00.000Z

"I like to call is "making up" rather than devising," says director, Tom Creed, of his latest show, The Heights, a brand new stage version of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

Or almost a version of Bronte's novel, because according to Creed, the play is as much a homage to movie version of the book, and even Kate Bush's hit single version of the story.

"I think a lot of people feel they know the story of Wuthering Heights, but they haven't actually read the book. Kate Bush, for instance, hadn't read the book when she wrote the song…and the idea for the play came from thinking about the Merle Oberon / Lawrence Olivier film version."
All the same, Creed and company did get the book off the shelf too, although leafing through it has not exactly produced a facsimile version. For a start, The Heights is set in a city…

"The characters in the book have the moors running through their veins. And for a 19th century audience, the moors will have represented something cool and romantic, the sort of place where you could go and just get lost. Today, it is the city that has that quality for me, this place where you can go and disappear..."

And then there is the little business of period. The Heights is set in the 1980s…
"The story is told by the decedents of Heathcliff and Cathy, who we imagine to be living today, so then we imagine that the love story happened more than twenty years ago, which leave us…in the 1980s."

It all makes perfect sense.

Wuthering Heights marks a departure for Creed and his Cork-based Playgroup theatre company. It is their first show to open in Dublin, though Creed himself, as a director with Rough Magic, has opened many shows in the capital.

"Playgroup has always tried to be an internationalised company, so it isn't such a strange thing that we don't always open shows first in Cork. Our last show, The Art of Swimming, opened in Glasgow. And after all, we will be working on the show more before it goes to Cork, so there is no question of anyone being short-changed…"
That period of extra development is something of great interest to Creed and his company. It is, he suggest, something that Irish theatre will need if it is to achieve the next level in development.

"We see it all the time at the Theatre Festival. Shows come in and we are wowed by the Hungarian show, or whatever. But they are shows that have been running for ages, improving.."

So how do they manage to do that, these great long running European shows?
"Well, if we knew that, we'd be doing it. But we're trying to find out…"

REVIEW: Vive La! (Project Cube, Dublin)

2008-01-12T18:39:00.000Z

Donal O'Kelly's work since Catalpa has not always been as focused and unequivocally successful as that shining chapter in the history of Irish theatre. But with the latest incarnation of his company, featuring regular collaborator Sorcha Fox, alongside a troupe composed of Ciaran Kenny, Sinead Murphy and composer and musician, Trevor Knight, the actor's theatrical language sees a mature flowering.

The show, which is devised by the company after a tale from a collection of Fingal folk tales, tells the story of intrigue and treachery North of Dublin, in the era of the United Irishmen's rising of 1798. A lad from Stoneybatter is coerced into spying for the Crown, enlisted to uncover the leaders of the group on pain of death. But his heart isn't it, even if he takes to the role of a monoglot French soldier, who ardently backs the men – and women – of 98.

O'Kelly's style has always had a Brechtian flavour to it, and here that it successfully incorporated into the action, as the company tramp on stage, eyeballing the audience and announcing their status as a traveling company of mummers, here to tell us a story. It is not a revolutionary set up, but it seems to give a kind of coherence to all that follows, as the performers dance, rhyme, sing, play instruments, create special effects and melt into and out of character.

O'Kelly and co conjure up this vicious world of plots, betrayals, ideals, love and spies with a broad physical acting style and a smooth, playful, lyrical but never over-egged language. The arte povera costumes from Miriam Duffy threadbare, lacy, or slashed, in shades of wet and dry blood, gently assist in giving the company of mummers a look and feel that is part gothic, part circus. All of which assists in producing a classy show that delivers on its promises.

Gary Duggan's new stuff

2008-01-10T18:12:00.000Z

It's not easy being a full time playwright, y'know. There's all that writing to do for a start. And then of course, there's the real business to keep abreast of. Ask Gary Duggan, the author of the wildly successful E monster drama, Monged, who has now been writing full time for more than a year.

"You have to be a lot more careful about how you spend you time, and not spend too much time dossing. And I really have to make sure I'm on top of every Arts Council application, every prize entry deadline. That's a huge part of the job now..."

As it happens, it is an approach that has always paid off rather well for Duggan, who grabbed the Stewart Parker Award for Monged, and has just recently been chosen as one of the young Irish playwrights who will take part in 20:LOVE, the National Theatre's new writing initiative for 2008. For this season of rehearsed readings (which will also feature something new from Philip McMahon) Duggan has switched his focus from the debauchery of an average night in Dublin, to a more extended period of hedonism with a Manhattan backdrop.

