Hupnouse

Barabbas, the company, are as inventive and creative as ever: this new show is full of elaborately small visual and aural jokes and the performances, as we have come to expect, are lithe and physically comical. But they have a few problems with their play (commissioned from the talented Charlie O'Neill, who adds a richness of verbal jokes of his own) which could be remedied with some strategic editing.

The setting - monumentally elaborate by Laurent Mellet - is some kind of chaotic junk yard on the edge of the world. It might be eternity were it not for the bulldozers and diggers. It is inhabited by Lug (Mikel Murfi), who arises from a coffin-like structure at the foot of a heap of massive cog-wheels and discarded cylinders to perform his exercises and ablutions, cleaning his teeth with a metal scouring pad. He is joined by Midge (Veronica Coburn), who enters on a parachute, and by Mathias (Simon O'Gorman), who wanders on and about in a massive raincoat. Each time they re-enter as if they have just arrived for the first time, yet settle as if they know the place well.

They overlook somewhere called "Towny", with which they seem to be vaguely and erratically familiar, as if in a former life. They speak to and at each other in a baby-talk language, a kind of rustic patois full of allusions, malapropisms and word-jokes. They conjure what may be memories, many of them of childhood and death, in which parents and families are frequently present. They play games in which a deck of cards may turn out to be a string of sausages and try to work out just where they are. But the language as often masks as reveals its content, and this is where the strategic editing could be used to good dramatic effect: it is too easy for the attention to stray when the narrative becomes too foggy to be clear. Towards the end, however, it becomes discomfitingly clear, with memories of an abortion and the gift of a child made from old car parts.

It is, despite the flaws, a deeply imaginative piece of theatre and, as always with Barabbas, worth a visit to keep up with the front line of Irish theatre and to get some genuine laughs.

Runs for three weeks, with booking by telephone on 1850 260 027. Then for one week at Tallaght Civic Theatre.