Celtic Woman, The Point Depot, Dublin, Ireland, (February 18, 2006)
The last time I strolled through the portals of Dublin's Point Depot was the summer of 1995, when Robert Plant and Jimmy Page's "Unleaded" Tour hit town. On Saturday, February 18th, 2006, I came through the Point Depot's doors again to witness the homecoming of an Irish success story -- the phenomenon that is Celtic Woman.
Celtic Woman, which was devised by Sharon Browne from Celtic Collections Records and Dave Kavanagh, the ex-manager of The Chieftains and Clannad, is an Irish stage show that combines aspects of traditional and contemporary songs and music with a wide-screen approach and professional production values. With its emphasis on the song tradition highlighting the woman's voice, it could be described as "Riverdance without feet." It successfully bypasses the Riverdance college of dance-centred productions to present something entirely different.
Celtic Woman made its debut at The Helix Theatre in Dublin in late 2004 as a specially recorded concert for PBS TV. Released on CD and DVD by Manhattan Records in New York, the album has hit the Billboard Charts and shipped a cool million copies. Celtic Woman also nestles just below "American Idol" winners Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood in the eBay Top 10, highlighting its position at the heart of American popular culture. Celtic Woman has achieved that long-held wish of Irish artists since time immemorial for mainstream American popular chart and touring success. Barring U2's success, not since the heyday of The Clancy Brothers, Clannad's "Theme from Harry's Game", Riverdance and Michael Flatley's spin-off shows Lord of the Dance, Feet of Flames and his latest effort Celtic Tiger, has there been an Irish-bred, Celtic-themed mainstream American chartbuster.
Slick, commercial, and fast-paced, Celtic Woman plays its business cards up-front. The logo of the nubile red-haired, blue-eyed colleen resembling a 21st century Maureen O'Hara gazing wistfully from the CD, DVD, and stage backdrop sets out the stall. This is a slice of Irish history from the female perspective--comely maidens dancing at the crossroads nostalgia combined with the emotional largesse of A Woman's Heart.
Celtic Woman celebrates womanhood, but the chosen depiction is more feminine than feminist, as no political message lies beneath the cosy veneer. This is not a soapbox and social revolution is not on the agenda. Instead, romance or romanticism plays a significant part with Yeats' notion of a "Romantic Ireland". This allows for a peculiarly Irish variation of Romanticism with a capital R. Images and references to home and hearth abound, and themes such as nostalgia, emigration and love assume centrality. The sea figures prominently in the background with visuals of waves lashing against desolate coastlines and lofty cliffs jutting out into the horizon.
Further elements of romanticism appear in the choice of communal attire. This is either formal or semi-formal; the choristers are dressed in black while the female leads shimmer in eveningwear of pastoral blue or light green. The lack of sequins or Hollywood-type glamour is notable as this is an Irish retelling of a typically Irish story and the reserve evoked is modest and sensitively human. It is Hollywood minus the overkill.
The music reflects the romantic ideology with nods to modern ethereal sounds and an elder nostalgic sensibility. Here the "'lush" soundscapes of Clannad and Enya ride sidesaddle with traditional music, "Titanic"-type anodyne romantic ballads, re-shapings of historical epic folksongs, Gaelic "sean-nos" and a smattering of light opera. This constitutes the essence of the stylistic movements within the Irish song canon during the last century.
Many of the songs are chosen for their sentimental and emotional connection and they have the required result. A good example occurred during "'The Blessing" a new addition to the programme, I watched one woman near me break down in tears while Lisa Kelly was singing on stage. Standards such as "The Isle of Innishfree" and "Danny Boy"' take their place alongside "One World" and "Send Me a Song", new compositions by Musical Director, David Downes. The latter two are standouts, being solid show-type songs devoid of cliché "Irishisms" that typified so many "Son and Daughter of Riverdance"' shows such as the abominable This Land.
While there is an element of Bringing Coals to Newcastle present in performing songs like "Danny Boy" and "Isle of Innishfree" in contemporary Celtic Tiger Ireland, these songs have their part in the Irish song tradition. Whatever accusations of sentimental "Stage Oirishness" can be hurled in their direction, it can be argued that they have served a meaningful purpose. These are songs that have survived cultural and historical evolutions, and became a lifeline and a link with Ireland for millions of people separated from their homeland. They also challenge the Ireland of 2006 that wishes to see itself as a trendy, urbane, liberal, utopian society to look at its perception with the eyes of the outside world.
Brief snatches of the operatic tradition emerge with an excerpt from Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Morricone's 'Nella Fantasia' from The Mission. These selections featured 17-year-old soprano Chloe Agnew. She emerges as one of the stand-out performers of the troupe. While vocalists Lisa Kelly, Orla Fallon, and Deirdre Shannon Gilsenan, are highly experienced, Chloe Agnew is a real discovery; her delivery is more Sarah Brightman than Charlotte Church with the top notes easily gliding from her robust frame.