"The play is sort of autobiographical, I spent some time in New York in '99 and it really reflects that…I suppose when I was there, I was always thinking more about blending in as a New Yorker, rather than hitting the Irish bars, and the characters are a bit like that too."

"It is about an Irish guy who is living in New York and is visited by his ex. And they sort of hit the town: so it's a whistle-stop tour of Manhattan…like in Monged, the city is very important in the play and the locations are very specific places, clubs, bars..."

That play, Stopover, will open at the beginning of March, but before that, Duggan's Dedalus Lounge (which is set in a bar based on George's Street's Long Hall) is currently back on the stage, in the Mill Theatre in Dundrum. The play is, by most standards, a pretty grim piece of Christmas theatre, though relieved by nicely worked comedy and a decent Freddy Mercury impersonation.

"I think it has a good blend of comedy and the darker material, in a way that most people kind of find true to their experiences of this time of year...."

It is, indeed, a seasonal play in almost the same way that Fairytale of New York is a Christmas song: you can't quite believe anybody wants to rub your nose in such grimness at this point of the year, but it has enough verve and skilful humour to make you rather enjoy the underlying bleakness.

"Actually, Fairytale of New York is one of my favourite songs," says Duggan.

Donal O'Kelly's Vive La!

2008-01-02T18:20:00.000Z

"Stanislavski would go green in the gills if he saw what we were doing," says Donal O'Kelly, of his latest venture, Vive La!, a show in the style of a traditional mummers company.

"But you know, performance is a huge rainbow of styles that you can use, and we are all just trying to pretend with as much truth as possible. Which is pretty much what every actor does."

And in the case of Vive La!, finding the correct style of truth has meant dipping back into the native performance tradition, to a folk style always associated with the Christmas season, The Mummers plays. These rough folk performances, which leant heavily on rhythm, rhyme and music, previously provided the inspiration for Druid's in At the Black Pig's Dyke, in 1992, which used the mumming style to look at trouble and strife in the Irish borderlands.

"The mummers' plays also always had a bit of satirical steel in them, way before Boucicault or the Abbey, or anything like that came along. There was often a bit of hand-biting directed at the powers that be, the local landlord or bigwig. And we wanted to put a bit of that metal into the show."

The metal in Vive La!, the story of a Frenchman who fetched up in the village of Naul in North Dublin, in 1798, is, according to O'Kelly, about the great Irish tradition of spies.

"Because it certainly is a tradition, something that is really part of what we are. And I'm not just talking about 1798 and all that, but also part of what has been happening in the North in the last 30 years. Spying is something that we do as a species, and I suppose the play is about pointing to that and suggesting maybe, that there might be other ways of doing things…"

O'Kelly, devised Vive La! with Sorcha Fox, Ciaran Kenny and Sinead Murphy, a group which now forms the company in residence at the Glen's Arts Centre, Co Leitrim, near where the Dublin actor now lives.

"I brought the original story, which came from a book of Fingal folk tales by Patrick Archer. And then together we all had to work out what would be the best way of telling this particular story, the best way of pretending. And we decided that the mummer's style was what was going to work best, so we developed it from there."

If you were going to trust anyone to discover the useful contemporary aspects of mummers, O'Kelly, the performer behind some of the most lyrically inventive acting seen on the Irish stage, would seem like a very good bet, especially when he pegs his motivation so far from the realm of academic exercise.

"To tell a good story is always the main thing…"

THE CHATTER:...directions for 2008

2008-01-02T16:12:00.001Z

The first thing you may notice about what follows is that it has nothing to do with theatre (at least for now...). But on The Chatter this week (Monday, on Drivetime with Mary Wilson) we were talking about some things to watch out for in 2008, techwise. So, i thought it might be good to give a bit more background to what we (Myles Dungan was standing in for Mary Wilson, as it happens) talked about on the show. It's crystal ball gazing, so, y'know, likely to be wrong....

I suppose the main thing here is that if you want to find out where you're going, start by figuring out where you are...so I want to talk about a couple of technologies that have been about for a few years now, but which moved into the mass market in 2007 and seem to have a lot more possibilities.

So at the risk of being completely wrong, 2008 will be a year where we see two smart technologies that first broke through in 2007 really get into their stride. The two things are not gadgets in themselves, but little features, two little upgrades -- actually, i suppose, two components -- that were added into familiar products to make them seem very unfamiliar, very fresh and unusual...and they were...the multi-touch screen and the accelerometer...better know through the products which featured them, the iPhone and the Wii. Actually, the iPhone features both -- which is presumably why it turned out to be the product of the year in 2007.

