Going out with Magill - Jan. 1978

A review of Theatre, (by EAVAN BOLAND), film (By DEIRDRE FRIEL) and the best of Film and Theatre throughout the country in the next six weeks.

THEATRE Reviews

A review of Theatre this month. By EAVAN BOLAND

Gate Theatre: Equus by Peter Shaffer Directed by Patrick Bedford.

THE BEST of Equus has a mythic force. Once the players put on the massive steel horse heads, with their meshed nostrils and coiled jawbones, you are immediately in the precinct of the uniicorn and centaur, that twilight of nursery rhyme and nightmare which the horse peculiarly monopolises in the folk mind. It would be impossible to do enough credit to the ingenuity and magic of John Napier's horse heads, or the connvincing restiveness and force of the players -- especially David Byrne - when they adopt their hooves and heads. A I similar credit is due to Hilton Edward's ligh ting, which is deft and menacing right through the play, and which makes the actual blinding of the horses by the boy quite simply one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever witnessed in a theatre.

But after the myth and spectacle, the theatricality of lighting and steel heads, what then?

Martin Dysart ~ played with splenndid, understated irony by Patrick Bedford - is an overworked child psychiatrist at a hospital in Southern England. And he's not just overworked. He is beginning to doubt the whole basis of his craft of healing. He is growing suspicious of the power of rational analysis to do other than pluck out vital individuality as it cures.

He is persuaded by a brisk lady magistrate (Noelle Middleton) to take on yet one more clinical case. It is that of a boy of seventeen who, for one reason or another, blinded five valuable horses in a stable where he worked. The part of the boy, Alan Strang, is taken by Derek Chapman. By any stanndards the character - hysterical, percepptive and itself of mythic dimension - is a difficult one. Derek Chapman plays it with grace and menace. He moves connvincingly from his world of horses to the naturalism of psychiatric connversation.

At first the play seems the unweaving of a tapestry of motives: Why did he do it? We learn that his father and mother - marvellously played by Des Nealon and Pamela Mant - are respectively an atheist printer and a deeply religious snob. We also learn that at a critical point in childhood a picture of Christ, almost sexually freighted with chains, was taken from above the boy's bedside by his exasperated father and replaced by a picture of a horse, a frontal glimpse,

all nostrils and staring eyes. As the play progresses the boy confides in the psychiatrist a tortured web of associiations: The horse is at once the religious sense, the menace of the father and, more dangerously, the sublimation of the Christian ethic into a more volatile paganism.

There are milestones throughout which make all of this gripping theatre. The lighting is one; the restraint and power of the nude scenes make another; and always the horses with their woven heads and steel tossings. But the actual reasons for the blinding are quickly seen as a sub-plot. The main plot and theme are invested in the educaation of Martin Dysart, the civilized psychiatrist, by Alan Strang, the criminnal force of nature.

It should be an excellent theme.

It almost is. But somehow, elusively, it fails. Patrick Bedford and Derek Chapman turn in powerful perforrmances to make the connection beetween the world of reason and unreasson. But the fault is not with them. It lies in the play.

The crisis comes when, in the second act, Martin Dysart makes a splendid confession to the lady magistrate: he is a hypocrite, he says. He pretends to love the classical world, whereas in fact, he visits it on a hit-and-run basis for three weeks a year, his suitcase full of entero-vioforrn , his mind equally protected by the very modernity he seeks to escape. But, in his own selffaccusation, his love for Greece, his sense of primitive mystery is shelved in the morning and he comes to hosspital to consider the insanity of Alan Strang, the living witness to the ataavisms he professes to cele brate.

It is a splendid speech - eloquent, farcical, ironic. Patrick Bedford does it full justice. Yet I don't know when I've been so depressed at a moment of sheer amusement. For that is, I'm sure, the exact moment at which Shaffer loses his nerve and dissolves a tragic conflict into facile comedy. In the collision between the mechanics of psychiatry and the dangerous energy of a disturbed boy he had to set up a precious dramatic potential. But whennever that drama should materialize, as human action, human relationship, we get instead merely theatre: the maggnificent stamping of the horses, the self-mockery of Dysart.

To criticize Equus as drama, howwever, must leave intact its theatrical achievement. As spectacle, pageant, and purely enjoyable narrative it is superb. If hard judgements must be made about it, its own worth and potential are to blame. It is so good it seems it should have been better. But Patrick Bedford has produced and directed, and. the Gate Company have performed (Derek Chapman is, of course, on loan from the Abbey) an engaging play in a most unforgettable way.

Abbey Theatre: Wild Oats by John O'Keeffe. Directed by Jonathan Hales.

