Athol Fugard's Hello and Goodbye burns with a long slow fuse which is sparked off when Hester (Janice Ulfane) appears on the stage towards the end of Act One. The maudlin reminiscences of Johnie (Jan Ellis) become the stuff of a whodunnit as Hester tears into the dusty bric-a-brac of family history.

The set is a shabby livingroom which becomes heaped with boxes taken from under father's bed as Hester seeks the compensation payment she is sure he (father) received from South African Railways after the accident which left him blind and on crutches. Athol Fugard skilfully raises the dramatic tension by paralleling the machinery of the plot with Hester's sad, self-conscious frustration. The uncovering of mother's clothes, shoes she wore as a child, Johnie's application to the railway (a lie exposed), reveal a depth of character which the brittle surface of her Jo'burg self has been at pains to conceal.

This vulnerable figure, stamping across the stage in loosely-veiled black bra and pants, epitomises the search for a way out of the grinding poverty and limited horizons of Port Elizabeth. In Jo'burg, she proudly tells us, she has her own room. Johnie, victimised by circumstances, decides to portray himself as (like father) a cripple. He will, by this act, command attention and kindness.

The overseeing eyes of the set knit together the past family life which triggers the confessional confrontation of brother and sister. Johnie's final word, "resurrection", as he fakes his way into the wings (actor playing actor) on father's crutches, offers a bitterly circular solution to the problems of family existence.

Transfers to the Backstage Theatre in Longford next Wednesday and is at the Hawk's Well in Sligo on Thurs- day and Friday.