Sugar and Spice

IN what is obviously a well meaning attempt to give the cause of women's playwriting a leg up, the Pink Panda theatre company solicited work from writing groups around the country to produce this quartet of one act plays. They are not directed - as might have been expected - by a woman, but by William Morgan Jnr, against a naturalistic, sitting room set designed by Barbara McShane.

The first and shortest, Aww Gon by Olga Bryers, is a monologue delivered by a lonely widow (Geraldine Plunkett) punctuated by lugubrious renditions, by Doreen Finn, of Memories and The Way Web Were as she lingers over photographs of her children, remembering happier days. While undeniably sincere, its sheer banality makes this an unpromising start to the evening.

Amazon, by Susan Knight, although uneven and loosely structured, demonstrates an ear for comic dialogue and helped by two confident performances from Elizabeth Byrne and Donna Ansley, as sisters with contrasting temperaments, dominated by the presence of their ailing mother upstairs. The mood changes awkwardly to broad farce with the entrance of William Morgan Jnr as one sister's potential love interest, the gormless, mother fixated Paul.

The professionalism and experience of Geraldine Plunkett and Hugh McCusker makes the best of Rhubarb, Rhubarb's pedestrian, cliched script about a woman leaving her husband for another man, after 29 years of low level domestic friction. Although Ursula de Brun has structured the play coherently, allowing both partners to have their say before the denouement, it's difficult to summon up enthusiasm for this jaded material.

Performed in the histrionic, arch style of Victorian, melodrama, Mary Mannion's comedy, The Write Stuff about the anguish of an unsuccessful novelist (Paul Kennedy), might have been funny for about 10 minutes, but half an hour tests the patience. William Morgan Jnr's cross dressing for the role of the long suffering wife adds little to its appeal; neither does the frequent repetition of the jokes.

With a disappointingly narrow range in terms of content, form and style, as well as poor production values, this work hovers between student and professional theatre, but tacks the kind of adventurousness that might qualify it for the term "fringe". If they are serious about promoting the work of new writers, Pink Panda would need to become considerably more rigorous.