AT FIRST GLANCE, no two plays could be more different than Equus and Wild Oats; the one obsessed with an anti-social gesture, the other conncerned solely with social rituals. In fact they have one real bond - both are deeply baffled in the orthodoxies of their day. Both scrutinize prevailing beliefs, doubts, prejudices. Obviously this is as much to the advantage of Peter Shaffer, in that his audience shares his preoccupations, as it is to the detriment of John O'Keeffe Wild Oats is a romp. It is an engaging, inntricate, exuberant play. But it is good enough to know that in its own day it must have been a good deal better `when its wit, perspective and gesture were as much shaped by the onlookers as by the playwright.

Wild Oats has that Augustan obsesssion with a neat fit which makes it, like its rakish hero, start a good deal worse than it finishes. The first half~ hour is tedious. Geoff Golden plays Sir George Thunder with blustery enerrgy, and Larry Murphy is a fine John Dory. But there is so much of the commplex farce to be laid down, like a cellar, that I, for one, grew bored. From then on, however, it's all uphill.

The plot hinges on a mix of misstaken identity and eighteenth century piety. Sir George Thunder, a seaman, returns from sailing to find he has one legitimate son, Harry (ably played by Desmond Cave) and one unknown child of a marriage he presumes null and void. He finds his neice (Fidelma Cullen) in possesssion of a title, an estate, and a membership in the Quaker congregation. The second fact repels his taste for rum and women; the first encourages him to attempt a match between her and his wayward son. But Harry has a bosom friend - Rover Àa strolling player who, by many a hinge and knock of ingenious playymaking, poses as the son of Sir Harry and falls in love with Lady Amaranth. Eighteenth century comedy provides a field day for actors, so rich is it in mannerisms, and there are some splenndid performances. Raymond Hardie is excellent as the unctious Ephraim Smooth, and Eddie Byrne gives a beautifully judged performance as Banks, the evicted and timid clergyyman. Philip O'Sullivan is amusing as Sim, and Desmond Perry suitably rough and devious as his father. All of these fine performances manage to unravel a gordian knot with the minimum of tedium. In this they are much assisted by the swift and clever settings of Bronwen Casson and the smooth direction of Jonathan Hales.

But the weight of the play, its pace, vitality and conviction fall squarely on John Kavanagh, and he carries it off perfectly. He is at once the buck and the rogue; he is a poignant and elegant character and he brings to life as much of the playas can be resuscitated.

What then is lost? A whole world, I think, of nuance and assumption. The play is in 'fact the same sort of mix of social document and Augustan sentiment as is The Deserted Village . John O'Keeffe, born as he was in 1747, was a near contemporary of Golddsmith and has much in common with him. He casts a cool, not to say cynical, eye on the customs and foppishness of his day while making every conncession to the Augustan pieties that sustained them - the sanctity of parentthood, the virtues of the poor, the obligations of the privileged. Much is satirized; little is seriously challenged.

Above all, the play is a document on the complex attitudes of the society of that time. One feels the loss of all this, in the references to Shakespeare and the asides about the local responses to his work.

None of this, however, provides any reason against staging the play when weighted against the refreshment and vitality of its actual performance. It provides a showcase for some brilliant acting and it makes an enjoyable, if frustrating, evening's entertainment.

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FILM Review.

A Review of film releases this month, By DEIRDRE FRIEL

Metropole, Savoy 1, General Release:

Star Wars. Directed by George Lucas.

THE NEW YEAR in the cinema has erupted like some fabulous fireworks display with the fallout hurtling from the exhilarating reaches of outer space in Star Wars and finally drifting into the jaw-infested regions of The Deep.

Like any fireworks display, the new season has its fair share of damp squibs and the usual amount of sound and fury signifying a weak plot. But it also has its spectacular moments and Star Wars, in spite of its weak plot, must be given pride of place.

This film arrived here after what must have been the longest, hardest, most intensive sell in cinematic history. Being deeply distrustful of hard-sell techniques, I was determined to be ultra-critical, but I was totally bowled over after five minutes.

Stat Wars has something for everyyone. Science Fiction devotees, while possibly baulking at the banality of the story line, will be enthralled with the technology, the amazing gadgetry, the galactic languages, the hard ware from punctilious robots to vast networks of sinister corridors on the evil, mannmade Death Star. Wild West addicts will find their cowboys and Indians thundering across galactic ranges. Flash Gordon fans will identify with their hero, Luke Sky walker (Mark Hamill) and Tolkein freaks, like myself, will see the benevolent face of Gandalf the wizard shining from Alec Guinness, noble Ben (obi-wan) Kenobi. Indeed, Star Wars has all the epic dimensions of Lord of the Rings. It depicts a world where magic is still possible and love and goodness triumph over evil. Roll on Son of Star Wars.

