LIGHTNING has struck twice, and the stage of the Peacock is again lit with the sheer magnetism of a major new work by Marina Carr. ,Her outstanding talent was established two years ago with The Mai, a play of precocious maturity and accomplishment. It is surpassed by Portia Coughlan, which confirms and enhances the author's stature, as an exciting and creative force in Irish theatre.

Portia is a 30 year old married woman somewhere in the midlands. She has a crippled husband whom she married in a self destructive caprice, and three children whom she cannot love. Her life has been a psychic hell since the death by drowning, at the age of fifteen, of her twin brother. Since then she can see only the weak or brute side of the people around her; her parents and grandmother, the local young studs she uses for distraction, relations and friends. Her life has been scarred by something, stronger and stranger than grief.

Derbhle Crotty is wonderful as Portia, living her pain and bitterness, growing to a despair beyond redemption, in a towering performance. In tip of the iceberg writing, the author has created portraits in depth of her fellow voyagers through the darkness of her days.

Her husband (Sean Rocks), parents (Tom Hickey and Stella McCusker), grandmother (Pauline Flanagan), relations (Des Keogh and Marion O'Dwyer), the studs (Don Wycherly and Charlie Bonner), a friend (Bronagh Gallagher) - all are beautifully acted and felt.

Director Garry Hynes brings to her task the brooding empathy which has marked her best work, notably in the plays of Tom Murphy. Against Kandis Cook's simple and highly effective setting she moves the action from an attention grabbing start to a climax of revelation and catharsis. This is a play that grows and grows, and a production which does it justice. The Abbey is to be congratulated on finding and fostering the unique talent of Marina Carr, whose work really belongs on their major stage upstairs.