So what are we talking about? Both of these technologies offered radical ways of telling them what you wanted them to do. We have all grown used to, or grown up with mouse and keyboard, keypad interaction with our computers and mobile phones, and, to a large extent, with our computer games. Maybe the mouse had a lot of buttons, as in a standard game controller, or gamepad, for your Playstation or Xbox, but it was still a mouse for all that.

Now touch screens have been around for years...but what we got this year was the multi-touch screen. Which, as it happens, has also been around for years. This is one of those things that Apple will get -- and is to some extent is already getting -- credit for inventing. There had been touch screens before -- that is screens which you interacted with by touching. Palm devices have used them for ages, in conjunction with a stylus, a little pen which you used to tap on the screen. And all sorts of 'kiosks' in museums and the like had screens that displayed buttons which you touched to operate.

But those interaction were very simple. You touched a thin piece of plastic at one point, and it was able to detect that (usually be detecting pressure) and respond. The problem was that if you touched at more than one place, the thing got confused. So those touch screens were just fine for showing you an on-screen buttons, but they weren't much good for anything else.

Then a company called Fingerworks invented a way that you could have several fingers touching the screen at once. (You can see their site here www.fingerworks.com but the company has closed down, for reason which will become apparent in a second.) Another researcher at NYU, Jeff Han, also developed a multi-touch screen that you could use several fingers on at once, and wrote some interesting bits of software that you could use with it. He's been on the conference circuit showing off his development (see his demo at the 2007 TED ) and has spun off a startup, Perceptive Pixel, to develop his tech.

The effect of all this (which has been picking up steam for about three years now!) was that you could 'touch' objects on the screen, using your fingers to twist, or push or pull them. What happened then was people began to have all sort of ideas of how you might interact with your computer that didn't involved a keyboard and a mouse, but pushing and pulling things around a screen.

Then a kind of new language of gestures began to appear for using these touch screens, so that, say, making a quick little circle on the screen with your fingers would bring up a little menu that let you open an application. One of the most famous things you could do on a Fingerworks gadget was stretch a digital photo by grabbing its sides -- on the screen -- and pulling them apart. And as everybody who has seen even the advertising for an iPhone, that is exactly what you can do there. Apple, of course, had simply bought Fingerworks and incorporated and built on that company's work -- and released it as part of the iPhone.

So, my guess would be that other phone makers will have to respond to that. And it's not simply a guess. Nokia already has shown off a prototype of a brand new phone with a touch screen for Symbian S60 phones, but the demo suggests that despite looking a bit like an iPhone, this is not a multi-touch screen, leaving Symbian and its pals still a step behind Apple.

here's a demo here:

A step in front of Apple was LG, who already has a touch screen (that many bloggers say looked remarkably similar to the iPhone) even though the iPhone came out before it.

There have also been rumours that Apple themselves might launch a bigger device with a touch screen. But even now, multi-touch (or two fingered touch is getting incorporated into laptops to replace ordinary trackpads. (Though as apple recently litigated into retirement one of the most famous Apple rumour blogs, Thinksecret, we may have less rumours in 2008)

And one of the rival multi-touch screen developers, a Jeff Han, has already displayed a massive multi-touch screen that is 8'3' and can be bought through the American store,Neiman-Marcus online sales (for 100,000). Microsoft too have announced a touch sensitive device, a screen come table which they call Surface and costs around 10,000 (But it is actually works using an old fashioned combination of cameras and projectors for its magic. Their blurbsite is here http://www.microsoft.com/surface

But more and more -- this prediction says -- these things will spread into other areas. Starting with laptops and mobiles, but moving into interior design, shop displays, advertising...And they won't all be that expensive. The popularity of the iPhone has just reminded lots of people (or informed them) how much they enjoy touching things, rather than pointing and clicking, make running spreadsheets more like making bread...

The other gadget, component, feature, call it what you will, is a device that we are going to see the effects of, rather than see, in 2008. Once again, this is a bit of technology that has been around for quite a while, but which really came into focus last year with Nintendo's Wii and its so called Wiimote.

An accelerometer is a little -- minute -- device that measures external force on itself. So it can measure gravity or acceleration, or movement. And it can measure this in one, two or, in the case of the Wii, three dimensions. This information can then be used in a number of different ways. Originally, it could be used to register vibration on a machine, car or building. But recently, it has expanded out of that game...

As i say, this is again just an new growth in quite an old technology, but one which is now more and more in consumer devices, whether you have noticed it or not. It made an early appearance in consumer products in cars, where they are used to alert the airbag systems to sudden deceleration. And as they became widely used there, their price came down and they started to be feasible all over.

