The plays of veteran British dramatist Edward Bond have not received much exposure in Ireland, although titles such as Saved and Narrow Road to the Deep North resonate down the years. Crooked House Theatre Company is now presenting his most recent work, The Crime of The Twenty-First Century, which premiered in Paris in 1999; and it is something of a conundrum.

It is set in the aftermath of a war, and opens with a woman living in the ruins of a house which still has water, now a scarce commodity, on tap. A scavenging man tags on to her for a while, to be succeeded by a younger man, an escaped prisoner on the run. He has cut out of his body an electronic army tag, and wants the woman to accompany him on his flight. She refuses, and he leaves.

Next she is discovered by her daughter, who believes herself to have been callously deserted and seeks some kind of revenge. An explanation is offered, and the two settle for a while. The fugitive returns, hideously blinded by soldiers, and all the relationships take a darker turn. There is violence and death, and it ends on an odd note of anti-climactic ritual.

It is clear that the author intends his play to be deeply meaningful, and to explore issues such as justice, freedom and interpersonal dependency. Little of this comes across as the characters address each other in artificial dialogue and the plot becomes steadily more improbable.

An author's view of the merits or meaning of his work is rarely reliable, and his programme notes here include the following observations: "All art is created in prison because it is the language of freedom"; and again "In tragedy the heroes and heroines commit a crime in order to discover they are innocent". Those who can make sense of these notes may enjoy the play more than I did.

For me, director Peter Hussey and his actors - Anna Swords-Murphy, Andrew Buchanan, Steve Gunn and Yvonne O'Hara - have created a diligent production of a leaden, pretentious play.

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