The Independent from London, Greater London, England • 51

19 FOLK Muzsikas Marta Sebestyen Barbican, London Photo: Geraint Lewis tpfeister to LorctVB DoAa Rosita' Rosita The Almeida, London LU They loved contra -bassist Daniel Hamar's guide to Hungarian music, his musings upon why most Hungarian love songs are sad and his sharing with us the result of his ponde rings love is unhappy, then it is a release to sing; if it is happy, then there other things to be they loved his brief exposition of the flute "lots of holes, blow in here, notes come out here" and they were gagging for his Bartok-made-easy-going explanation of how that great musicologist composer preserved Hungarian folk tunes that were being forgotten, a prelude to a rendition of a selection of folk melodies featuring familiar Bartok motifs. Marta Sebestyen, whose elfin figure belies the crystalline clarity and power of her voice, and the four-piece group (two violins, bouzouki and bass) were augmented by a pair of dancers, who kicked up (strategically-placed?) dust as they whirled through Hungarian wedding dances. Torn Arpad reappeared as Muzsikas launched into lost musk from the Jewish-Hungarian heritage "His tradition does not involve reading musk, sometimes it's just like jazz," said (geo-physkist) Hamar, "but we'll try to keep up." The second half continued in similar vein dancing, solos and the extraordinary gardon, a kind of cello beaten fiercely with wooden sticks before the show closed with Maria's a cappella rendition of "Szerelem, But they weren't going to get away that easily and three encores later, the audiences were still on their feet, clamouring for more of that old Magyar magk. Martin Gordon According to Hungarian humorist George Mikes, everyone is Hungarian. And so it seemed at the Barbican's Hungarian-themed presentation on Sunday night, featuring Hungary's leading folk group Muzsikas, legendary chanteuse Marta Sebestyen and a host of minor Magyars and honorary Hungarians clamouring for the public ear.

The sprightly 80-year-okl Tbni Arpad gave a rousing cimbalom zither performance which seemed, eccentrically, to includd the Bohemian equivalent of an East End pub singalong as well as renditions of "Happy Birthday" and other virtuoso gypsy rhapsodies; the Vaganti Players, economic refugees from the concrete wastes of, enn, Greater London, ran through their selection of tunes "from Budapest to the Black Sea" before oud I percussion virtuoso Raph Mizraki joined them to show off his instrumental skills and Egyptian wardrobe; and finally, for the main course, Muzsikas and Marta Sebestyen appeared before a capacity crowd in the main auditorium. RitknT, it is Maria's rendition of the tragic love song "Szerelem, Szerekm" that aids the seduction of the heroine in that film. She's aha familiar to Western ears through the medium of Deep Forest, who used ber voice on their second album, after they'd done disco-pygmies. The surroundings of the Barbican were doubtless more austere than a Budapest coffee-house, from whence Muzsikas and Marta hail, but professionalism and an easy stage demeanour, deriving from 15 years of Hungarian superstardorn, aided the breaking-down of barriers, and the audience responded ecstatically to, well, everything. Of Eteanor Bran as the dock-stopped THEATRE Dona You pity the poor soul who Jus to water the set at the -Almeida at the moment For Phyilida Lloyd's production of Dona Room, The Spinster, the stage has been spectacularly transformed into a garden courtyard in Granada, all terracotta tiles and wrought-iron furniture and, against the brickwall at the back, shelf upon shelf groaning with greenery and multifarious potted plants.

This secluded paradise becomes a self-imposed prison for the heroine of Lorca's rarely performed play. Dona Rosita has certain affinities with Dickens's Miss Haversham, who, jilted on what was to have been ber wedding day, psychologically stops the clock and withers and grows warped in her bridal dress. A poignant rather than grotesque figure, Lorca's heroine is, none the less, a parallel case of someone who cannot adjust to changed facts. An orphan brought up by a doting aunt and uncle, she becomes engaged to her cousin, who is then called back to his father's farm in South America, Vowing to return and marry her. Over the passage of 25 years, we see her put her life on hold in progressively more futile expectations.

It's a play of tricky tonal shifts, MUSIC Johnny i could have a One 2 One with I ask him, "Why dilute such an performance by handing over so all the ostensible focus on the yearning for the fiance, this is actually an excellent play about love between women and about the strains on women without men. As a hard -up widow obsessed with maintaining the position swanky society of herself and her daughters, even if means going without food rather than glamorous mourning attire, Kathryn Hunter hilariously exemplifies the latter group. Shovelling fistfuls of canapes into her handbag when nobody is looking, she's a jumpy mass of furtive avidity. The play hits you over the head rather too often with its central symbol, the Rasa Mutabile, which, with obvious relevance to the heroine and her fate, blooms, withers and dies in the one day. Phoebe NichoIIs's Dona Rosita changes curiously little in looks over the quarter of century covered but in a way it's the painful restiveness of this thin, fragile-looking figure with the boyish bob that nukes her so moving.

