Kutiman

I saw this some time back.  But got myself reacquinted with it. This guy, from what I can gather, is some Israeli guy who takes/poaches/steals/gives exposure to various different (as you will see) talented people and mixes it all together creating a cohesive song. And altogether it’s wonderful.

Merrion Square Facelift – New Memorial/Rutland Fountain Restoration

The Old Fountain is being cleaned

By Jonathan deBurca Butler

 

 

 

 

The west side of Merrion square in Dublin 2 has been undergoing somewhat of a facelift in recent weeks and months with the imminent unveiling of a new memorial to the Defence Forces and commencement of restoration on an 18^th century fountain.

 

The unveiling of the memorial, which is being erected to honour members of the Defence Forces who have died in service, was originally pencilled in for June.

 

 However, the complexity of the structure has led to delays in the realisation of the project and it is now set to be presented to the public by the Minister of Defence, Willie O’Dea and President Mary McAleese next Saturday, November 8th.

 

The monument itself, designed by the artist, Mr. Brian King, is a pyramid standing 3 metres high made primarily of granite slabs resting on a steel frame and interspaced with toughened glass panels. Inside the structure, which has just been completed at a cost of €175,000, are four bronze figures in relief representing members of the Defence Forces.

 

In a statement to the Sunday Independent a spokesperson for the Department of Defence said: “The National Memorial to members of the Defence Forces will provide a place for contemplation and remembrance, where families, relatives and members of the public can reflect on the contribution and sacrifice made by members of the Defence Forces who died in the service of the State.”

Mr King’s design was chosen in March 2007 following an open tender competition in which more than 30 artists from across Europe applied. Mr. King studied at the National College of Art and Design, where he became a lecturer and was head of its sculpture department between 1984 and 2004. He is well known for typically large-scale geometric pieces incorporating the use of metals.

 

 Just a few metres down from the new memorial, scaffolding has been erected for the cleaning and part restoration of the Rutland fountain. Dating from 1792, the fountain, designed by Francis Sandys, is a commemoration of the Duke of Rutland, Charles Manners who commissioned the piece before his untimely death at the age of thirty-three.

 

In its full glory, water poured from the two bronze lion heads on either side and from the small central conduit water flowed into a large stone conch shell at the base of the fountain. Many of the figures in the roundels that adorn the fountain have been vandalised and damaged since its building over 200 years ago and the water element has been cut off.

 

None of these features are expected to be resurrected but the work is being done in order to preserve what is left of the monument.

 

The clean up is being undertaken by Dublin based company, Interclean on behalf of the Dublin City Council at a cost of approximately €230,000 and is expected to be finished before Christmas.

 

Interclean has been responsible for many successful restorations in the past including the cleaning of the Bank of Ireland, College Green and the façade of Trinity College, Dublin.

Metamorphosis-Review-Dublin Theatre Festival (Olympia Theatre Monday 29th September)

At one point, about ten minutes into last night’s performance of Metamorphosis, the audience had a mild and satisfied smile to itself. The smile was induced by the slow realisation that the stage had been transformed. Having looked upon Gregor’s room pinned against a wall, we were suddenly, through a trick of light and brilliant set design, gazing into his room from above.

 

It was an amazingly clever piece of trickery and one that certainly gave the performance some oomph. As we followed Gregor(Gisli Orn Gardarsson) who, having been transformed inexplicably into a beetle of some sort, had to crawl his way around the house; his family’s life gradually continues in the kitchen under his room. Although his adoring sister Grete initially tries to take care of her brother her parents are not interested. Gradually, Grete herself begins to shun Gregor, treating him more and more like an animal than a beloved brother. Throughout, Gregor tries to communicate with his family for whom he was the sole breadwinner but his voice has been transformed into a loud and incomprehensible screech.

 

Over the course of the play, the family’s former hero is dehumanised and becomes referred to as vermin and disgusting. The Nazi overtones are striking and clever. When Gregor’s father, played here by the somewhat shaky (opening night nerves I suspect) Ingvar E Sigurdsson, finds a new job, which involves the wearing of a uniform, the family begin to change. The mother’s former floral attire is replaced with black clothing but most strikingly Grete’s caring and sunny demeanour is replaced by strict respect and punctuality, her innocent school uniform by a sharp grey suit and black leather boots.

 

When a potential lodger, a well to do and handsome man played by Jonathan McGuinness, comes to inspect his would be lodgings the family are beside themselves with admiration. Gregor interrupts them by crashing through the ceiling and the horrified lodger bolts out the door while expressing his disgust. The family draw the only conclusion possible and encouraged by the now frustrated Grete, Gregor’s fate is sealed.

