tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8446248929778718240.post987638450497194549..comments2024-02-26T04:05:23.423-08:00Comments on Musings In Intermissions: Druid, 'Bailegangaire': Drawing Wisdom From the Fire Chris McCormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809666495562271168noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8446248929778718240.post-976218356179282182014-10-04T09:27:25.781-07:002014-10-04T09:27:25.781-07:00Thank you for the review, Chris. I had heard and r...Thank you for the review, Chris. I had heard and read many positive things about Bailegangaire, so I was looking forward to seeing it performed. However, I'm sorry to say that I wasn't that impressed by the play. <br /><br />Marie Mullen played Mommo brilliantly. She managed to convey both Mommo's vivacity and wiliness before her granddaughters, and her fearfulness and vulnerability when faced with old age and dementia. <br /><br />I thought Catherine Walsh's performance as Mary was a little weaker. Her acting seemed flat in places, whereas I should have been moved with pity for Mary, who had sacrificed her career in order to become a full-time carer. <br /><br />Aisling O'Sullivan's performance as Dolly was the weakest of the three. Dolly seemed to be on the verge of a breakdown. Maybe that was the point. If so, then it was reasonably effective as O'Sullivan's performance made me uncomfortable! However, her hoarse voice and choppy delivery were alienating. Surely there were better ways to interpret this character. <br /><br />The plot itself was disturbing at times, and not really in a good way. Mommo's story pivots on a laughing contest between her future husband and a local man named Costello from Bochtan. Thus Mommo's story is occasionally punctured by bouts of hysterical laughing. Meanwhile, the granddaughters' arguments around Mommo's bedside contain moments of hysterical bawling. With the story swinging between extremes of laughing and crying, and O'Sullivan's harsh, staccato performance, there was something almost unhuman about what we were seeing. The characters were unable to communicate with one another for most of the play, whether because their unfinished stories trailed off or because they couldn't stop cutting across each other, making the auditory experience babel-like. This communications problem among the characters filtered beyond the stage to me as an audience member. I found that the play didn't always communicate with me. <br /><br />Watching the characters degenerate into poorly communicative, laughing and weeping shadows of their selves over two and a half hours was uncomfortable and oppressive, but not moving. Beckett could manipulate his audience's emotions in much shorter, pithier performances. A flicker of redemption in the closing lines is all we were left with – and since Sean O'Casey employed a similar redemptive formula in Juno and the Paycock sixty years before Bailegangaire, it was not exactly original either. <br /><br />The set design was simple, but great. The furniture and electronics had a nice eighties vibe, and it was enjoyable seeing that decade's long forgotten appliances once more. However, I don't think this play is the modern classic of Irish drama I had originally imagined. <br />Johnnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06798577032782604166noreply@blogger.com