Donal O'Kelly attempts a new approach to well-trodden ground of early 20th century Irish history in this piece of what he is calling "gig-theatre", but the form he has chosen ends up seeming at odds with his material. The evening, produced by the Dublin theatre festival, works like a jazz performance, with O'Kelly and fellow actor Sorcha Fox on spoken vocals, Ellen Cranitch on double bass and flutes and Brian Fleming on percussion. All work together to create a soundscape putting across O'Kelly's nostalgic script about brother and sister Hector and Lil growing up in 1920s Dublin.
Early vignettes describe a comfortable and idyllic lifestyle that goes pear-shaped when the children's father, chief clerk in Irish Independent newspapers, dies (scandalously) of syphilis and the children are put to work or shipped off to orphanages. Stories of overcrowded Gaelic football matches at Croke Park, back-alley speakeasies and affairs conducted in tents on north Dublin beaches are individually evocative. But the aggressive layering of sounds, images and ideas, plus an overall lack of narrative drive, make the piece exhausting.
There are a few bits of staging that effectively dramatise the narration; for example, the scene evoking the deafening atmosphere in the "hell-box" Independent printshop where Hector ends up working.
But an outside eye (O'Kelly himself directs) might have helped add more visual life to the piece (you can sometimes feel as if you are attending the taping of a radio play). Trimming it down might also have helped.
There is some wonderful writing here, the use of vocalised sound effects is clever and engaging, and the performers' ensemble playing is impressive. But it all simply doesn't come together. O'Kelly is one of Ireland's most adventurous writer/performers, and when his vision of form and content merge, as with his divine Catalpa, his work soars. The Hand, however, is a bold experiment that isn't working yet.
· Until Saturday. Box office: 00 353 1 817 3333.
