Dangerous liaisons

Brad Fraser's Calgary-based play about sexual relationships - gay, bisexual, heterosexual, trans-sexual, you think of it - is not going to set any new dramatic moulds. It is almost televisually old-fashioned in its construction (and, therefore, a bit creaky on stage). And it is a mite glib and superficial in its examination of the variations between sex and gender. But it is almost entirely free of the sentimentality which has marred so many stage works which have dealt with the person dying of AIDS while, in a commendably even-handed manner, it sketches both the pains and the pleasures of its various kinds of couplings. It is also very explicit in both word and deed, which some audiences will find unsettling in what theatrically is largely framed as a kind of light comedy.

David (Sean Campion) is a painter who wants to get a part-time job as a waiter to revive his creative drive. His best friend, Shannon (Jack Walsh), has AIDS and won't get the sex-change surgery which he so desperately wants. His second-best friend, Kryla (Kate Perry), is a journalist on one of the city's two newspapers and seems set to remain a lonely spinster. David gets his job in the restaurant run by the maybe-bisexual Matt (Les Martin) and his loved and loving wife, Violet (Morna Regan). The Superman comic strip is used throughout as a parallel but largely irrelevant metaphor for strength and survival in the inter-twined relationships which transpire.

Joe Devlin's direction, with David Brown's multi-area, atmosphere-free setting, well lit by Paul Keogan, does little to paper over the cracks in the often-disjointed narrative of the stories being displayed in a series of short scenes which give the characters little opportunity to deepen or develop. There is a sense of points being made rather than stories fully told. And the device of "captions" being projected is both distracting and patronising. The acting is mostly very competent and occasionally courageous, but it never really gets a chance to become dramatically compelling. In short, it is a worthy enterprise which does not add up quite to the sum of its dramatic components.

Continues until June 13th. To book, phone: 1850-260027