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Review: Gibraltar: An Adaptation after James Joyce’s Ulysses

Patrick Fitzgerald and Cara Seymour

On the one hand, there is James Joyce’s classic novel Ulysses, a book that has been described as a “complex masterpiece,” with its manifold overlapping themes, rich symbolism and a vast and colorful cast of characters.

On the other hand, there is Patrick Fitgerald’s play Gibraltar: An Adaptation after James Joyce’s Ulysses, to be presented Saturday at 5 p.m. at Plays and Players, which does something both brave and fascinating. Gibraltar plunges deeply and directly into what Fitzpatrick believes is the novel’s heart: the complex, bittersweet love story of protagonist Leopold Bloom and his wife Molly.

The play takes its name from the birthplace of Molly Bloom, played by Cara Seymour. Seymour actually plays several other roles, including the muse, her husband’s deceased Hungarian father Rudolf Virág, Gerty MacDowell (a young girl Bloom encounters on the beach), and, at one or two points, the Blooms’ cat.) Fitzgerald portrays Leopold Bloom. The play premiered in New York in 2010.

Artist Rob Berry and the crew of Throwaway Horse LLC, creators of the online comic Ulysses Seen , were instrumental in bringing the play to Plays and Players. (Read the blog post.)

I’ve previously owned up to my ignorance of Ulysses. And so I have to admit, I was looking to Gibraltar as a gentle, accessible introduction to Joyce’s Dublin and Leopold Bloom’s travels about the city on that single day, June 16.

And so, in some ways, it was just that. It’s not hard to get a grasp on the broad outlines and themes, although at times it can be hard to focus in on specifics because the lines, derived from the language of the novel, come fast and furious. Consequently, some of what transpires onstage is hard to follow.

Still, hang in there, Ulysses newbs, and you’ll catch snatches of Joyce’s language and you’ll gain precious insight into what makes at least these two characters tick—or as much as they themselves have been able to figure out.

It’s hard for me to imagine a more challenging acting assignment, but Fitzgerald and Seymour are more than equal to the task. Fitzgerald’s passion and energy shine through. He makes the stage, with its meager props—a bed, a set of stairs, some dishes and a tea kettle, a hatstand and a Victrola—seem much larger than it really is. We cease to see props; instead, we begin to see Leopold Bloom, his life and his world through the actor’s eyes.

Seymour is a revelation, particularly as she delivers Molly’s soliloquy. It’s from the final chapter of Ulysses, and it takes up most of the second half. The lines are delivered from a squeaky bed at the far right side of the stage—the bed Molly shares with Leopold. Seymour opens the window wide onto Molly’s fundamental humanity as the character takes stock of her life and her relationship with Leopold—reminiscences tinged with longing and regret. As the monologue continued, you could sense that so-called “fourth wall” actors talk about becoming ever more permeable and, finally, dissolving into thin air.

I would never suggest that Gibraltar is easy going. The Sound of Music, it is not. Still, as the week in which Bloomsday is celebrated comes to a close, take the opportunity to see what two very talented actors can do with Joyce’s challenging masterwork.

Ticket information.

Location:

Plays & Players
1714 Delancey Pl
Philadelphia, PA 19103

June 16, 2011 by Jeff Meade

Music

Review: “800 Voices,” by Danny Ellis

Danny Ellis in concert.

I apologize in advance for just now getting this. Danny Ellis’s “800 Voices” arrived in my mailbox a couple of months ago, and then St. Patrick’s Day and all the mayhem surrounding that day landed on me, and I just put it off.

In any case, I don’t want to let my slowness off the mark signify in any way my feelings about “800 Voices.” It’s a brilliant, if haunting piece of work.

Danny Ellis is a survivor of the notorious Artane Industrial School, in Dublin’s Northside, operated with wanton cruelty and unrestrained brutality by the equally notorious Christian Brothers. Clearly, their mission—to care for young children, many of them orphans, some of them categorized as delinquents—was wholly uninspired by Jesus Christ.

Ellis was committed to the school by his ailing mother, who was unable to care for her five children. Two of his brothers went to a school in Rathdrum, and two sisters wound up in an institution for girls in Booterstown. Young Danny Ellis entered Artane in 1955. He remained there for eight years, released when he turned 16. Artane, opened in 1870, was the largest of Ireland’s industrial scholols. According to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, which investigated such schools, the Christian Brothers’ use of corporal punishment was “systemic and pervasive.” Allegations of sexual abuse and neglect also surfaced.