One of the first places to use them was in fitness equipment, where they were used as pedometers, detecting each step somebody took jogging or walking. Nike has one of these systems. But lately, they started to find themselves once more in phones, and personal devices.

And once again, these form part of the appeal of the iPhone...as far as promoting accelerometers is concerned, Apple have been helping Nintendo with the marketing, by selling iPhones.

One of the features of the iPhone (and a feature which we should see more and more of) is an accelerometer that senses which way up you phone is and adjust the phone's screen accordingly. Like so much that Apple does, this gets them lots of attention as an innovator, but has actually been around for ages.

Several generations ago, Nokia mobiles had accelerometers in them, which were used to control little games, so that you'd do something like move a little on screen ball around a maze just by tilting the phone.

So fastforward a few years and you have phones like the N95, which has built in accelerometers, with a great deal of unused potential. Which has always offered encouragement for individuals to create their own tool. And so, one developer working on his own has already written a program which lets you control almost every feature of your N95 by shaking and twisting it. And it is notable that the program, called Nokemote (demo here) is freeware.

OK, so you can touch your mobile phone, or shake it about...does that really herald something radical in the way we use stuff?

It might, as part of a twofold change. And this is the crystal ball bit. First you'll start to notice lots more devices with multi touch screen and accelerometers involved . Or, better still, you won't actually notice that. You'll just find that it becomes a bit more obvious how to get thing to do what you want them to. You'll start interfacing with your computer (and that means, by the way, everything) in a much broader way. You don't just tap in letters, or click with your mouse, you perform little signs with your hand, little gestures which represent functions. (Microsoft attempted to coin the term "gestural computing" for this. But that doesn't mean it is just a rubbish marketeers word.

Next thing you know -- and we're into August of 2008 by now -- you might start to feel differently about your electronic devices. After all, if they seem to be more physical, so respond to your touch, or your movement, then it might be only natural that you respond to them in a more emotionally fashion. That might be an emotional change, but i think it is significant. You mobile, or your laptop become a little more like a living thing. (In sci-fi terms, our finally cosying up to androids/robots might not occur because we have designed a cute enough faces on them -- despite whatever Honda and Toyota and many other Japanese firms have to say about it. But when they respond to touch. Even if they have no cute smile, no eyes even.)

Once digital artist/engineer has already, of course, combined both the technologies I've been talking about here in one gadget (although, as i say, Apple beat him to that!) the multi-touch screen with a series of accelerometers to make a pretty impressive looking toy, er, i mean, work of art. Andrew Fentem has created a cube (which he has called the Fentix Cube) that is covered with multi-touch screens and is filled with accelerometers, so that it responds to movement and touch in most impressive ways.

Fentem has a film of it up on youtube (and that's another growing trend, previewing new inventions through youtube) emulating a Rubik's cube.

And his own site, www.andrewfentem.com, has a fuller demo it's called the if you want to see it in action. Could be the can't get toy of Christmas 2008. But this sort of thing is going to move from fancy toys, into everyday objects. And to kick off, how about a switching that old TV remote control for one thatincorporates multi-touch screen and an accelerometer-operated gestural interface. And of course, it should also double as a camera phone and control you Wii. A proper magic wand that would be.

Christman is coming and...yada yada yada

2007-12-14T13:48:00.000Z

It's a very serious business, the panto. Choosing which of the myriad of Christmas shows should be the one for your offspring is a fraught matter. Should you be aiming for good old fashioned fun and damn the consequences? Or do you see this Christmas outing as part of your issue's ongoing sentimental education, a grand opportunity to demonstrate that there is life beyond TV and text messages? Whichever you opt for, you can pretty much guarantee that what they remember of the night will be something else entirely. So, don't sweat it. Use a pin, maybe. It's worked before.

The Recruiting Officer (Abbey Theatre)
The National Theatre has always taken a slightly oblique approach to Christmas theatre. Lets hope it stays that way – and when the All Bran Christmas Panto opens at the Abbey it will be a sign of that the Rapture is upon us. Till then, the follow up to last year's smashing, poppy take on Sheridan's The School for Scandal sees Farquhar's comedy get the seasonal treatment. Ferdia Murphy, who designed School for Scandal is back to give the production a festive swagger, while Rough Magic's Lynn Parker directs. Children too young to pronounce the word "recruiting" will probably be more entertained elsewhere. (Booking: 01 878 7222)

Alice in Wonderland (The Helix)
Not all Pantos are about pushing sugared water and crisps, you know. Landmark productions are aiming for that section of the market who might be just a little bit leery of bringing vulnerable and advertising sensitive young folks to a couple of hours worth of FMCG marketing – whether brashly promoted in the title or vaguely disguised in the plot. In any case, Alice in Wonderland is aiming higher, looking to create a theatrical experience with a bit of class. An impressive cast should keep a wide range of ages focused on the surreal action. (Booking: 01 700 7000)

