The Irish are renowned storytellers and musicians with some of the finest poets to ever live having called themselves Irishmen and women.
As the birthday of W.B. Yeats (13 June), the most famous of the Irish greats, passes, it’s a perfect time for a show like ‘Ancient Rain’.
‘Ancient Rain’ (at QPAC in Brisbane 13 June) isn’t your typical night of Irish music. Instead, it’s staggeringly beautiful Irish poetry set to music, performed by a talented group of musicians.
It seems odd to have Paul Kelly, iconic Australian singer-songwriter, at the helm of a work focused on the great Irish poets. That the man behind ‘To Her Door’ and a wealth of other sung stories could find himself singing as a rebellious female doctor waging war in Ireland seems, at first glance, like some kind of mix up.
Could he have wandered into the wrong rehearsal and been too polite to own up to the mistake? It takes about three minutes to forget that sense of jarring unfamiliarity. In truth, Kelly’s focus on storytelling is what makes him such a great voice for ‘Ancient Rain’.
After all every single work here is a story, each of those stories weaving together through the show to create a spellbinding world of loss, love and hope.
‘Ancient Rain’ isn’t the sort of flowery love note to the world you might imagine. Irish history is rife with freedom fights and loss, and the poets featured here have captured that sense of despairing futility in a way that meets the heart like a sucker punch. This may not be the best choice of entertainment on a bad day.
But if you’ve ever lost faith in poetry as a vehicle for exploring powerful emotion, ‘Ancient Rain’ is a must see. This is what happens when poetry is shifted away from the dry memory of a classroom and brought to vivid life, its heartbreak palpable and unashamedly laid bare.
The truth is that – though Paul Kelly gets top billing – Camille O’Sullivan owned the stage from the moment she stepped on to it. Her performance was mesmerising, so impossible to look away from that there were times I honestly forgot Paul Kelly was there. This isn’t a bad thing. Instead, Kelly took to the part of the straight man – the quiet co-conspirator to O’Sullivan’s whirlwind of action and emotion.
Camille O’Sullivan is the sort of singer who can do it all, moving from breathless prayer to rock-goddess growls seemingly effortlessly. There’s not much physical storytelling Kelly can do with a guitar in his hand and it’s O’Sullivan who moves the show along... quite literally. It’s impossible, I think, not to fall in love with her voice and her ability to capture and showcase a wealth of emotions in a way that grips your heart and squeezes it.
In fact every musician on stage was a powerhouse in their own right, each able to work flawlessly together while seeming entirely at ease. It felt, in many ways, like you imagine it feels to sit in an Irish pub – a proper one, not our version – listening to good friends having fun.
I came away from ‘Ancient Rain’ disappointed that there’s no CD I could take home with me, because I would listen to these sung poems again, not just to better understand the poems, but because each work is beautiful in its own right.
The idea that I may only hear these songs once is actually a little heartbreaking. But maybe that’s the point.
★★★★★