The sidelong glances at pure traditional music include Maireid Nesbitt's fiddle solos and a bodhrán duet between Ray Fean and Robbie Casserley which neatly compliments their later Allman Brothers-like dual drum kit blow-out. Anuna-style choral arrangements of "She Moved Through the Fair" with its Afro Work Chant backdrop and traditional Gaelic songs such as "Mo Ghile Mear" and the sprightly "Se Do Mhamaoi" also figure in the pudding. Sean Clarach Mac Domnhaill's "Mo Gile Mear" is transported from its origins as a stirring Jacobite lament into a rumination on elemental forces of nature while "'Se Do Mhamaoi" is one of the few up-tempo songs on show. There are a few "Titanic" moments with high lonesome whistle introductions over an ambient backdrop and lyrical pining and reserved emotion but thankfully such moments are delivered sensitively thus avoiding melodramatic overkill.
The dance sequences are minimal and--apart from Mairead Nesbit's almost Flatelyesque movements while playing--dance is confined to one item. Nesbit is an accomplished fiddler and her sprite-like movements and "traditional Irish skipping" create a playful, ethereal neophyte effect. The Ceili sequence is the only outright complete song/dance/sketch item on show. The courtship roles employ 50s type sentimentality more akin to "The Quiet Man" than Phil Lynnott's waggish virility as espoused in "The Boys Are Back In Town". The setting is definitely rural as opposed to cosmopolitan and the result slides somewhere between Maeve Binchy's "Circle of Friends" and "The Quiet Man". The romance here is strictly traditional, three male choir members do their best Clancy Brothers "broth of a boy" impressions and get lucky with Orla, Lisa, and Deirdre, who resemble an Irish version of The Andrews Sisters. True love wins out in their womanly minds as opposed to the cosmopolitan-thought talk where "the man with the cold hard cash" as espoused by Madonna in "Material Girl"' is always Mr. Right.
At home, Celtic Woman's progress since its debut concert has been clearly monitored. The show's rise in popularity was shown in the choice of The Point Depot as a venue for its hometown concert. While The Helix and The Point Depot are both located in the confines of Dublin City, the cultural and credibility shifts between both venues are obvious. The Point is the biggest indoor venue in the country holding at least 4,000 comfortably and 5,000 in sardine can quantities, compared with the intimate confines of the Helix's 600-seat Mahony Hall. Playing the Point ensures the artist's arrival as a major force in entertainment circles.
For the producers of Celtic Woman, playing The Point Depot was a signal of arrival but also involved considerable personal risk. Show co-creator Dave Kavanagh confided to me backstage that bringing Celtic Woman to the Point for its first Irish show since its 2004 debut at the Helix was more nerve-wracking for him and the cast than playing Carnegie Hall or Radio City Music Hall.
Whatever the commercial success outside Ireland, embarking on a course of action like Celtic Woman, one encounters the risk of a media backlash. The following description published in The Ticket, the weekly entertainment supplement of The Irish Times, on Friday, February 17, 2006, proves that local media knives are out and sharpened! The Celtic Woman singers are described as, "Irish female singing group trot out the soporific vocal clichés in a manner that makes Enya seem P.J. Harveyesque by comparison".
With its wide-screen approach and professional production values Celtic Woman is the first successful Irish-theme show to bypass the Riverdance college of dance-centred productions. A viable niche existed for something romantic and more refined than Riverdance yet personalised enough to operate under the basic "Celtic" banner. There was room for a production that was large scaled yet different enough to be a pacemaker in its own right. The creators of Celtic Woman, Sharon Browne, Dave Kavanagh and David Downes, have mined this particular seam successfully.
Celtic Woman is a show that succeeds on commercial and aesthetic levels. While it may not be sufficiently "gutsy" for the traditionalists and may incur the wrath of musical "heads" for its outright sentimentality and common denominator nostalgia, there is some degree of creative iron behind the filigree velvet. Celtic Woman is entertainment that can cross all age and social boundaries and be successfully enacted in The White House as easily as The Kennedy Centre in New York without causing harm, breaking sweat, or inciting racial tension.
The success of Celtic Woman on US stages and TV is immediately understandable. It plays to and updates some of the typical cliché images of Ireland and Irish femininity. While Celtic Woman plays safe and appeals to a general audience, it also opens eyes and ears to the deeper wonders of the Irish music and song tradition and the role of the female viewpoint without resorting to feminist broadside or political soapbox. Yes, it is safe and it is commercial but the closing words from EMI's Bruce Lundval, who signed it in the first place, captures the reasons for the show's success, "What they do, they do it very well'.