Gerry and the Peace Process (Players Theatre, TCD)
And what, when you think about it, could be more Christmassy than a musical about the recent history of Republicanism? Absolutely nothing. Volta Theatre company opened their hilarious and surreal musical about Gerry, Martin and Big Ian at this year's Fringe Festival, impressively mixing satire and song to produce something that was trenchant, but also – even more surprisingly -- thoroughly charming. Now the company has refreshed things for a seasonal outing. Still in the starring roles are Liam Hourican as a very charming Adams and Sean Duggan as his odd buddy, Martin, with 'guest' appearances by David Trimble and his Dancing Orangemen. Anyone too young to define the expression "parity of esteem" won't get the most out of this. But they might still enjoy the songs. (Booking: www.tickemaster.ie)

Can You Catch A Mermaid (Pavilion Theatre)
If you are in the market for a 5-10 year-olds show, the Pavilion may be the place for you – particularly if you have among your brood a mermaid fancier or two. Jane Ray's superb illustrated book for children has been adapted for the stage by Martin Murphy, while the nation's busiest director, David Horan takes charge. The show opens on Saturday (15 Dec) at 3pm, when Ray herself will be in attendance. (Booking: 01 231 2929)

Beauty and the Beast (Gaiety Theatre)
The grand dame, the Manchester United, the Ace of Clubs in Dublin's Christmas entertainment calendar this and every year. The quality (and indeed, the star quality) may vary considerably from year to year, but it's rare enough to find a dissatisfied customer among the glow stick waving masses that spill out onto South King Street of a Christmas evening. At least half the reason for that has to be the building itself – there is nothing like vast stucco ceilings, sweeping stairs, red plush seats and Maxi-Twists to get you in the mood for some blood-chilling audience participation. (Booking: 01 677 1717)

Aladdin (Lambert Puppet Theatre)
If you would like something on a smaller scale this Christmas, the country's only purpose-built puppet theatre, in Monkstown, should be your first stop. The Lambert family have been keeping the puppetry flame alive at the miniature venue for more than 30 years. The venue has an atmosphere like no other in town, like a cross between a temple and a creche. But in a good way, like. (Booking: 01 280 0974)

The Wizard of Oz (The Helix)
Not really possible to confuse this one with a panto, or even a theatre show. But definitely something with distinct possibilities…The RTÉ Concert Orchestra perform the live orchestral soundtrack (transcribed from the film's score by John Wilson) while from the screen will come all the dialogue, singing and effects. Some claim it is even better than watching the film while listening to Dark Side of the Moon. Fat chance. (Booking: 01 700 7000)

Dickens in Dublin (Bewley's Cafe Theatre)
Laurence Foster created and stars in his one man show recreating the Victorian writer's reading and performing tour to Dublin of 1858. (*see entry below) (Booking: 086 878 4001)

Jesus: The Guantanamo Years (Tripod)
The return of that timely Christmas show about a middle eastern revolutionary called Jesus Christ, who is arrested and detained in a certain American concentration camp at the Emperor's pleasure. A comedy, like, but not for the kids. And for one night only – 20^th December)

Laurence Foster's Dickens in Dublin

2007-12-14T13:44:00.000Z

There's Dickens shows, and there's Dickens shows. And Laurence Foster's Dickens in Dublin is both. His one man show is, as far as possible, based on exactly the kind of one man show that Charles Dickens gave in Dublin exactly 150 years ago next year.

"Dickens got into the performing after he ended up with a million dollar tax bill from his first visit to the United States. So from 1858 until his death, he was always performing," says Foster. "He became a huge draw and earned up to £1000 week, which was a good deal of money at the time."

Dickens approach for these shows, which took place at the Rotunda, was to perform sections from his writings, which he had made into scenes with dialogue, for which the author would play all the parts.

He had entertained the idea of becoming an actor in his youth and developed his own style for conveying his stories, breaking with the strict elocution of his day, and bringing his own characters to life so forcefully that audiences would shriek, laugh and hisses at sections from A Christmas Carol or The Pickwick Papers.

The style of acting used to tell stories in the way Dickens did is one that has all but disappeared, according to Foster. "There was a tradition of this type of acting that runs back to Dickens own time, to people like Bramley Williams, who I saw on television, on the BBC in the 1950s. You can't just go using any modern style of acting to do Dickens, because it just won't work."