 

 The star of this show, with Grete a close second, was the physically impressive Gardarsson. Although he did have a nice rest for approximately ten minutes during which the family try to sycophantically impress their would be lodger, he spent most of the play hanging from the wall, crawling down stairs or being thumped on the head. Throughout all this suffering he managed to keep the soft and sympathetically selfless character of Gregor alive. Perhaps his role as an actor was not as tough as the rest of the cast but he played to his strengths making his ending all the more potent.

 

This is not a word for word adaption of Kafka’s story but it is well done and stays true to the story’s main themes. And for the set and Gardarsson’s performance it is definitely worth seeing.

Irish author to write next Hitchhiker’s Guide

Eoin Colfer

It has been announced that Irish author Eoin Colfer will write the next instalment of ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. The Wexford man, famous for his bestselling Artemis Fowl series for children, will write the sixth in the ‘Hitchhiker’s’ famous ‘trilogy’. It should be noted that when the fifth book came out, the guide was described as a trilogy told in five parts. And it appears it’s a trilogy that just keeps giving.

The sixth book in the series will be published in October by Penguin, and although nothing is known about the plotline, the title of the book has been announced and will be called ‘And another thing’.

This is obviously great news for fans of the ‘trilogy’ who could have reasonably expected that when the original author, Douglas Adams, died of a heart attack in 2001 at the age of 49 that the story died with him. Purists, however, may disagree.

‘The hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ has sold 16million copies and has been translated into 35 languages since its original inception as a radio play in 1978.

*FOOTNOTE*

Eoin Colfer comes from an extremely talented family. His brother Niall is a rather handy musician (google him to find out more) and his father is considered a bit of a legendary historian down in Wexford.

Dublin Theatre Festival Preview – As published in September’s Temple Bar

The Cast of 'Black Watch'

By Jonathan deBurca Butler

In 1957 the Dublin Theatre festival opened with Tennessee William’s controversial ‘The Rose Tattoo’.  Garda reports at the time, spoke of some “objectionable passages” and scenes that were “lewd, vulgar and offensive”. Alan Simpson, who ran the Pike theatre with his wife Carolyn Swift, was arrested, somewhat bizarrely, after the show ended its run. The charges against him for his part in “producing for gain an indecent and profane performance”, were eventually dropped but his theatre was ruined and his marriage collapsed due to the pressures surrounding the bad publicity.

It is unlikely that such real life drama will be played out at this year’s festival, and unlikely the authorities, in an effort to protect our morals, end up ruining a marriage. But such is the rough and tumble world of the arts that you just never know.

 The line up for the 2008 Dublin Theatre festival may not prove to be as controversial as the inaugural festival. However, if the (allegedly) increasingly obese, soap-opera obsessed couch potatoes of this fair city decide to get up of their posteriors and go to see one or more of the plays on offer, they should be royally entertained.

Last year was a record year for the festival, taking in over €1million for the first time in its 51-year history. Attendances were up by twenty three per cent on 2006 and the organisers are hoping for a similar turnout this year. Inevitably, as with every sector of Irish life these days, the economy may have a part to play in the number of rumps on stools, but judging by the fact that Michael McDowell’s utopian café culture seems to be still thriving (heck not even the Italians know what all these different Italian coffees are), the festival organisers shouldn’t have too much to worry about.  

One reason to attend this years festival will be the appearance of Vanessa Redgrave in Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. The production, which centres on a woman’s efforts to deal with the sudden death of her husband, is taking place at the Gaiety and is a massive coup for the festival, considering this is only one of three cities where the play is to be staged this year. The 71 year- old star, famous for her roles in films such as Blow up and Venus, has won acclaim for her powerful performance from both the media and her peers and tickets for this show are expected to go quickly.

 Other eyebrow raisers are plays and performances based on the work of Virginia Woolf (Waves), Fyodor Dostoevsky and F.Scott Fitzgerald(Gatz) as well as fresh interpretations of Albert Camus’ ‘Caligula’ and Beckett’s ‘Happy Days’.

But perhaps one of the most intriguing productions of this year’s festival is an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s freakishly dream-like short story ‘Metamorphosis’, a collaboration with Iceland’s Vesturport Theatre Production and the Lyric Hammersmith of London. This darkly decadent treat promises to be very physical and vibrant, using as it does climbing cables and a split stage to heighten the drama and tension; it also features music by Nick Cave and long-time collaborator Warren Ellis.

There are, of course, many home productions to choose from over the two-week period. The Gate Theatre, which is celebrating eighty years this year, is putting on Brian Friel’s new version of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler.

Druid’s Irish premiere of Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan directed by Garry Hynes- the first woman to win a Tony award for direction- takes to the stage at the Olympia from the 6^th October, while at the Helix Fishamble are doing a new play by Irish playwright Robert Massey called Rank, which deals with Dublin’s transformation over the last ten years. Including, I assume, our uncanny ability to mispronounce Bruschetta.