In light of that ugly history, you might suspect that Ellis’s cathartic musical recollection of his sad days at Artane could be a bit hard to take. And make no mistake, Ellis is unflinching in his depiction of his struggle at Artane—the fear, hunger, brutality, anger and lingering resentments.

Take, for example, these searing lyrics from Ellis’s “Innocence Back”:

They shattered our bodies
and they scattered our minds,
they broke us and beat us
’til we were twisted in time.
Then they cut us all loose
like rats in a sack,
now there’s no amount of money
gonna give us our innocence back.

And yet, for all the harrowing memories, “800 Voices” ultimately lands in a very hopeful place. The trauma of life in Artane clearly continued to color Ellis’s worldview for many of his adult years, but ultimately “800 Voices” makes you believe in redemption.

One reason Ellis is able to give voice to the poignant and painful memories that many others have kept submerged is that, after years of suffering what he refers to a “vague discontent,” he was able to connect with his feelings and find peace through meditation.

But way before that, when he was still a child navigating life at Artane, Ellis’s soul remained open to even the faintest possibility of joy. He found comfort in small things—the singing at Mass of another student, Tommy Bonner, and the arrival of summer signified by the Brothers’ issuance of soft red leather sandals to replace the usual stiff hobnail boots. And speaking of that rugged footwear, there’s a cute little song, “Who Trew Da Boot,” about the loud bang produced by an ancient loaf of bread on the dormitory floor after lights out. McCarthy, the ridiculous nightwatchman investigated, and assumed that the loud noise (the bread now safely hidden) was the result of a student tossing one of those heavy boots. “When 150 kids share a joke that the adult is not privy to,” Ellis writes in his liner notes, “suppressed laughter doesn’t remain suppressed for very long.”

But ultimately, Ellis found a sanctuary within Artane’s walls—a “friend,” as he puts it in another song—in music. Early on, he was recruited for the Artane Boys Band. He played trombone, blowing his lungs out. As he sums up his feelings in “The Artane Boys Band:”

There was nothing in this wide world as glorious or grand as the blast of freedom’s yearning from the Artane Boys band.

When he left Artane, Ellis carved out a musical career for himself, playing trombone in a string of Irish show bands, writing tunes for a time, and working as a session singer at London’s Abbey Road studios. (You’ll hear his trombone on the jazzy “Innocence Back.” He hasn’t lost his touch.)

For most of the CD, of course, Ellis accompanies himself on guitar and piano, but he also surrounds himself with some outstanding musicians: Duncan Wickel on fiddle, whistle and and uilleann pipes; River Guerguerian on hand and frame drums; and the mighty John Doyle on guitar bouzouki, mandolin and banjo.

It’s going to be some time before Ireland recovers from the bleak legacy of the industrial schools. Still, Danny Ellis offers ample evidence of the strength and power of the human spirit to overcome even the most tortured past.

April 14, 2011 by Jeff Meade

Music

Review: “A Moment of Madness,” by Brendan Begley and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh

Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Brendan Begley

Button accordionist Brendan Begley and fiddler Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh call their new CD “Le Gealaigh/A Moment of Madness.” If this be madness, there is method in it.

This 12-track recording is a bit of barely controlled wildness. I’m thinking in particular of one live track (“The Green Cottage,” “The Glin Cottage” and “Julia’s Norwegian Polka”) that brings to mind the image of a freight train roaring downhill, going faster and faster until the whole thing threatens to run off the rails.

It never does—but it’s a near thing.

There are a few moments like that on this recording, moments where musical expression could well be sacrificed on the altar of speed. In the hands of anyone less capable, that’s exactly what would happen. But wildness, Begley says, is a hallmark of the West Kerry style of accordion playing—and it’s Begley who seems to be leading this charge. You get the sense that wildness is exactly what these two musicians want to bring out in their tunes.

So yes, it is all a bit mad on occasion, but somehow they maintain their sanity.

We started out talking about a particular set of polkas. We could well talk a good deal more about them. There are six sets of polkas on this recording. As for the rest, it’s a neat little mix of jigs, a pair of laments and one set of hornpipes. Anyway, if you like polkas, you won’t be disappointed. With the exception of the aforementioned runaway train, most of them are well-suited to dancing. A particular favorite is track three—”Sean Keane’s” and “The Ardgroom Polka.” Begley plays the first tune, hitting all those deep, resonant chords, setting the pace. One of the interesting things about this CD is that you can hear the clicking of the accordion buttons on a few tracks. Maybe this isn’t what the musicians intended—it’s not the polished thing to do—but it gives the CD the ring of authenticity. It’s as if you were sitting next to Begley in the circle at a session. It’s almost visual. Ó Raghallaigh jumps in on the second tune, and the two together play with authority and great presence. They draw you in.