Foster's own show aims to reproduce that famous Rotunda show, including the writer's interactions with his Dublin audience, but also adding to it writings about Dublin that Dickens produced later.

"When he came to Dublin he did not just write travelogues. He wrote a great deal about the conditions that Irish people were suffering at the times, about the Coombe, and about Mountjoy Gaol and published what he wrote in his magazine, Household Words, which is also where his stories first appeared. He was the Veronica Guerin of his day."

Historical accuracy remains one of Foster's aims in Dickens in Dublin, but as new material comes to light, the actor continues to incorporate it into the show. "A pamphlet came to light in which Dickens talked about how much he appreciated the response he got from Dublin people and audience, so naturally I brought that in…"

Tenderfoot Young Playwrights

2007-12-06T19:10:00.000Z

Get them while they are young, seems to be the principle of a pioneering playwrighting scheme, get them while they are very young. While the National Theatre, or initiatives like Rough Magic's Seeds project, are prepared to wait until writers are in the 20s and 30s before testing their metal, a scheme being run by a collection of south Dublin groups, intend to find the next generation of writers for the theatre before they even leave school.

Tenderfoot, as the scheme is called, began back in October, when 16 transition year students from schools around South Dublin were selected to attend a four-day workshop in Tallagh's Civic Theatre with playwright Gavin Kostick (he of the one man marathon Heart of Darkness reading) of Fishamble Theatre Company and Liam Halligan of Storytellers Theatre Company.

After this, students submitted finished plays, battling for the right to get a production of their show this month at the Civic Six plays were finally selected, and they go up next week in the theatre's Loose End space. (was someone filming this for a textvote-tastic TV series?) Along with the playwrights, another group of students has been given an introduction to aspects of theatre production, and have been helping get the new plays ready for their openings.

Tenderfoot, which is a collaboration between The Civic Theatre, South County Dublin Arts Office and Storytellers Theatre Company, has been developed by Barabbas' Veronica Coburn, who is currently artist in residence at the Civic.

So far, one thing is clear: if the champions of Tenderfoot are an indication of things to come, then there will be very few male playwrights on Irish stages in the future. The plays which have won through to the final six, as it happen, all written by girls.

And for anyone who want to keep a tabs over the next couple of decades, the winning plays are: Warming Ice by Eimear Bannister, from St. Paul's Secondary School, Greenhills; Fashion by Ellen Tannam from Sancta Maria College, Ballyroan; Pearls of Wisdom by Clare MacEntee, who is also from Sancta Maria College, Ballyroan; Nobody by Molly Sanderson, of St. Columba's College, Whitechurch; Monologue by Jade McDonnell of Collinstown Park Community College, Neilstown; and Trapped By Fear by Aisling O'Leary/Sancta Maria College, Ballyroan.

So there.

John Breen's Falling out of Love

2007-11-26T02:56:00.000Z

No amount of applause really tells you how well a play has gone, according to playwright, John Breen. "But when you've got them laughing, you've got them."

Breen should be in a better position to know than most Irish playwrights. His breakthrough show, Alone It Stands, left audiences all over the world breathless with laughter. So who better to try and breath some life into that most undernourished of genre in Irish theatre: the romcom.

"It was a very deliberate decision to write a romantic comedy," says Breen. "As a genre it tends to be very undertreated in Ireland. Certainly Tom Murphy hasn't been writing many of them lately…"

But for the man who had 62 characters played by a handful of actors in Alone It Stands, no simple romcom would do. Falling Out of Love is perhaps the world's first bungee jumping romantic comedy.

Set in contemporary Ireland, the play tells the story of three couples, in various stages of break up, who all happen to live in the same building, and on one particular night find their lives intertwined with a bungee chord.

"The image comes from the experience of trying to make someone love you, or trying to make yourself love someone," says Breen. "It has that terrible quality, like falling off a building and trying to grab the air to stop yourself falling. That and Wile e Coyote…"

Huh?

"…well, your original influences are always things like the cartoons, which I grew up watching and loving. And those cartoons, of course, were influenced by silent stars like Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, except the animation let them take the whole slapstick thing that bit further…"

And so Breen's little comedy calls for the contents of a small apartment to fly through the air, as well as for the mid-air, bungee-jumping rescue of a woman falling from a tower block.

"I'm interested in doing things on stage that you don't expect…like in Alone it Stands I could see it all in my head: the job was getting it into someone else's head."

And that somebody was uber-clown and Barrabas founder, Mikel Murfi, who these days is most often found directing shows for the likes of Druid.

"Mike was somebody I knew from college and somebody I knew believes in comedy as something important, something he rated. And I knew he would be able to make these things happen."