Adelphi: The Devil's Playground. Direccted by Fred Schepesi.

For those wishing to avoid the tat and tinsel of seasonal family shows, the best serious adult show available at the moment is unquestionably The Devil's Playground. This superb film is further proof of the startling revolution currenttly happening on the Australian cineematic front. Written and directed by Fred Schepisi, with a magnificent cast of relatively unknown actors, The Devil's Playground received connsiderable critical acclaim when screened at last year's Cannes and Cork film festivals.

Set in a Catholic boys' college in the early 'fifties where, in addition to normal school duties, the boys are being prepared to take religious vows, this film explores and analyses the traumas of puberty. The agonies, frustrations and excitements of the boys' growing sexual awareness, seen against archaic institutional disciplines accentuated by the unhelpful attiitudes of their celibate clerical tutors, are examined with superb sensitivity and compassion.

There is a fire and brimstone retreat sermon very reminiscent of Portrait of the Artist, but in the main, Tom Allen's battle with the flesh and the self-searching of his fellow students and tutors provides more gripping cinema than Joseph Strick achieved. Nothing is overstated and ultimately the survival of human qualities, even in artificial and constricted circummstances, is delicately revealed. A most compelling first film.

Regent. Annie Hall. Directed by Woody Allen.

ANNIE HALL is the funniest movie in town - written, directed and very much starring Woody Allen. This quixotic funnyman - satirist and chronic romanntic, masquerading under the thin dissguise of Alvin Singer, guides us through the labyrinths of his love-life, his 1 'i years of psycho-analysis, his two marrriages, his J ewishness - all against the backdrop of his tender, tortuous affair with the amazing Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). Played from little-girl-lost to big girl not-so-lost, Ms Keaton is a perrfect foil to the crazy, mixed-up Woody. Mind you, more often than not, he becomes her foil .... but that's all part of the therapy.

The gags rattle out like gun-fire and the film abounds with splendid visual gags - the most memorable being what happens to 2,000 dollars worth of cocaine after it's sneezed upon ... We are also treated to unashamedly conntrived flashbacks to his Jewish childdhood in Brooklyn where his family lived in shuddering proximity to a huge roller-coaster. The film also features Paul Simon, looking very fat and fortyyish and Marshall McLuhan is produced like a rabbit from a hat.

The ultimate impression, however, is of an increasingly lonely, brittle and vulnerable man, using his own hang-ups and short-comings to make other people laugh.

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GOING OUT WITH MAGILL

The best of Film and Theatre throughout the country in the next six weeks.

Theatre

The larger Christmas pantos conntinue this month and you will find a comprehensive guide to those productions, 'as well as to other outings for children, on page 58.

DUBLIN THEATRE

Abbey Lower Abbey Street, Dubblin 1 (01 744505) December 21st to January 28th at 8 pm Wild Oats, by John O'Keeffe. Fasttmoving romp of mistaken identity built around the character of Rover, declamatory actor with a troupe of travelling players. The playwright, born in Dublin in 1747, was quite forgotten until the recent rediscovery of this play. Seats £1 to £2.50. Reviewed in. this issue on page 52.

Eblana Busarus, Store Street, Dublin 1 (01 746707) January 4th to January 28th at 8 pm Hold Your Hour and Have Another. An evening's entertainment about Brendan Behan with Vincent Smith and Jimmy Bartley. Seats £1 and £1.50.

Focus 6 Pembroke Place, off Pembroke Street, Dublin 2 (01 763071) January 24th to Febbruary 11 th Treats by Christopher Hampton. A contemporary interrpretation of triangular relation-

Derek Chapman in the Gate production of Equus. ships, directed by Douglas Kennnedy. A Stage I production. Seats £1 Students 75p.

Gate 1 Cavendish Row, Dublin 1 (01 744045) December 28th to January 28th at 8 pm Equus, Peter Shaffer's controversial and widely acclaimed play re-opens with the original Gate cast headed by Patrick Bedford, who also directs the production, and Derek Chapman. Seats £1.25 and £2. Reviewed in this issue on page 52.

Oscar Serpentine Avenue, Ballssbridge, Dublin 4. (01 683752) Rum through March 1st at 8 pm It's a Two Foot Six Inches Above the Ground World, by Patrick Laffan. Amusing and pointedly ironic cameo of marriage and unplanned parenthood. Seats £1.50.

Pavilion Dun Laoghaire (01 808203) January 12th to January 28th at 8 pm The Irish Theatre Company presents Spokesong, Stewart Parker's musical view of the bicycle and Belfast. Seats £1.

Peacock Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1 (01 748741) at 8 pm January 1st to January 28th Oisin, a bi-lingual play for childdren and adults by Eoghan 0 Tuairisc. Seats £1 and £1.50.