You’ll also be pulled in by the laments, “An Chéad Mháirt de Fhomhair” (The First Tuesday in Autumn) and “Na Gamhna Geala,” which Begley performs unaccompanied. Begley’s use of deep, droning chords is very pipe-like. There’s a stark beauty to both tunes.

Ó Raghallaigh gets his own chance to shine on a soaring set of polkas, “Tá Dhá Gabhairín Buí Agam,” “The Glen Cottage” and “I’ll Tell Me Ma.” It sounds like two fiddles playing.

With all the polkas, the jigs almost take a back seat. But not quite. The catchiest, most toe-tapping moments come on a set of jigs, “The Humors of Lisheen,” “The Munster Jig” and “Sean Coughlin’s.” You’re carried along by the rhythmic rising and falling of fiddle and box. It’s a perfect pairing.

With two players so well-matched and at the top of their game, “A Moment of Madness” is essential listening. It’s crazy good.

February 11, 2011 by Jeff Meade

Arts

Review: A Skull in Connemara

Stephen Novelli as Mick Dowd and Jake Blouch as Mairtin--and skulls. Photo by Mark Garvin.

The Lantern Theatre Company’s production of “A Skull in Connemara,” is, to quote one of its quirky main characters “a great oul night. Drinking and driving and skull batterin’. . .”

In fact, if you happen to be in the first row, you might want to bring some protection—a la watermelon-smashing comic Gallagher—from the flying bone shards during the hilarious scene as two drunken Irish gravediggers with wooden mallets make sure that two skeletons do indeed return to dust.

In the second part of Martin McDonagh’s Leenane trilogy (“Beauty Queen of Leenane” and “The Lonesome West” bracket it), “A Skull in Connemara” tells the story of Mick Dowd (Stephen Novelli), who picks up the odd piece of change from the parish priest by digging up bodies in the church graveyard and disposing of them so there’ll be room for the newly dead. We arrive as Mick is within distance of the lovely bones of his wife, Oona, who died, we learn, as the result of a “drink driving” accident seven years earlier with the poitin-addled Mick at the wheel. He paid his debt in prison, but returned home to be haunted by the rumor that he’d murdered her and used the accident to cover it up.

Assisting Mick is a local young miscreant and dimbulb, Mairtin (Jake Blouch), whose granny MaryJohnny (Ellen Mulroney), likes to saunter down to Mick’s cottage after a successful night of Bingo for a sip of the good stuff that Mick has aplenty, trade a little gossip, and nurse old resentments (she still has it in for the boys who, as five-year-olds, went “wee” on the concecrated ground of the graveyard. And for the children who called her names: “When I see them burned in hell, that’s when I let bygones be bygones,” she tells Mick). The fourth character is her other grandson, the local garda Tommy (Jered McLenigan) who makes Barney Fife look like a candidate for Mensa. At one point, when Mick makes a comment about Tommy’s having seen plenty of dead bodies, the copper admits that he hasn’t. “I would like there to be dead bodies flying about everywhere, but there never is,” he says wistfully.

As in many Irish plays, there are horrifying moments tempered by humor. In this one, it’s death that loses its sting to hilarity, much of it physical. The skull batterin’ is done to music—an insipid tune on a 45 record by a female Irish popstar whom Mairtin admits to fantasizing about. And Mairtin’s other fantasies contribute to the laughs, as when he’s making two skulls kiss and one perform a sex act that we can’t describe here.

Jake Blouch as Mairtin occasionally loses his accent but never his comic timing. He brings such a wonderful childlike innocence to the character that it never occurs to you to wonder why you find this boy so adorable and funny even after he admits to cooking a live hamster in a microwave, wishing only that there had been a glass door so he actually could have seen what happened.

Stephen Novelli’s Mick is a finely nuanced character, acerbic as hell but nursing an inner turmoil that feeds the suspicion that his neighbors—particular the garda Tommy—are right about his wife’s death. Novelli hints at but doesn’t hit the audience over the head with the simmering violence inside him. Because he actually does hit someone else over the head, his guilt remains a question, but by the end you’re laughing so much it doesn’t really matter.