After the current Irish tour, Breen intends give the play a little oil-change and then take it back on the road, perhaps to Edinburgh the following year. So it is possible, then, to know that a show will still have life in a year or two?

"You can't know that it will still be alive, but you just act as though it will be," says Breen. "And it is a lot easier to know with a comedy, because, like I said, if they're laughing, you know it is working…"

REVIEW: The Last of the Celtic Tigers (The Olympia, Dublin)

2007-11-26T02:54:00.000Z

You couldn't help thinking of that climatic scene from Spartacus as he crowd gathered for the opening night of The Last of the Celtic Tigers. So many young men in pricey jeans, so many odd tans, so much pectoral definition. At any moment, you might imagine, the lads were going to jump to their feet and roar with pride: "I'm Ross O'Carroll-Kelly" "I'm Ross O'Carroll-Kelly," "No, I'm Ross O'Carroll-Kelly."

Paul Howard's creation was so exquisitely poised in its relationship with the zeitgeist, that it was never certain whether the writer simply spotted a type, or whether his writing somehow created these folks.

In either case, few people will arrive at the Olympia over the next few weeks knowing nothing about Ross O'Carroll-Kelly. Thanks to the newspaper columns, books, CDs and other manifestations of Howard's local media empire, anyone who hasn't consciously avoided the tale of Ross will be familiar with its cast of characters and the special little city in which they live. And so now, there's a chance to enjoy all that in the flesh.

The Last of The Celtic Tigers will not disappoint its audience much, but it is equally hard to imagine it exciting them too much either. The play is almost exactly what could be expected of it. It's a fairly well put together show, with very good performances -- Rory Nolan is desperately on the money in the title role, and gets solid support all around, with Rory Keenan's Ronan particularly enjoyable -- and it possesses just about enough gags to sustain its two and a half hours on the stage.

Howard writes some damn good lines – a riff about the effects of too many visits to Avoca Handweavers is priceless. But the writer (and to give him his due, his audience) often seems just as happy with slightly shop-soiled gags that spoil the stats. But this, after all, is boulevard comedy, (even if the boulevard in question is the Rock Road) so achieving the status of mildly entertaining, which the show is, must be deemed a success.

The Loy's sister publication, Big In Japan

2007-11-17T01:52:00.000Z

If you been wondering where you could see lots and lots of photos of interesting Japanesey things for the next fortnight, then Big In Japan is just for you. Step this way, madame:

http://www.theloy.com/big/

The Abbey's New Year

2007-11-17T01:44:00.000Z

It is not easy to get a grip on the Abbey's program for next year, which was announced this week. There is a liberal dose of the old guard at its mustiest, but some new faces, particularly in the playwrights' stable, as well as a significant number of imported shows.

If this is the real flavour of Fiach MacConghail's ideal national theatre, it's one that keeps the definition of what might be performed on the Abbey stage appealingly wide – including as it does, contemporary dance and circus. But it doesn't quite break with the bad old days either – someday soon, hopefully, staging a Brian Friel 'version' of a play by Chekov will be as unacceptable as it is unimaginative. But for now, that's what will hold the Abbey stage for the Summer months in 2008.

Elsewhere, there is an unashamedly American flavour to the program. A least part of the reason for this is the Abbey's new relationship with the New York Public theatre, designed see a procession of American works fetch up in Dublin, and a corresponding raft of Irish dramas wash ashore in New York. The first fruits of that exchange will drop when Mark O'Rowe's brilliant verbal fireworks display, Terminus, opens in New York next January.

British production outfit Crying Out Loud, who supplied circus-inspired shows to the Abbey over the past couple of years – including last year's delightful acrobatic show from the Hammichs family, Taoub – are back again with another 'new' circus presentation, Circo De la Sombra, an pan-European acrobatic show performed to the music of a Neapolitan band.

The big local show of the year will quite possibly be Conor McPherson's belated arrival on the Abbey stage with The Seafarer, due to dock next April. McPherson's absence from the Abbey over the last decade was perhaps one of the most obvious indicators that the theatre had lost touch.

But McPherson isn't the only newcomer to the National Theatre this year. One of the most promising sections of the program for the coming year is a season of short commissioned work from writers making their debut at the theatre. Called 20:Love, the season will feature rehearsed readings of plays by younger talents, all 20-minutes long and all on the theme of love.

Among those making the jump to the big league via this route will be Gary Duggan, best known for Monged, his elegiac rendering of a debauched night of necking yokes around boomtime Dublin, and Philip McMahon, best known for Danny and Chantelle (Still Here), his elegiac rendering of a debauched night of necking yokes around boomtime Dublin. Spot the connection?

