Reviews GalwayReviews Published 22 July 2016

Review: Death at Intervals at Galway International Arts Festival

An Taibhdhearc ⋄ 20th - 24th July 2016

A menacing presence sweetly seeking to impress: Chris McCormack reviews Kellie Hughes’ play about femininity and death.

Chris McCormack
Death at Intervals at Galway International Arts Festival. Photo: Andrew Downes, Xposure.

Death at Intervals at Galway International Arts Festival. Photo: Andrew Downes, Xposure.

Death, contradictory as it sounds, is a big part of life. We couldn’t measure the meaning of our existences without it. The world would be overcrowded, household incomes stretched and public services on the brink. Such are the contemplations of José Saramago’s tragicomic novel As Intermitências da Morte, adapted by director Kellie Hughes for a co-production with Galway International Arts Festival. Against the backdrop of a national crisis, a soft-spoken musician (Raymond Scannell) tries to solve the mystery of his new fan (Olwen Fouéré). “That’s a perfect definition for life” delights the woman at one point, to which he responds knowingly: “But you’re not life”. “No” she says, “I’m something more complicated”.

Dressing up Death as a woman isn’t exactly new. We’ve unfairly come to expect upheaval brought on by Eve, Helen and Deirdre. Fouéré’s incarnation maintains a mysterious, even menacing presence while sweetly seeking to impress (“I used to play the violin. There’s even a photo of me doing it”) in conversation with Scannell’s humble musician (“I’m no Rachmaninoff”), who she has been sent to dispatch him to the grave. Instead she stalls, plunging the country into a crisis where people stop dying.

Both characters are nicely guarded as Hughes’s staging suspects the distance between them. Scannell’s piano provides rich textures of a world rushing towards turmoil, a world which Fouéré’s Death, a neat mix of humanity and spiriting Butoh-like gestures, is responsible. Impressively, the ordinary scene takes on a Kafkaesque air thanks to cunning stage effects: the revelatory illuminations of Michael Cummins’s lighting, and the distorting sound technology of Alma Kelliher.

The duo may speak back and forth in a bookish banter chock-full of lowly descriptions and elaborate metaphors (“You’re like a labyrinth with no doors”) but restrained deliveries prevent the language from feeling showy. The atmosphere is the thing, the mood of the music and the slow advance of movement, all the while Death tries to make sense when lying dishevelled next to her high heels, or gripping the leg of the piano.

Where does it all lead? Hughes and costume designer Niamh Lunny seem sensitive to the event as a sexual awakening, dressing Death in rose red. At the musician’s side, she resists extending her deathly touch, instead lifting a finger to tuck her hair behind her ear. It’s a heartening display, a fresh realisation of femininity as Death stands by, listening to a song just for her.

Death at Intervals is on as part of Galway International Arts Festival. Click here for more information.

Advertisement


Chris McCormack is a contributor to Exeunt Magazine

Review: Death at Intervals at Galway International Arts Festival Show Info


Produced by Kellie Hughes and Galway International Arts Festival

Directed by Kellie Hughes

Written by Kellie Hughes, adapted from José Saramago's novel As Intermitências de Morte

Cast includes Olwen Fouéré, Raymond Scannell

Advertisement


the
Exeunt
newsletter


Enter your email address below to get an occasional email with Exeunt updates and featured articles.


Advertisement