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Irish Times

Mikel Murfi's underwater production is surely one of the most unusual, intriguing and oddly life-enhancing things about

Oh... Galway Atlantaquaria, Salthill ★★★★★ When you've done it all performance-wise - mime, theatre, dance, movement, acrobatics, as actor/writer/director Mikel Murfi has, where do you go? Underwater, clearly. Murfi's new show is performed in a huge, room-height water tank in an aquarium, filled with fish. It is surely one of the most unusual, intriguing and oddly life-enhancing things about. His idea, floating about (sorry) for years, was for a movement show underwater, seeing the human body performing in water, and how 'it might have another kind of poetry to it other than the body moving in air'. A body, his body, sturdy and strong, delicate and nimble, underwater is like a spaceman's, where movement is cushioned, slow, softer, otherworldly. The basics: a large stone-faced tank in Salthill's aquarium, homeplace to masses of swimming fish, Wreakfish, Gilthead Bream, European Bass, Starry Smoothhound. In among them descends Murfi, an oxygen feed in his mouth, wearing shirt and trousers and very basic goggles. He proceeds to perform a show that is gob-smackingly skilled, by turns serenely calming and funny. READ MORE He seems to do a bit of sea scavenging and cleaning up, he does exercises, he tells a string of fish jokes (did you hear about the crab at the disco? He pulled a mussel. Tee-hee-hee) and corny riddles, softly falling about the place. He sings, he dances. His is a voice-over, along with subtle water sounds, and world sounds (sound design by Sandra O'Mahony). Sometimes he engages with the fish, directing their traffic. The fish are nonplussed. He moves floatily. He occasionally freaks the audience out slightly. Murfi performs this 45-minute show underwater, breathing through an oxygen feed. The entire show is startling, mesmerising. Intrinsic to all this is a gorgeous score by Declan Gibbons, simple then sophisticated, perfectly synched with the show, not just in terms of timing (but that too: this must have been rehearsed to extreme), but tone and feel, too. (It's on Spotify; check it out). Aside from the audaciousness of the concept and the precision and beauty of its execution, directed by Kellie Hughes, this plays with the notion of watching. We are watching Murfi. Can he see us? Can he hear us? The fish are expressionless, as fish tend to be. They seem to give him his space and just go about their business. Are they watching him? What do they make of him? The fish swim around, sometimes towards the glass, and us, then divert. Can they see us? They're used to be being watched. We, the small audience, are intruding on their world, and Murfi's. Murfi is intruding too, benignly, doing the most unlikely things underwater. They are oblivious, it seems. This is not as creepy as it sounds. Rather it's intriguing; a really difficult physical feat but also a thing of beauty, in its cushioned, slow world, linked to ours by the music. [ As Galway's arts festival opens, the city's long-expected cultural space inches slowly towards planning this year Opens in new window ] There's a simplicity and purity to the show but the mechanics of making it must've been anything but simple, with years in the conception and in the making. There's an expert dive team, and behind it all, Loco and Reckless Productions, Glór in Ennis and Galway International Arts Festival . Obviously it's inspiring to make a bonkers idea work, and the actuality of it is amusing and soothing. This is just the kind of ambitious madness, beautiful stretching of boundaries, that you want in a festival. Fin. (Sorry.) And: breathe. Until July 26th. Limited audience; sold out