Duggan and McMahon are also, to the best of our knowledge, the first Abbey playwrights to be on Facebook. But maybe I'm wrong there. Maybe Brian Friel is lurking there somewhere too.

Theatrical Facebook

2007-11-08T17:22:00.000Z

Now i may need a week or two to workshop this up into a notion, but here is what i think i noticed...the first theatre people onto Falsebook were from the PR end, they were quick out of the blocks, and friendly with it. Then some techies and admins. Then came the playwrights, the younger ones mind. The odd thing is, that it seems to be that only when this lot has secured the space that the actors showed up. Interesting if it's true...

THE CHATTER: Unconferencing

2007-11-05T20:29:00.000Z

You know what a conference is, don't ya? Well, how about an unconference? Mashup Camp is in Dublin next week, and swears that it is an unconference. It's clearly time for the Chatter's brief history of unconferencing.

+++Listen to Audio Here+++

Ken Fanning's Circus(es)

2007-11-01T21:48:00.001Z

Isn't it about time you knew your silks from your corde lisse? Your Chinese pole from your Danish one? With every other week seeming to bring a circus crossover act to town (check out www.emeraldcircus.com for a hint at the range of current circus activity in Ireland) a little familiarity with the terminology is bound to help.

Or is it? As a new show suggests, it's the emotional power of the circus skills that matter, not the techniques.

This week Barabbas open their new latest theatre piece, Circus, made in collaboration with the founders of the Tumble Circus, Ken Fanning, from Sweden, and Balbriggan's own, Ken Fanning.

Fanning and Segner has been running their circus company since the Spring day in 1997 when the two met, accidentally, like the pair in John Kearney's film, Once, while busking on Grafton Street.

"I knew Tina was a juggler because I could see juggling clubs sticking out of her bag, and literally within 5 minutes we were passing clubs on South Anne street," says Ken.

Together the pair formed Tumble Circus, one of the very few "new" circus troupes in Ireland. Perhaps the only one. While they have so far specialised in street shows, they are now moving indoors for their collaboration with Raymond Keane and Barabbas, a love story loosely based on the one in director, Fellini's cinematic hymn to the rough life of Italian travelling performers, La Strada.

"As a company, we have a lot in common with Barabbas whose work is based in clown," says Ken. "Although I think that, for instance, that Raymond is interested in the beauty of the clown, whereas we use the slapstick element more."

The intention in Circus is to use the skills of the Tumble Circus pair to tell a story without even resorting to words. This is possible, Ken suggest, because the skills of the circus always carry with them distinct emotional charges.

"Each act has a different emotional layer to it. For example, when we are doing a trapeze scene, for instance, it's very floating and slow, but quite dangerous. And it really evokes falling in love."

And while Barabbas show is one place to use those skills, as soon as the production finishes, Tumble Circus will be back to work. And to the tricky question of what the company growing profile should mean for its future.

"Right now, Tumble Circus is about the right size," says Ken. "You look at those companies like Cirque De Soleil, with 14 shows running around the world, and doing the same thing they've been doing since they started -- they're just soulless corporations. Who would want to become one of those?"

"All the big companies are just basing their ideas on what they find in the smaller companies anyway. The smaller companies are where the real innovations are coming from. That where the real creativity is. That's where we want to be."

THE CHATTER: Colbert in '08

2007-10-29T19:34:00.000Z

Stephen Colbert is the man on everyone's lips this week. Huh? Not yours? I see...well, this might fill in any gaps...Mary Wilson and I discuss the candidate least likely to succeed in next year's US presidential primaries, never mind get elected president.

++++Click for Audio

THE CHATTER: Wiki Wikedness & the gPhone

2007-10-22T20:12:00.000+01:00

This week we work out if the CIA are interfering with Steve Staunton's Wikipedia entry. Not really. It's John Delaney's that we're really talking about. No it's not. In other news, we join in the global game of gPhone hide 'n seek...

+++Click here for audio+++

UPDATE
If you want to hear what the people making it have finally said about the gPhone, here is a little promo from Andy 'Sidekick' Rubin's Android, which is the Google company that will produce the google software for mobile phones.

ALSO
A look at some gPhone applications in the wild

THE CHATTER: Lapelgate

2007-10-15T22:20:00.001+01:00

This week on Drivetime with Mary Wilson, we're talking about reaction in the US to the issue of what exactly it is, and should be, that Barack Obama wears on his lapel. And we also revisit Larry Lessig's "email bankruptcy" meme, and all those other folks with sure fire ways to free up your inbox.

+++Click here for audio+++