Luca and the Sunshine

Smock Alley Theatre ***

WHEN THE SUN beams down one day, out of the blue, it’s the answer to Luca Dinkslavi’s prayers. In fact, for the troubled student of Nick Lee’s intriguing debut play, it is a direct correspondence from God. Lee’s lyrical, warping fable basks in both the radiance of fantasy and the scorch of destruction, but its lingering impression is a staccato burst of words. Here even a classroom lesson slows into microscopic detail: “The swirl of chalk to thought and into ink and back to thought.”

Imagistic as a shooting script and detailed as a novel, Lee’s method almost eclipses his message, while director Matt Torney’s pared-down production (beautifully lit by Ciaran Bagnall) aspires to the fluidity of music.

Accompanied by Lioba Petrie’s deft but constant cello score, performer John Cronin is inclined to pluck his words where I wished he’d bow them. In that friction, though, lies the coming-of-age narrative and, for Lee, the encouraging emergence of a new voice.

Runs until Sunday