The finest of the Fringe

Three more days to go, but this column won't be running the complete course. Saturday is the day of reckoning - and celebration - when the Fringe awards will be announced, so the verdicts given here are admittedly a little premature.

Of what has been seen over almost three weeks on the Fringe, there have been many interesting, laudable, shows, but few outstanding ones. The point of the Fringe, of course, is that it is a broad church and welcomes all comers. Word of mouth and reviews help to swell audiences for a handful of productions, and the fittest survive. Compared with the festival's first two years, however, this year's crop has been disappointing. And, while we can't expect production values on the Fringe to be very high, the appeal of makeshift staging and crude presentation rapidly wears thin.

Conversely, lighting and sets can't compensate for everything, as Stones And Ashes at the Temple Bar Music Centre demonstrated (8 p.m., until Friday). This intense drama of obsession and revenge, written by the Canadian writer Daniel Danis and performed by Belfast's Prime Cut Productions (formerly Mad Cow) was one of the most polished productions on the Fringe, but came across as overwrought and, at two hours, over-extended.

With strong overtones of Sam Shepard's raw rural tragedies, four characters, in a series of monologues, enact an enfolding tale of bereavement, passion, love and loss, as a widower and his daughter move to a small town in rural Canada. While the imposed constraint of each character speaking in isolation, without direct dialogue or interaction, is presumably to heighten the sense of gulfs between the their individual perceptions, desires and experiences, the device deadens the impact, stills the pace and flattens the dimensions of this drama to static wordiness.

Overall, it is the performances on the Fringe that have impressed most, far outstripping the writing and direction; it's clear that there is a wealth of young acting talent around, in the many Irish productions, as well visiting companies, such as Theatr y Byd from Wales, whose Marriage Of Convenience (Andrews Lane Studio, last week) was graced by a gripping solo performance of great emotional depth from Gareth Potter as an unhappy teenager (that's probably a tautology).

In Tension, performed by Three Bags Full (International Bar, last week) the actors, especially Antoinette Walsh, Darina Gallagher and Sinead Murphy had impressive stage presence and range, but were let down by a work which was heavy handed, didactic and unfocused. A series of short pieces on racism in Ireland and Europe, incorporating adapted texts, images projected onto a tricolour, and music, its sweep was so broad, -- from Pearse's proclamation of a republic, to the Celtic Tiger, via Molly Bloom's soliloquy - that it failed to hit its satiric targets.

One of the more unusual and charming shows this week is Indo-Irish Theatre's Chitra (Dublin Writers' Museum, 1 p.m., until Saturday). This fable was adapted by the Indian Nobel prize winner, Rabindra nath Tagore from the 6th century Sanskrit poem, The Mahabharat.

Put all memories of Peter Brook's epic treatment of it from your mind; this is a very simply staged adaptation of one segment of the work: the emblematic tale of the warrior princess, Chitra, who assumes a mask of femininity to woo her lover, but wants him to accept her true nature. Directed with clarity by Siraj Zaidi, and beautifully performed, it has the enduring resonance of myth.

So, signing off with drum-rolls from the 1997 Fringe Festival, here are my top six:

1. A Kaddish (Seeking The Lost). Galloping Cat, Space 28, (until Saturday).

2. Molloy by Samuel Beckett. St Lazare Players (Paris), International Bar.

3. After Penny by Richard Bickley. Veritas Theatre (UK), Basement Theatre, Old New Orleans.

4. Big Bad Woolf, originally by Edward Albee. Corn Exchange, Temple Bar Gallery, until November 1st.

5. The Hanging Tree by Nicola McCartney. Lookout Theatre (Glasgow), The Furnace.

6. Eyes In The Big City, performed by Eva Meier, Conor Linehan and Mary Keegan. This hour-long concert of literary chansons was not strictly theatre, but the performance by the superb exponent of German cabaret, Eva Meier, had dramatic intensity, passion and pathos. Definitely the musical highlight of the Fringe.

The Fringe Festival information number is 01 670 4567.