Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Concerts, Sessions, CeilisAuthor(s): Sheila HamiltonSource: Fortnight, No. 266 (Oct., 1988), p. 26Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25551710 .

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Dialectic of myth and truth

Field Day has just begun touring with a new Brian Friel play. JOHN KEYES was at

the opening night in Derry. THE MOST uncomfortable place in Ireland?

perhaps the world?to watch a play in is Derry's Guidhall. Even a new Brian Friel play. But

Making History, Field Day's latest production, which opened in Derry last month before an

Irish tour and a season in London's National

Theatre, marks a significant point of develop ment in Friel's writing.

His concerns remain the same?his sense of

place, his belief in the power of language to

create and sustain myth, to create and sustain

fact, in the self-generation of myth itself. And

his sense of myth and truth, in a distinctly

unequal mixture, as a driving force in Irish

history. So Making History is at once 'about'

Hugh O'Neill?though not necessarily the his

torical Hugh O'Neill?and a eulogistic history of O'Neill being written for him. And it is also about men who make history and men who make

history art?or at least exemplary?as well as

about men who make history work for them.

A major concern in the play is of kinds of

truth and their place and function in Irish life. In

choosing Hugh O'Neill to write about, Brian

Friel has focused on the difficulty of modern

Ireland, its identity, its place in Europe and its

significance in European and English culture.

O'Neill is, in a sense, modern Ireland.

The production by Simon Curtis was a little

slow to begin with. Some of the moves looked

odd and a little contrived and more pace was

required in the first act. And some vocal idiosyn cracies used to establish character could have

been dispensed with with advantage. But by the

second act the play had reached an exciting level

of action, full of energy, paradox and wit which

provoked thought.

Stephen Rea as O'Neill is excellent through out. Even before his marriage to Mabel Bagenal, he had in himself the ambiguity which divides Ireland today?the tension between the Euro

pean and the Gael, between England and the

native Irish. This internal tension and conflict

are well explored by the actor and his marriage to an English upstart is only its most visible

manifestation. Indeed the many tensions in the

play are explored linguistically with typical Friel bravura and Rea's performance is all that

his author could require. Niall Toibin as Archbishop Lombard will, I

think, develop a finely urbane character but it

had not quite been achieved at the opening night. As Hugh O'Donnell Peter Gowan was at his best

in the second act?but then so too was the

play?while Clare Holman as Mabel Bagenal

played with quiet competence in a part which I

thought needed to be more fully developed. I was struck with the performance of Emma

Dewhurst as Mary Bagenal. It is a gentle part full

of strength which injected a good deal of moral balance into the character of relationships. One

felt the steel beneath Ms Dewhurst's civility. A first night is no time to judge a production

but this one had many good and admirable

things to commend it. With more pace and an

added certainty to the lines and perhaps a little

judicious cutting Making History is a play I will enjoy seeing again.

I Dolores Keane?effortless warmth I

SHEILA HAMILTON was overwhelmed by a surfeit of sounds at the Belfast Folk Festival

THIS YEAR'S Belfast Folk Festival got off to an enjoyable start with Van Morri

Ison and the Chieftains in concert. This unlikely combination worked surpris- I

lingly well, the pressure of Morrison's own backing band pulling together the I

I Chieftains' traditional instruments and Morrison's extremely un-traditional I

voice. The songs were a mixture of standards like Carrickfergus and Raglan I

Road, some more unusual numbers like the beautiful, macaronic My Match Was I Made (Kevin Conneff of the Chieftains singing the Irish verses) and a few, like I Mairi's Wedding and The Star of the County Down, hackneyed to the point of I I unsingability by years of school music class. Nevertheless, Morrison seemed I

I stilted and incongruous on a few of the songs. In a solo set without the Chief- I

tains, singing his own songs, his passionate, gospelly voice had freer rein?from I the conversational mutterings of Roue On, John Donne to the magical call and I

response of In the Garden. I

Other bands also experimented with a combination of traditional music and I

modern technology. Run Rig, a Skye rock band, sang its own rousing songs in I

English but was better in Gaelic, surging with the hard-driving beat of Hebridean I

Iwaulking songs. The Davy Spillane Band veered from jazz to rock to virtuoso I

I piping and low-whistle playing by Spillane. The music was wild and intricate and I

I impossible not to dance to. I I The lack of a central venue for the festival makes it hard to get an overall I I view of the weekend: there seemed to be concerts and sessions and ceilis going I

Ion all over the place. In the end, my head was spinning and I was left with I

I scattered impressions. I remember the fiddling of Cathal Hayden from Arcady; I ICran singing a Connemara lament for Christ's passion; Dolores Keane's beautiful, I

I warm, apparently effortless voice; Dick Gaughan, the Scottish singer-songwriter, I

switching from the anger of his political songs to the tenderness of Now Westlin I

I Winds. Lastly, I will remember Fran McPhail, Gerry Cullen and Phil Callery, I

I three traditional singers: it was the first time I had encountered their soaring I I close harmonies, but I hope not the last. I

26 October Fortnight

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