Latest Reviews

The New Electric Ballroom is a complicated affair. Part surreal, part self-reflexive, word-lyrical and just a little bit depressing, it is writer/ director Enda Walsh’s story of three sisters trapped by their memories and perceptions of the pain of love.

Clara (Ruth McCabe) and Breda (Rosaleen Linehan) live in a tiny Irish fishing town, rarely if ever leaving the house, the two of them constantly reliving the stories of their first love and first heartache, both of which took place at the New Electric Ballroom. Their sister Ada (Catherine Walsh), having, it seems, grown up surrounded by their repeated misery has no experience of love at all.

Together the women rehash and replay the past down to the last rehearsed sentence, ritualistically and, it seems, as a penitence for the pain they feel, and have inadvertently caused each other in their young days. Indeed, it seems this is where their progress has stopped and as they stop-rewind-repeat cassette tapes of the old ballroom music, so too do their lives stop-rewind-repeat. Enter local fisherman Patsy (Mikel Murfi), another lovelorn and excommunicated soul who comes to the house everyday to deliver a fresh catch and is everyday turned away from the conversation and left on the doorstep. Except this day, when he finally begs to be let inside and is finally accommodated…

Sinéad McKenna’s stark, moody lighting and Sabine Dargent’s fluorescent costume and innovative set work well to foreground the skewed fantasy of the piece. Walsh’s vision itself is pretty dark here but filled with lovely imagery, and there is a quite successful blend of hilarity and despair. 

The Irish accents are strong and Walsh works with this cadence to great advantage – if you can understand what’s being said! The fast-talking action runs from go to woe and I have to admit, I found it a bit difficult to keep up at first. By the final scenes between Ada and Patsy, the play had my full attention, but I could have used more time to tune in to the intonations. 

That being said, all of the performances were strong. McCabe is a stand out as petulant child-woman Clara, while Breda’s thwarted heart and motherly anger is well captured by Linehan, and Catherine Walsh, too, is on target as the repressed Ada. But it is Mikel Murfi who all but steals the show and is responsible for the most powerful scenes in the piece. I really missed him whenever he was off stage.

Overall, if you are ready for the energy and the language of The New Electric Ballroom, then the piece is worth seeing for its visual imagery and fine word-play.


The New Electric Ballroom

Part of the 2009 Perth International Arts Festival

Director Enda Walsh

Venue: Playhouse Theatre
When: Tue 17–Sun 22 Feb, 7.30pm Tue 24 & Wed 25 Feb, 7.30pm Sun 22 Feb, 2pm
Duration: 1hr 20min no interval
Prices: A Reserve $45/Friends $40 B Reserve $35/Conc $30 C Reserve $25
Bookings: 9484 1133 perthfestival.com.au Festival Info 6488 5555