GAVIN KOSTICK'S new play, commissioned by the Gaiety School of Acting, is a fantasy world of fairytale and allegory. Inspired by, and based around, Aesop's Fables, Fox and Crow is the theatrical convergence of numerous stories. Some of these are familiar to an Irish audience already - for example, the symbol of the "Salmon of Knowledge" - but are made strange by the bizarre juxtapositions of the play.
The fox and the crow of the title are the narrators of the piece and they each vow to tell a story of human strength and weakness. By unwittingly telling the same story to prove different opinions about humanity, the fox and crow are set up as judges and audience members, whose reading of the action will yield a moral verdict.
The action of the play moves then between the battlefield, a blacksmith's forge, the land of the Sidhe and the unnatural. The initial peasant characters, with names like Micheal Og, are wiped out by the brilliantly played Death (Gene Rooney), and, as the traces of human life are turned into a poppy field, the world of dragons, warriors and wives reincarnated as doves takes centre stage.
The real stars of the show are the cast, who produce a lively ensemble performance which matches the energy and vigour of the play. The consistent direction of Patrick Sutton and Caroline McSweeney keep it within the realm of the still comprehensible without compromising its fantastic flights and, as a whimsical piece of comic analogy, Fox and Crow works well. The breadth and sheer number of stories and subplots makes it a rather bumpy ride, however.
