Safe Harbour review: Untitled Song Cycle, by Enda Walsh & Anna Mullarkey

★★★★☆

 It may seem premature to review Untitled Song Cycle, an Abbey Theatre-commissioned stage show billed as a work-in-progress, but the project is already so far advanced that it merits assessment.

Untitled Song Cycle is a collaboration between lyricist Enda Walsh and composer Anna Mullarkey, performed by vocalist Aoife Duffin with projections by Jack Phelan. Much might be expected of any project involving Walsh, whose achievements include a collaboration with the late David Bowie on his stage musical Lazarus. Thankfully, he has found another sympathetic partner in Mullarkey, and their compositions are never less than enthralling.

The central character in the song cycle is an unnamed woman who lives in a rural handball alley, one of those neglected spaces one can find all over the country. Nothing is required of Duffin but that she stand at the mic and sing, apart from one sequence where her face – desolate and pale – is projected on the screen behind her.

Screen projections are nothing new in the theatre, but in this case they perfectly complement the songs. Sometimes the lyrics appear on the screen, sometimes they are replaced by more abstract manipulations of light.

Mullarkey and Phelan are either side of Duffin on stage. Mullarkey both performs and conducts the synth-heavy music, raising her left hand as each new song commences. The compositions do not adhere to conventional structures, with verses and choruses, but rather unfold unpredictably.

Much depends on Duffin’s delivery, which is gutsy and compelling. There is little in the way of plot or narrative; rather, the songs reflect on random incidents in the woman’s life. Most are tragic. She wears a lover’s shirt as she, heartbroken, watches him depart. She visits an Irish language-speaking aunt in a care home. Bizarrely, a dog warns her she is about to be attacked. After the attack, she is “haunted by Disney.” The lyric “morning’s breath is full of death” appears at both the beginning and the end.

As it stands, Untitled Song Cycle is, for all its bleakness, a 33-minute wonder. One can only hope the finished work will be as thrilling on the Abbey stage.