Players Theatre No 4, Trinity College, Dublin 2 (01 774673) January 9th to January 14th at 1 pm Irish premiere of Samuel Beckett's Footfalls, directed by Jim Carmody. Seats SOp including lunch.

January 18th to January 28th at 8 pm Red Shift, a dramatisation of the Alan Garner novel. Seats SOp.

Project 39 Essex Street, Dublin 2 (01 781935) at 8.15 pm (Perforrmance January 6th at 11.15 pm) 'Paine's Plough', the Lancaster based touring company, present Moto Car, by David Pownall. Set in a Rhodesian mental hospital ten days before the Revolution ... It was the hit of the Edinburgh Festival. Seats £ 1.

January 10th to January 28th at 8.15 pm The Risen People the play by James Plunkett which formed the basis of his novel Strumpet City about the 1913 lock-out strike. Directed by Jim Sheridan. Seats £1.

BELFAST THEATRE

Arts Theatre 41 Botanic Avenue, Belfast 9 (084 24936) Until January 28th at 8 pm. An evening of old time variety, a different show each week, with local and imported talent. Seats £1.25.

Lyric Theatre Ridgeway Street, S tranmillis, Belfast 9 (084 660081) January 4th to January 20th at 8.pm The Colleen Bawn by Dion Boucicault. High spirited 19th century farce with period music. Seats £1.25.

CORK THEATRE

Everyman Fr Mathew Street, Cork (021 26287) January 9th to January 21st Eamon Kelly's one man'show A Rub of the Relic. January 23rd to January 28th The Irish Theatre Company's production of Spokesong, by Stewart Parker. 'Directed by Joe Dowling. Seats 80p to £1.

Opera House Emmet Place, Cork (021 20022) Continues until the end of February Aladdin, Tony Kenny leads this seasonal pantoomime produced by Noel Pearson. Seats 85p to £2.

GALWAY THEATRE

A Taibhearc Sraid Lar, Gaillimh (091 62024) January 8th to January l Sth. Akbar agus an Shada Gorm. Seats 70p.

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Films

Below is a list of films currently on general release. throughout the country, with comments to help you select what to see and what to avoid. Most of these films should, hopefully, reach your local cinema during the next six weeks.

Annie Hall - Or how not to have an enduring affair in ten nervy lessons. Woody Allen ('I'm one of the few males to suffer from penis envy '), at last gets everyything right as an actor-director. All the hang-ups in his realllife, on-off relationship with Diane Keaton find hilarious exxpression in a deliciously susstained parable about lovers who woo by worrying ('I've been going to a psychiatrist for IS years. I'll give him another year and then try Lourdes'). The Car - Jaws on wheels. A rapacious driver-less car mown down every pedestrian who venntures off the curb. The ultimate reality in screen monsters, allthough it's a pity director Elliot Silverstein couldn't resist the temptation to be meaningful. Freaky Friday - With Walt Disney, anything is possible. Mom (Barbara Harris) and brace-girded daughter (Jodie F osster) reverse roles and wish they hadn't. Recommended for teennagers who fail to appreciate how much work there is about the house.

The Gauntlet -- Clint Eastwood lavished a million dollars on special effects (helicopter tangling with electricity pylons and all that), but it's his own welllproved taciturn machismo as the typical anti-Establishment cop determined to bring to court an allegedly 'nothing witness in a nothing case' (stylishly played by newcomer Sandra Locke) that provides the real en terrtainment value.

Rollercoaster - Ten times more terrifying than anything at RDS Funderland, with Sensursound evoking a horribly real sensation of hurtling 'round impossible bends. There's the added mennace of a maniac bomber who doesn't care how many die ill his attempt to extort a ransom from America's top amuseement park owners. Deliciously eccen tric character performance by George Segal as a safety inspector obsessed with kicking his smoking habit.

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger ÐVeteran special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen's reply to Star Wars. Arabian Nights fantasy world of dynamation monsters and split-screen optical illusions. Good for family outings.

Smokey and the Bandit - One of the least touted entertainment hits of 1977. Burt Reynolds, yet again fooling about in a small town crime romp, exudes a contagiously virile gusto ðbut it's time he stopped connfusing a Jimmy Carter smile for acting.

The Sting - Stylish George Roy Hill period piece, sustained by richly evocative Scott Joplin ragtime tunes, with con-men Paul Newman and Robert Reddford setting up gambling mobster Robert Shaw (simulating a splenndidly nasal East Belfast accent), for a million dollar rip-off. Superrficial but fun.

What's Up Nurse - A tepid rip-off of the Carry -On series. Apart from the nudge-nudge phallic title, the vulgar nonnjokes are as flat as a pint of Guinness in West Cork.