Constance's Ascent

The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde by Thomas Kilroy, which divided critical opinion here when it played at the Dublin Theatre Festival last year, has met with a warm welcome at the Melbourne Festival. "The Abbey Theatre is one of the great companies of world theatre," says The Sunday Age. "This stylish and stylised production is beautifully acted and staged." "Director Patrick Mason has created a deceptively simple, gloriously theatrical production, blending visual, mimetic and textual elements with exceptional finesse," writes the Herald Sun.

Joe Vanek's set and Nick Chelton's lighting come in for much praise, as do the performances of Jane Brennan, Andrew Scott's Bosie and Robert O'Mahoney's Oscar, though The Australian finds him "hard to gauge, pompous even in humiliation, too broadly drawn to be credible as lover or the `glitterin' shell Con- stance could hide behind.' "