The National Theatre of Scotland’s production of Black Watch, based on interviews with soldiers from the regiment of the same name and their time in Iraq, will be staged at the RDS. Having just gone on a sell-out run in Edinburgh, this production is expected to get a lot of attention not least for its strong language and somewhat contentious if relevant subject matter.

 Mark Donford-May’s reworking of Mozart’s The Magic Flute moves the 18^th century opera to a modern township setting in South Africa and offers something a little different for supporters of opera.  CoisCéim Dance Theatre will present Dodgems transforming the O’Reilly Theatre in Belvedere College into a fairground where a real bumper track is the stage for the clashes of lives and personalities that take place during the show.

This year’s festival also includes some workshops and panel discussions. The pick of the bunch is Vanessa Redgrave in conversation Colm Tobin. Perhaps they’ll talk about the development of the lewd, vulgar and offensive in today’s theatre.

Whatever the topic of their discussion, like all the festival, it’s sure to be quite memorable.

By the way the prices vary quite a bit from €20 to €45 but there are student stand-by tickets from about a half hour before the show depending on availability and OAPs also get a discount. Bear in mind that if your booking they’ll charge you €2 per ticket, so book on the net.

Vanessa Redgrave

Be sure to come back September 30th for  a review of Metamorphosis

You really should see…

The Lives of Others (Germany 2006) Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Before the Berlin Wall came tumbling down under the weight of accumulated frustrations and neighbourly envy, the secret police of the German Democratic Republic, known as the Stassi, had three hundred thousand informants and spies amongst its ranks.

 

Their goal, as the opening caption of this remarkable film tells us, was to “know everything”.

 

The ‘Lives of others’ tells the story of an informant, Wiesler, and his crisis of conscience as he listens into the life of writer, Georg Greyman.  Superiors tell the informant to track and monitor the everyday activities of the author-ostensibly to jail him for subversion, but in truth so the minister for culture can get to Greyman’s attractive girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland. The informant proceeds to wire tap the author’s house and so we start down a tense alleyway of phantom cat and mouse.

 

The informant, a strict and loyal servant of his country, finds little on the pair in the way of wrongdoing. Indeed, Wiesler gradually finds himself disgusted by his superiors and their motives, and his loyalty soon switches. The results are tragic, yet worldly-making the film all the more poignant. There is no irrelevant drama here.

 

This is top class European cinema. What we see is what the people of East Germany dealt with everyday-so we can imagine that the events were half-expected. The narrative and the realistic performances of the actors create the tension. A fact compounded by an emotive but unemotional ending.

 

 

Bring us home the (Francis) Bacon – A citizen’s plea

Bacon’s studio in Hugh Lane Gallery Dublin

      Although Francis Bacon was born in Ireland, it is questionable how ‘Irish’ he felt. In order for a gay man of his talent to flourish, it was somewhat inevitable that he moved away from good old conservative and catholic Ireland to the flambouyant and happening London. When he left in body he also left in spirit and little reference is ever made of Ireland in his life beyond his teenage years.

         

          So when the great man’s studio was(fairly) recently given to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin it was a real coup for the city. Not only did it give that gallery, which was already a great gallery, increased kudos; but it also allowed Dublin to reconnect with one of its own. To embrace one of its runaways. To cuddle him in its arms and say: “we knew you had it in you but we had to send you away.” (It’s also great for marketing obviously) 

         The only pity of it is, that there are really very few paintings by Bacon in the Gallery itself-and what is there is incomplete. The poor galleries of Ireland are unable to compete with the likes of enlightened, and clearly tasteful, football chairmen  such as Roman Abramovich who recently purchased a triptych by Bacon for an astronomical if not nearly comical amount of money.

        What I’m saying is, we need some more Bacon. Feed us the art, feed us!

       So, if anyone has a spare Francis Bacon piece lying about, please send it to Ireland. Thanks. To Adam Clayton(we know you collect the stuff): If you have any up in that attic of yours give us a lend of them for a while-share the wealth! And if anyone is mulling over what to do with their Bacons when they’ve gone to that great gallery in the sky. Leave them with us, we’ll look after them. And to the Tate: when your finished your Bacon exhibition over there, any chance you could ship the stuff over here? Just for a while even.

Please feel free to leave a comment

Broken Angel on William Street South

While I was out for a ramble the other day, I spotted this piece of work on William Street South in Dublin’s City centre. It struck me as very beautiful.

 It is quite a large piece and stands out as somewhat unusual for Dublin. It’s really rather poignant but I can’t decide if she’s frightened or seductive. She seems quite vulnerable but the size of it gives her an uncanny power.

It is done by a guy called Eelus who, it turns out, is from Wigan. His website tells us that he has been living in London for some time and is now a full time graphic artist.