“A Skull in Connemara” is directed by M. Craig Getting and Kathryn MacMillan. The inventive set, which combines Mick’s home with the graveyard where he spends many minutes on stage digging into real dirt, is the work of scenic designer Dirk Durossette. And major props to the prop people on this production (Tim Martin is props designer). Every night, two plaster skeletons are smashed to smithereens and since the nearly sold-out play is extending its run through February 13, we figure that, including matinees, they’ve got more than 50 skeletons in their prop closet.

“A Skull in Connemara” is part of the Philadelphia Irish Theater Festival. Save 20 percent on tickets by ordering tickets to two or more plays at the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia website.

January 20, 2011 by Denise Foley

Music

Review: “A Galway Afternoon”

“A Galway Afternoon” would be a priceless gift to Irish music listeners under any circumstances, filled as it is with tunes that encapsulate and preserve so many examples of box player Joe Madden’s boundless energy and the apparently limitless joy he took in playing.

Joined and supported by his famous daughter Joanie on flute and whistle on 13 of the 14 tracks, Joe Madden packs a sound that seems to well up from some deep place to expand and fill the room, sucking up every last ounce of oxygen. Joe Madden is a commanding presence, and “A Galway Afternoon” is very much his own.

What makes the release of this CD (at Catskills Irish Arts Week) so poignant and precious is the fact that Joe Madden is no longer with us. All the tracks on which he is featured are the result of Joanie’s crafty plan to pull him into Charlie Lennon’s Cuan Recording Studio in Spiddal, County Galway, in June, 2008. At the time, he was just shy of 70.

Like a lot of traditional players, Madden apparently was not the type to leap at an opportunity to record. That he was lured into the studio for such an all-encompassing exposition of his powerful skills was an act of providence. In November of that year, Madden fell down the stairs in his home, resulting in spinal cord damage and paralysis. Those mighty hands were stilled. Shortly thereafter, he died.

The Irish music community was left to cope with grief over Madden’s loss. But at the same time, it also was left with something wondrous to remember him by.

To be sure, Joanie Madden makes her presence known on “A Galway Afternoon,” setting her usual blistering pace on the reels and jigs and painting a lush, vibrant musical mural on the slow air “Sliabh geal gCua.”

But mostly, she seems content to play a supporting role, and the passion and energy of Joe Madden takes center stage. From one set of tunes to the next, it is Joe Madden’s playing that commands your attention. Maybe “demands” is a better word.

“A Galway Afternoon” is jammed with well-worn old tunes with colorful names like “Sault’s Own Hornpipe,” “The Little Thatched Cabin,” “Pussy Got the Measles” and “The Spike Island Lassies.” Madden obviously was one of those players who had forgotten more tunes than most of us will ever know.

There’s absolutely nothing fancy or fussy about how Madden plays. It’s just straight-ahead dance music, played with a sure hand. There’s a purity there, along with razor-sharp precision.

Also joining the supporting cast are Charlie Lennon on piano, John Madden on drums (he’s flat-out wonderful) and Gabriel Donohue on guitar.

On the final track—a set of reels, including “Dinny O’Brien’s and “Sean Sa Che”—we’re treated to a glimpse of Joe Madden’s sparkling personality. After the music ends, we hear his laughing voice echoing in the recording studio: “The hell with the last couple of notes. That’s it.”

No, Joe. As long as we have this recording, that’ll never be it.

January 7, 2011 by Jeff Meade

Music

Review: “The Blue Dress” by Shannon Heaton

The Blue Dress

“The Blue Dress” is all softness and satin. On her new solo album, the delicate sound of Shannon Heaton’s Irish wooden flute is accompanied nearly throughout by lighter-than-air instruments such as Maeve Gilchrist’s harp and her husband Matt’s guitar and bouzouki. The result is 12 tracks of beautifully played tunes that all blend together like the threads of some silvery, fairy-spun fabric.

That’s not to suggest “The Blue Dress” is insubstantial. All of the choices are firmly rooted in traditional music, from “Boil the Breakfast Early” and “Eddie Duffy’s Reel” to “Campbells Are Coming” and “Irish Washerwoman.” The tune selection is a nice balance of reels and jigs, with a set of hornpipes (“Grandfather’s Thoughts” and “Fairy Queen”) and a pair of polkas (“#99 Polka” and “High Caul Cap”) thrown in for balance.

