I'm tipsy from the Guinness, but I am back from a quite wonderful evening with the RTE Concert Orchestra and its wonderful conductor David Brophy. The event at Alice Tully Hall consisted of two parts: the first half being two short silent fllm made by a contemporary Irish fiim maker, both a combination of sci fi, fantasy, and employing film clips of Dubl9n from 75 years ago or longer. One of the shorts THE UNUSUAL INVENTIONS OF HENRY CAVENDISH was accompanied by a solopiano. The second THE LACTATING AUTOMATON was rather a sad piece about a child raised by a robot., and it was accompanied by the concert orchestra, The film composer was there, and the score, abot 15 minutes long, was absolutely delightful.
The second half of the event was introduced by Gabriel Byrne; it was a restored print of a 1933 silent film THE GUESTS OF THE NATION, based on a Frank O'Connor story that has also inspired THE CRYING GAME and Brendan Behan's wonderful tragicomedy THE HOSTAGE. The film, about 50 minutes in length, features actors Barry Fitzgerald and Cyril Cusack, along with a lot of actors from the Abbey Theatre and is about the IRA capturing two British soldiers they plan to assassinate if the British army hangs two IRA prisoners. It's a film about the friednship developing between the two Brits and their captors and the tragedy once the hanging occurs. I was in tears at the end. The new film score is beautiful and the orchestration so fine that the 22 players in the orchestra sounded twice the size. The music featured a lot of Gaelic melodie and hadexcellent transparencies with beautiful harp, flute and English horn solos. I got to tak to both composers and tell them how much I admired their work.
After David and I got through the reception - and I noticed a very handsome man there with a mighty fit physique that I thought might be a future interview for our DR MBarnum - David and I went to PJ Clark's where the orchestra was partaying. I got to see three players from the EILEEN orchestra - harp, percussion, and viola, so that was a lot of fun, I caught up with Brophy on his day in Manhattan, and then the handsome man from the reception showed up and asked me if i were Irish and what I had to do with the event!
He is a retired boxer named John Duddy, who's going into acting, and we talked about thirty minutes. He is by no means a dumb jock, but he could certainly play one, and I think he's a genuinely good person. Hopefully, he'll send me an email or give me a call. If I were an agent or manager, I'd sign him up. I think he will have a good career.
Mikey, what's your opinion?
