Review: The Gigli Concert
Druid Theatre, Galway
Wednesday July 22 2009
THERE'S a magical moment at the end of Druid's production 'The Gigli Concert', when the shutters fly open and lights come flooding into the tiny theatre, offering a metaphor for hope in the strange, fractured, wonderful world that Tom Murphy has created.
The play, directed by Garry Hynes, is staged in Druid's refurbished theatre in Druid Lane in Galway and marks its formal reopening. It also marks the revival of the relationship between Murphy and Hynes that previously yielded such gems as 'Conversations on a Homecoming' and 'Bailegangaire'.
'The Gigli Concert', which was first staged in 1983 by the Abbey, is one of Murphy's great plays. It charts the strange relationship between 'dynamatologist' JPW King and the Irish Man, whose mission is to sing like the Italian opera singer Benjamin Gigli. And thrown into the mix is Mona, the married woman with whom King is having a relationship -- again dysfunctional.
The Irish Man, a building developer, has come to King, an English self-help therapist, in order to fulfil his goal of singing like Gigli because dynamatologists believe that "anything is possible". The play was written decades ago, but Murphy's observations on builders and therapy are more relevant today than ever as he delivers a darkly humorous assessment of Irish society.
But more than that, this play is about music and the healing power of music. It is about human relationships; about the fragility and the endurance of the human spirit. It is about language, as the quack and the tough but fragile Irish man verbally parry and spar.
Denis Conway as the Irish Man is extraordinary, by turns menacing and broken, dapper and dishevelled; while Peter Sullivan is a find as the wounded dynamatologist. Eileen Walsh brings the challenging role of Mona to life.
Garry Hynes's direction gives the play space to sing, while the muted set and lighting -- relieved by bursts of colour -- creates the claustrophobic atmosphere of the quack's office/home.
This is a play that challenges and rewards its audience, and Druid's production does it justice.
- Judy Murphy