The performance has great dignity and, under Lloyd's direction, the final scene fully lives up to those comparisons with the last act of The Chary Orchard. To 7 June. Booking: 0171-359 4404 Paul Taylor Hall, London in which heightened poetry and song and dance alternate with passages of almost draconian tragi-comic realism. Some of the stylised movement in Lloyd's production is hard to watch with a straight face there is a scene where the women indulge in a spot of synchronised needlework, grinning fondly at each other, that looks as if it's going to turn into a Victoria Wood sketch, particularly when the group is reinforced with a further batch of beaming sewers. The fan-twiriing tableaux and attempts at evoking Hispanic home-entertainment only serve to advertise the incorrigible FngKshness of the cast But what is moving and well-judged about this staging far outweighs the irritation.

Particularly fine is the way Eleanor Bron and a Scots-accented Celia Imrie depict the relationship between the refined aunt and her earthy, forthright housekeeper. "From too much living together, the air between the two of you has grown thorns" is how the uncle describes this in Peter Oswald's excellent translation, but humorously and touchingly Bron and Imrie bring out the affection underlying this prickliness. You see that they'd be lost if they didn't have one another to argue with. Indeed, for Cash Royal Albert Johnny Cash, minutes before the it a THE INBEFENBENT The Buddy Holly Story on Video only 13.99 inc. awesome much time to Steer 19S9, At mot Mr musical "Bmrny htm bttn recking tktm in the aisles.

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Buddy VidKXs) 0 13.99 each Please send me I enclose a crossed cheque for payable to: NEWSPAPER PUBLISHING 1ND374 or debit my AccessVisa account by this amount. My card number is: now silver-haired Man in Black strode on stage. He launched into the perennial favourite of "Folsom Prison which drew huge wails from the younger element of the audience, for whom Cash is a cult icon. While, predictably, "Ring of Fire'' and other old hits provoked most noise from the audience, he reserved his greatest passion for the Unchained songs. His rendition of the wistful title-track raised goose-bumps, while "Rusty Cage" by grunge rockers Soundgarden took on a haunting, deconstructed sound.

Better still was the magnificent Tom Petty song "Southern Accent" (The young 'uns call it country The Yankees call it which the usually taciturn Cash eulogised as by far and away the best jmthem to sum up the South that he's ever come across. By now, with the misplaced guest spots out of the way, he was fully in stride, mixing up new and old numbers before delivering a powerful version of his 1959 song "I Got Stripes" and then, "suddenly, that was it He walked off just as coolly as he came on, came back for a polite wave with June while the band once again strummed "I Walk the and then he was gone. Maybe it's greed, but when you have a true legend who's still pushing back the barriers of American musk after over 40 years in the business, then you want him without the side-show. Tim Perry family members?" Although the concert lasted two hours, duets and floorspots took up almost half the time. His rather jittery and extremely garrulous wife, June, got six numbers and a couple of singalongs with hubby.

Also roped in were Nick Lowe (a former son-in-law) and even the keyboard player, Earl Ball (of no known family connection), was given a song. What came closest to ruining the momentum was his linebacker-sized son, John Carter Cash. He did a duet with daddy before being unleashed mid-set to do five forgettable Christian country songs (sample couplet: "I got a good Christian raising And an eighth-grade The really frustrating thing about the intrusions was that, first of all, after some health problems, Cash's distinct, gruff baritone was in splendid fettle. Secondly, unlike many of his surviving contemporaries even at 65, Cash still takes risks. He added to an already impressive career with the 1996 album Unchained, which mixes country classics with songs by the likes of ultra-hip Beck.

Aside from the family jamboree stuff, this was a night to remember. His band of long-standing the five-handed Tennessee 3 did a job in upping crowd anticipation by jamming "I Walk the Line' for two F-'ininf Daw Signature (address on hack) made PoMCodr l'Uv4 nwvv IVUHIU Fill in the coupon and tend together with cheque or postal orders. NO CASH phrase to -THE INDEPENDENT BUDDY HOLLY VIDEO OFFER. PO BOX 9477. LONDON E3 3SH.

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