Judith

It could be that Howard Barker dwells in some world to which ordinary mortals are not admitted and that this is why we do not recognise either the emotional or rational triggers he uses, in sonorous language, to drive this simplest of tales about the Jewish widow, Judith, going to seduce and kill Holofernes in his tent the night before the battle in which he vows to kill all Israel. The words sound as if they ought to make sense but contain neither emotional nor rational logic. And then there are all those unfinished sentences which should have been some kind of warning that the author was not entirely clear about exactly what he was trying to say.

Holofernes starts out wanting to ponder the unsatisfactorily casual ways in which death can creep up on people. Judith's servant assures him that Judith can talk about death, so he asks her to take off her clothes (which she finds herself unable to do). They talk portentous nonsense for a while. He seems to go to sleep.

She kills him with a sword and the servant completes the decapitation, whereupon Judith decides she wants to try a touch of necrophilia. It is, notwithstanding sincerely committed performances by Robert O'Mahoney as Holofernes, Andrea Irvine as Judith and Kathy Downes as her servant, under necessarily ritualistic direction by Judith Roberts (the ritual needed because there are no intellectual or emotional dramatic pegs upon which to hang anything), a load of hollow hokum.

Until August 14th. Booking: 1850-260027.