The second half of this production's title, " ... performed live by the late Agnes Bernelle", hints at its engaging conceit. Bernelle was a Berlin-born cabaret performer who moved to Ireland after the second world war to join her husband, a member of the fading Protestant upper class. When that marriage failed, she moved to Dublin and made her name as a singer, entrepreneur, and doyenne - notably at Project, which has co-produced this tribute-style revue.
The catch is that Bernelle died in 1999; she is represented in various physical forms by puppeteer and performer Niamh Lawlor of Puca Puppets, against a soundtrack of Bernelle's recordings, and accompanied by film clips. The musical director is Philip Chevron, late of the Pogues, who met Bernelle in his teens and worked with her for decades.
Clearly all involved feel enormous warmth and admiration towards Bernelle. As of yet, however, the production has not come together sufficiently to fully engage the Agnes-uninitiated. For the first half hour, Lawlor plays Bernelle in half-mask, and delivers a synopsis of her life. Presumably summoned by the communal strength of remembrance, Bernelle then "appears" in a succession of fully incarnated puppet forms and delivers a series of songs and anecdotes.
The difficulty is that while Lawlor is a superb puppeteer and puppet-maker, her own stage presence is shy and girlish, and in that crucial first section she does not engage nor convince. Leticia Agudo's production leaves Lawlor looking isolated onstage, having her manually turn the set, a circle of screens. The sound of ripping Velcro is often audible when she disappears to change costumes and puppets. This rough-and-ready aesthetic clashes with the devil-may-care bravura the show is trying to convince us Bernelle possessed. When the puppets sing in Bernelle's own voice, though, the effect is sublime.
· Until June 5. Box office: 00 353 1 881 9613.
