Sunday Independent September 26, 2004

Emer O’Kelly (IRISH LIFE section)

RomAntic aGE by Michael Scott-Price.
Firebrand Theory Company at Andrew’s
Lane Studio

A company of fairly young performers taking on the poetry of William Blake as the basis for a stage presentation is enough to strike terror into the heart of anyone who regularly has to listen to young Irish companies mangling Shakespearean verse.

Firebrand Theory is based in New York, and its members have varied theatrical training backgrounds: any or all of them could be drafted into Irish drama schools with effect from today to give students a lesson how to speak verse as though it has some emotional and dramatic relevance.

Blake was at the forefront of the Romantic movement, and six actors (one on voiceover) use his verse (and only his verse) to create a vision of love unfulfilled around the tormented figure of a Narrator who is all at once lover, husband, son and father, elevated and soaring as young love unfurls, only to be dashed down as its ashes blow about his crippled innocence.

"Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly."

"Soon as she was gone from me,
A traveller came by,
Silently, invisibly:
He took her with a sigh."

But the company, with admirably controlled choreographed movement and emotional discipline, manage to speak love in all its aspects, as the central Narrator’s soul is laid bare on a park bench, the platform for his life.

This is simple, accomplished and adult theatre in the best sense of the term: moving and mature.