Relentless plough through gory drama

Still wet behind his dramatic ears, William Shakespeare (if, indeed, it was he) penned this dark work more in the mould of the melodramatic revenge plays of his immediate theatrical predecessors than in the more thoughtful and lyrical form of his subsequent tragedies. It was reportedly very successful at the time and Silviu Purcarete with his National Theatre of Craiova in Romania has enjoyed striking success with his adaptation of it at home and around the world during the past decade.

Enjoyable is not the first word that comes to mind in trying to describe it. It has none of the beautiful flowing visual lucidity of his later staging of Les Danaides which was seen at last year's Dublin Theatre Festival. It is much coarser in texture, much rougher in mood, much less sophisticated in production. It ploughs relentlessly and unremittingly through the cruelty and gore of a violent drama, and such poetry as was in the author's English text is transmitted only in an flow of distractingly eccentric electronic "surtitles" atop the stage.

The acting is impressively direct and, for the most part, literal, but occasionally surreal. Stefan Iordache in the title role carries a huge weight of (Romanian) words with authority and dramatic aplomb. Stefania Cenean's settings comprise a series of off-white stage drapes that drop down and lift up to provide an enormous variety of different levels and shapes and spaces, stunningly lit to look drab or restful or (of course) blood red.

Purcarete's direction is careful, slow and deliberate, adorned with haunting images fashioned from the simplest of stage effects, and accompanied by the director's own sound-track of eerie threatening sounds and music which occasionally is delicately ironic.

Here is ample evidence of a truly creative and original theatrical mind demanding to be seen and heard. But enjoyable it is not.

Titus Andronicus runs until Saturday. Tel 01- 8748525.