THE NEW ELECTRIC BALLROOM. To 29 March.

London/Tour.

THE NEW ELECTRIC BALLROOM
by Enda Walsh.

Riverside Studios (Studio 2) To 29 March.
Tue-Sat 8pm Sun 7pm Mat Sat 2.30pm.
Runs 1hr 20min No interval.
then tour to 25 April 2009.

TICKETS: 020 8237 1111.
www.riversidestudios.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 8 March.

Too clever for its own dramatic good.
Garlanded with praise, in a superbly acted production, Galway’s Druid Theatre Company arrives via Dublin and Edinburgh with a play that frankly defeats me. I’m usually glad to ferret out meaning in the initially seemingly inexplicable, put pieces together, read the script, discuss or re-view.

But Enda Walsh’s piece overcame me quite because it left me without the slightest interest in finding out more. As swathe after swathe of long speeches hurtled around, I found the back-story folded inside them impossible to catch. Finely written it is, but with no more than literary life.

Walsh doesn’t serve himself well as his own director. The first sight shows three women in an undefined room, with one talking into a corner, where a rough stone wall obtrudes. She speaks “fast and frightened” – most of what she says being lost as we take in the surroundings. Yet mention of “Just adding to the sea of words that already exist,” lodges in the mind. The same character, Breda, repeats them near the play’s end, giving an all-too-accurate summary of the play's impact.

These women seem imprisoned in their lives, and it may be there are Irish resonances lost overseas – as the title of William Trevor’s story ‘The Ballroom of Romance’ (is Walsh echoing it here?) is a term with specific Irish connotations. But the gabble of words and the mix of apparent reality with theatrical artifice (the exterior wall that changes to a bath of colour, the door opened manually then sliding automatically) seem wanton effects, not earned by interest in characters or action.

Yet they should be interesting; two women in their sixties, seen cut-off in their home but workers at the fish-cannery. Another in her forties, following their path, rejecting the attentions of the fish delivery-man who comes, metaphorically with each tide – until he’s scrubbed and transformed into the glamorous costume of a singer from the ballroom.

It ought to unravel movingly. And the four excellent performances help a lot. But ultimately it remains a mystery wrapped in an enigma inside a riddle, and one that hardly makes itself worth the solving.

Breda: Rosaleen Lionehan.
Clara: Ruth McCabe.
Ada: Catherine Walsh.
Patsy: Mikel Murfi.

Director: Enda Walsh.
Designer: Sabine Dargent.
Lighting: Sinead McKenna.
Sound: Gregory Clarke.

Tour:
7-8 April Backstage Theatre Longford.
11-12 April Dunamaise Arts Centre Portlaoise.
15-19 April Town Hall Theatre Galway.
21-25 April Everyman Palace Theatre Cork.

2009-03-11 12:31:31