No Romance

Peacock Theatre, Dublin Until Apr 2 13-25 01-8787222 abbeytheatre.ie

It's almost surprising that the word "sex" doesn't feature in the title of writer Nancy Harris's Abbey debut. It isn't that the play has a one-track mind, but that it shares the wit, concerns and pacy form of many works that do. Sexual Perversity in Chicagosprings to mind.

These “three short plays about love” follow loosely connected Irish stories, some of them with set-ups worthy of a bedroom farce: a fretful woman makes an erotic photograph collection for her lover; a father is caught with his pants down in a funeral home (so to speak).

But No Romance's episodic structures, excellent comedy and surprisingly poignant examination of modern relationships create something much more sophisticated. How many contemporary tales of relationships in crisis offer balanced arguments about secrets and compulsions with grace notes of Arthurian Romance and Celtic mythology?

Directed by Wayne Jordan, with an enticingly good cast, when the threads of the triptych’s connections gradually become apparent, Harris’s biggest secret is anything but sentimental. Whatever the title says, her creation suggests that romance is not dead, yet.

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