THE SHAUGHRAUN. To 24 September.
London
THE SHAUGHRAUN
by Dion Boucicault
Albery Theatre To 24 September 2005 production closed 30 July
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 30min One interval
TICKETS: 0870 060 6621 (£2.50 processing fee per transaction)
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Review: Timothy Ramsden 13 June
They should have danced all night Onstage at Liverpool playhouse in Simon Block's play Chimps a young woman argues fiercely with the cold-calling salesmen trying to sign her up to a high-cost deal. In the audience her comments receive cheers and applause. That's the kind of spontaneous involvement melodramas such as Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun ought to inspire. Instead, at the Albery, the show's preceded by an amplified voice instructing us, not only to turn off phones and pages, but to cheer and hiss. With a good production we shouldn't need to be told.
Boucicault's adventure of exploitation and revenge comes from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, the national playhouse of Boucicault's native Ireland. The Abbey brought the play to modern attention nearly 40 years ago, establishing it as a lead example of its genre. They must have done it a lot better then.
This version has only one game to play, repeatedly debunking the vivid emotions and characters. But you can't debunk something that's been debunked to death already. Parodying melodrama's a dying art (more dying than art) because it's been done so often there are melodramas that parody melodrama.
It may be possible to adapt a bright Irish lass into a calculating young Ms; passed off as if casual the phallic use of a butter-churn and other innuendo could possibly have a point. But the constant heavy-handed knowingness here is witless and wearisome. It sets audience and action apart, making involvement more difficult in the few parts of the story allowed to flow at a natural pace and speak for themselves.
There are good performances and, lit by the strong colours of Rupert Murray's lighting, Francis O'Connor's set cottages, cliffs leading to a skeletal mansion and, at one point, transparency of a ruined abbey - have the quality of colourful illustrations to a children's book of fairy-tales. Overall though, this production's like a folk-tale debased into a pantomime. Dances included; director John McColgan also staged Riverdance and it's easy to wish he were still doing so, for the few dance episodes here have a verve and focus that leave poor Boucicault's wild tale far behind.
Claire Ffolliott: Fiona O'Shaughnessy
Mrs O'Kelly: Anita Reeves
Aptain Molyneaux: Rory Keenan
Arte O'Neill: Emily Nagle
Corry Kinchela: Stephen Brennan
Father Dolan: Frank Grimes
Harvey Duff: David Pearse
Robert Ffolliott: Stephen Darcy
Moya Dolan: Jasmine Russell
Conn: Don Wycherley
Sergeant Jones: Mal Whyte
Biddy Madigan: Billie Traynor
Nancy Malone: Ruth McGill
Sullivan: Eric Lacey
Reilly: Gerry McCann
Mangan: Peter Daly
Doyle: BNrian Thunder
Donovan: Barry Flanagan
Magician: Joe Daly
Dancers/Villagers: Michael Maguire, Darren Maguire, Brian Swanton,
Edel Quin, Karen Halley
Director: John McColgan
Designer: Francis O'Connor
Lighting: Rupert Murray
Sound: Mick O'Gorman
Composer: David Downes
Musical Director: Brian Connor
Choreographer: Colin Dunne
Movement: Eric Lacey
Costume: Joan O'Clery
Fight/Action director: Donal O'Farrell
Associate director: Martin Drury
2005-06-16 00:37:40