Heaton also is supported by Paddy League on bodhran, percussion and bouzouki, and by Liz Simmons on guitar. League is especially effective on the polka track, playing what sounds like djembe on these very syncopated tunes. It’s the kind of set that, on a Lunasa CD, probably would transition to a mazurka. League’s bodhran play on the “Dennis Watson’s” reel set (“Wheels of the World,” “The Flogging Reel” and “Dennis Watson’s”) really propels the tunes with wild, burbly energy in support of Shannon and Matt Heaton. He shows up again in a few places; he provides an interesting contrast to Heaton and Gilchrist on the last track, a set of reels (“Hornless Cow” and “Boil the Breakfast Early”).

There are three more pensive tunes, as well, all of them Heaton’s own, including the delicate “Blue Dress Waltz,” one of the highlights of the CD. Gilchrist begins the tune, with Heaton joining a couple of verses in. It’s a lovely dance, a perfect pairing of two very complementary instruments and styles. “Blue Dress Waltz” is dedicated to all the fans who supported the recording on Kickstarter.com.

Two other pieces by Heaton, “Nights on Caledonia Terrace” (a slow air) and “Frost Place” (a slow reel) are especially lovely and show off her talent and sensitivity. She’s one of the leading wood flute players in the world, and these tunes help illustrate why she is held in such high regard.

All told, this is music played with a sure hand and faithfulness to the tradition, aided by a strong supporting cast. Together with Flook frontman Brian Finnegan’s earlier “The Ravishing Genius of Bones,” “The Blue Dress” is one of the most impressive and most completely realized albums of the year.

November 24, 2010 by Jeff Meade

Music

Review: “Singing in the Dark,” by Susan McKeown

Singing in the Dark

The defining moment of “Singing in the Dark,” Susan McKeown’s moving meditation on the relationship between deeply debilitating mental illness and soaring creativity, comes toward the end of the recording, in a musical adaptation of the Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis’s “Angel of Depression.”

The words McKeown sings, Lewis’s words, are brutally unsentimental: “Don’t say it’s an honour to have fought with depression’s angel. It always wears the face of my loved ones as it tears the breath from my solar plexus, grinds my face in the ever-resilient dirt. Oh yes, I’m broken but my limp is the best part of me. And the way I hurt.”

When McKeown hurls herself into the word “broken,” she tears through the upper registers like a razor blade through silk. In that single harrowing moment, you can begin to see depression for what it is at its worst, a soul-destroying cancer.

This is strong stuff, in an album full of strong stuff. In “Singing in the Dark,” McKeown and her musical colleagues Frank London and Lisa Gutkin take on the daunting task of putting difficult words to music. The album celebrates the work of poets such as Anne sexton, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and and Theodore Roethke. Lord Byron makes an appearance. So do Leonard Cohen and Chilean singer-songwriter Violetta Parra. A recording industry pitchman might describe it as a tribute to troubled souls. It is far more than that.

McKeown says she was inspired to make this album after reading Kay Jamison’s book, “Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament.” She also met with familiy members and friends of those suffering from mental illness, and she tapped into the melancholic themes that run like a dark vein through much of her native Irish music. Recording began in a studio on Ireland’s Achill island in August 2008. Thus emerged McKeown’s exploration of mental illness as the wellspring of creative genius.

The source material is indisputably rich: Take, for example, Anne Sexton’s “Her Kind,” in which the poet casts herself in the role of madwoman-witch: “A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind.” Or Roethke’s poem, “In a Dark Time,” which ponders life at the extremes but ends on a transcendent note: “A man goes far to find out what he is—Death of the self in a long, tearless night, All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.”

Most of this material is not, by nature, “hummable.” None of this would work if the music didn’t just hold together, but hold its own with the world-class poetry. This, it does—in spades.

Take, for example, “The Nameless One,” by 19th-century Irish poet James Clarence Mangan. With verses like the following, it’s hardly upbeat:

“Him grant a grave to, ye pitying noble,
Deep in your bosoms: there let him dwell!
He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble,
Here and in hell.”

Amazingly, McKeown and colleagues deliver a wonderfully folky tune to accompany those words. The bouncy banjo treatment reminds me of Woody Guthrie’s “Gonna Get Through This World” on the group’s 2006 Klezmatics collaboration, “Wonder Wheel.”

“The Crazy Woman,” based on the poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, is a revelation. If you think about the opening lines of the poem, “I shall not sing a May song. A May song should be gay. I’ll wait until November I shall not sing a May song. A May song should be gay. I’ll wait until November and sing a song of gray,” you may not be able to hear a jazzy little piano lounge tune in it. McKeown and friends did, and it’s a treat.

I was wondering where I’d first heard the dolorous “In Darkness Let Me Dwell,” written by the lutenist John Dowland. It was on Sting’s 2006 CD, “Songs from the Labyrinth.” Susan McKeown’s version will easily make you forget Sting ever tried his hand at Madrigal singing.

