'A Red Day' - Ishka Theatre Company

Arthouse Theatre, Dublin Fringe Festival, Oct. '99

A storm descends upon a totally dark stage. Through flickers of fiery lighting and to foreboding, thunderous musical accompaniment, a shadowy figure of sombre colour and grotesque lines is slowly revealed. The figure emerges as that of a woman in a painting, caught by the light in her frame; but suddenly, this figure is literally emerging, edging her way slowly from the frame that holds her to the wall and slipping out into a dark night. A voiceover, a radio newscast, informs us of the theft of Picasso's painting of Dora Maar from the museum.

We are immediately in a land of surreal and incredible happenings. Dora Maar, a lover of Picasso immortalised in one of his cubist paintings, steals out of her frame to trace and seduce her former lover. She finds him preoccupied with new creations, each coming to life as a physical being as the painter creates them on his canvas. One of these emerges as another woman, in even more abstract form than Maar, a rival for Picasso's affections and the object of her jealousy. Another is a wildly distorted horse with a permanent manic expression, which this woman tries to tame. Dora is painted in passionate purples and reds; these figures, however, are black and white, taken from Picasso's great anti-war painting, "Guernica". Despite their initial domestic concerns, their entrance unavoidably foreshadows the intrusion of violence upon the as-yet intimate scene.

Soon war does descend, with storm-trooper-like soldiers invading the stage to noises of gunfire and battle. Picasso's creations, who have forged their own lives in front of us, meet a violent end on the same stage, with the last, poignant images being of the slow death of the manic, but loveable, horse.

Although the forms of these characters are abstract, carved - literally - from the cubist paintings of Picasso, the guiding principle is expressionist: sound and music, light and colour, shape and movement combine to build fleeting scenes, tentative relationships and a vague story. The figures - all in full-body masks - dance and mould around each other with dexterity and panache. Aided by a terrific soundscape, they summon up images, relationships and events, aiming, it would seem, to evoke and reflect the fundamentals of creation and destruction, of love and hate.

'A Red Day' is superb Fringe fare. It captures the audience with the magic of puppetry and clowning, it is explosively imaginative. As a piece of performance it is inspiring; yet, as a play, it could have done with a healthy dose of good storytelling, focusing the plot and exposing the characters to a greater degree. There is definitely a story and the dexterity and abandon with which the company manipulate it is, at times, intriguing. Yet it remains ephemeral, with glimpses of character fleeting and scenes and events sometimes incoherent. No context is set for the intrusion of war upon the intimate scenes involving Picasso and his creations, and the violent and bloody climax allows no resolution of the personal conflicts and relationships that have been so sensitively developed.

Ishka are talking about reviving and refining 'A Red Day' next summer, possibly for an international tour. It will be interesting to see if it develops along narrative or expressionist lines. In the interim, it remains a beautiful and striking piece of theatre. If its all-too-short run was not already over, I would say: don't miss it.

Colin Murphy

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