American author Neil LaBute's Bash, first produced in 1999, comprises three short plays, each centred on a violent crime. Communication with the audience is the currently fashionable mode of narration, a style which places some burden on the actors.

In Iphigenia in Orem, a middle-aged man is in thrall to the system through which he earns a living. He works and travels for a large firm, and is happily married with a family. He carries with him a numbing secret, the memory of a deed committed at a time when his job was under threat and his world in peril. Jason Patric plays the role with a mastery of nuance, verbal and physical; but there is a melodramatic quality in the story that keeps total conviction at bay.

Flora Montgomery's story in Medea Redux, with an equally savage core, is more persuasive. When she is just 13, her school-teacher, in the American phrase, "hits on her", and abandons her a year later with a son. She manages to correspond with the father, and they all meet when the boy is 14; the intention is conciliatory, the outcome disastrous. The actress conveys a sense of wearing her nerves on the outside, a victim to the tragic end.

Finally, A Gaggle of Saints has two college students, a boy and girl, who have conducted a chaste relationship for four years. With some friends, they drive to New York for a fancy dance - a "bash"; and, as they tell their overlapping stories, we learn that even clean-living Mormons are not immune to the darkness within. An encounter with some gay men in Central Park is the catalyst that tests them. Jason O'Mara and Justine Mitchell are altogether convincing as the duo.

The author directs, with the benefit of Joe Vanek's cool modern sets, lit with focus by Rupert Murray. The production, despite a sense of contrivance created by its narrative style and linked themes, is always entertaining and stylishly presented.

Runs until April 14th. Booking at 01-8744045