“The Crack in the Stairs,” based on the work of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, is a bit more challenging, both for the singer and the listener. It’s a dissonant modern piano piece written by Irish composer Elaine Agnew. Give it a chance. It fits the bleak material.

And if not that, there’s more. The Latin standard “Gracias a la Vida,” by Violetta Parra, is a pretty piece. You may remember a Joan Baez version. McKeown’s version of Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem,” is performed with soulful elegance.

That any song on the album would be sung otherwise is unthinkable. McKeown at her best is always balanced right on the edge: fragility on the one side, strength on the other. It’s perfect for material that is so emotionally weighted—and for painting a portrait of life at the extremes.

November 4, 2010 by Jeff Meade

Music

Review: “Three Colours Ginger” by Brongaene Griffin

A sun-soaked illustration of a cat casting a long violin-shaped shadow adorns the cover of “Three Colours Ginger” by Oregon fiddler Brongaene (Bronnie) Griffin. Most of the sets of tunes on the CD bear a feline-derived title: “Black Cat,” “Calico,” “Copy Cat,” and “Tortoiseshelled Chesire.” Between the musical tracks, the superb Irish fiddler Kevin Burke recites such odes to kitties as “The Cat of Cats,” “The Cats of Kilkenny” and even “The Owl and the Pussycat,” delivered in a voice like honeyed whiskey.

Whimsically themed this new recording may be, but it is also seriously good. It could hardly be otherwise. Griffin cut her teeth on old-timey tunes, at which she excelled from an early age, but she is no less a whiz on Irish fiddle. She took instruction from Burke (which should say something), and he himself appears on two tracks. The master guitarist, singer and song-writer Gerry O’Beirne produced the CD, and he plays guitar and ukulele throughout.

Some of the very best moments are those in which Griffin and O’Beirne play unaccompanied. (Check out track 3, ”In the Tap Room” and “The Foxhunter Reel;” track 5, a collection of slides, “Where’s the Cat,” “Behind the Bush in the Garden” and “The Cat Rambles to the Child’s Saucepan;” and the 10th track, “Margaret’s Waltz,” dedicated to Griffin’s sister.)

Of course, there’s a lot to like about the sets in which Griffin has plenty of company. And good company it is. Griffin is joined by some high-powered traditional talent of the Pacific Northwest, including harper Elizabeth Nicholson, fiddler Bob Soper, Jim Chapman on bouzouki, guitarist Nancy Conescu and Johnny B. Connolly on button accordion. (Burke also resides in Portland, which apparently is knee-deep in world-class traditional Irish musicians.)

I was especially fond of Nicholson’s bell-like handiwork on the opening track, Colorpointe (“The Cat in the Fiddle Case” and “The Fisher’s Hornpipe);” the second track, a set of jigs including “The Orphan” and “The Stray Away Child;” and track 8, another set of jigs fitted onto the tail-end (so to speak) of Burke’s recitation of “The Cats of Kilkenny.” Connolly and Chapman contribute a good deal of color and depth on the tracks on which they appear.

Which brings up a minor point. All of the musicians appear in more places than the credits would indicate. The best example of that little oversight is Griffin’s sixth track, O’Carolan’s “Planxty Hewlett,” a lush waltz that reminds me a little of “Ashokan Farewell,” and even Pachelbel’s Canon in D. None of the accompanists is credited on this piece.

The tune begins with a sure-handed Griffin and O’Beirne proceeding alone, but it builds in delicate, lacy layers—a second fiddle (could be Burke, could be Soper), then Connolly, and finally Nicholson. It’s my favorite number on the album, and it will bring to mind all the happy-sad moments of your life and leave you to dissolve into a puddle of weepiness. It’s a lovely, tender performance by Griffin.

There are a few other faults in the credits but, really, it’s what’s inside that counts. You’re going to pay rather more attention to Griffin, who plays with confidence, poise and deep expression. (And she’s a musician with a conscience. The cat theme stems from her work in animal welfare, and a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this CD will benefit the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon and Indigo Rescue, which rehabilitates rescued animals before they’re placed in adoptive homes.)

You’ll be impressed by the ensemble work as well. The performance of Griffin and company seems less like a recording session than the spontaneous collaboration of a group of good friends at a traditional Irish music session.

And that might be the highest compliment you can pay to any recording of Irish traditional music.

October 27, 2010 by Jeff Meade

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