REVIEW: The Babelfish Tartuffe (Ss Michael and John, Dublin)

As a fine example of high concept theatre, the Babelfish Tartuffe practically sells itself. A troop of young French and Spanish actors perform one of Moliere's classic 17th century farces, the script of which has been produced by pasting the French language text of the play into a web-based machine translation tool, the Babelfish of the title.

By this method, director, Jaimie Carswell and his Mangiare Theatre Company aim at creating a contemporary vision of the Tower of Babel, a hectic, confused place where language is constantly falling down around our ears, and constantly being reconstructed – by cowboy builders.

Tartuffe, like the language in the play, is a hypocritical fraud, a false friend. Somehow or other he has worked his way into the affections of the head of a wealthy family. But while he promises a connection with higher values, this impostor is busy feathering his nest. Now he even has his eye on the boss' beautiful daughter.

The problem is, it could be hard to learn all this if you didn't arrive at the theatre with that knowledge. For, true to its word, large parts of the dialogue are completely unintelligible. The actors add in the little peaks and troughs, the emotions that might fit, but what they say is often nothing more than a kind of babel. The performances, however, are not strong enough to carry a show built – by its own reckoning – on gobbledygook.

Yes, this is a pretty radical way to examine a crisis in meaning, but it's not that much fun to watch. As an experience it is rather like watching a classic piece of theatre, from another culture, in a language you barely know. The knowledge that there are no native speakers of this new tongue does not come as much consolation.

Fringe Racecard 2007 (part 1)

This year's Dublin International Fringe Festival offers 118 shows in a mere sixteen days and nights...so something's gotta give. Whether your tastes run to scantily clad female swordswallowers, or scantily clad male contortionists, or even elsewhere altogether, the Curtain has the essential guide to the Fringe, with the Top Five must see shows from the Fringe's first week.

(Full program at www.fringefest.com)

The Babelfish Tartuffe (SS Michael and John)
With a Fringe program, optimism and unbridled positivity is probably the best approach. I mean, who knows what The Babelfish Tartuffe will be like, but it' s already my favourite show. The shtick here is that Jamie Carswell and the Mangiare Theatre company have fed the French text of Moliere's classic comedy, Tartuffe, into the legendarily faulty internet translation site, Babelfish, and had the software output their script in English. Now, they are going to perform the resulting surreal computer re-writing of the seventeenth century tale of naivety, hypocrisy and an untrustworthy guru.


Ketzal / Incarnat (Samuel Beckett Theatre)
The award for most-hyped, er, that is, anticipated Fringe visitors this year… is shared between two companies. Russian outfit, Derevo's Ketzal, which mixes circus, performance art, mime, music and dance to create an abstract, extreme journey through human evolution, comes with a portfolio of boiling hot international reviews. While Fringe Festival director, Wolfgang Hoffman dubs Brazilian dance theatre company Lia Rodrigues' Incarnat "the most disturbingly moving reflection on human pain and suffering that I have ever seen". Beat that!


The Rep Experiment (Smock Alley)
Now is this a good idea, or the beginnings of a break-away festival. Working with a single cast, three directors will produce three different plays, and performed them in repertory for fifteen days. First off, Darragh McKeon directs a new version of Platonov by Chekhov, then David Horan has a tilt at Stephen Berkov's take on Kafka's Metamorphosis, while Tom Creed's production of German playwright, David Gieselmann's Mr. Kolpert closes out the rep season. The cycle kicks off September 8, but check carefully the dates of the show you want to see. That, or just take you chances.


Gerry and the Peace Process (Player Theatre)
The team that brought last year's funny, touching and weird, An Evening With Prionsias O'Ferfaille, are aiming even higher this year with nothing short of a musical comedy about the peace process with Big Ian, Gerry and Martin as protagonists. I, Keano meets Primetime, anyone?


All Over Town (Project Cube)
From the writer and star of the last year's runaway hit, Danny and Chantelle (Still Here) comes another dive into mayhem, this time directed by Calipo Theatre company's Darren Thornton. This time Phillip McMahon centres the action of his mad-for-it hero away from the Dublin clubs that our his natural habitat, and onto the backpacker trail in South East Asia, for a little 'gap year' action.