There's one self-mocking moment where Chloe shakes her curls back and talks about "getting all Chekovian". The joke works, for this four-hander, set in a Fire Island beach house over a 4th of July weekend, stakes an ambitious claim to the Russian playwright's territory. The play digs in and takes its time, unfolding the tensions and crises binding the four characters together with uncompromising intensity under the direction of Focus veteran Paul Keeley.

The device whereby each character speaks his mind while the others lapse into immobility provides an extra level of perception without which the claustrophobia of the situation might become overpowering. It also gives us a privileged insight into the characters without detracting from the spontaneity of their interaction. While each is given equal weight, it's Chloe - played by Orlaith De Burca - who has the juiciest part, throwing out one-liners and snatches of song at even the most heated moments of confrontation. And providing one of the best and most touching justifications for the compulsive talker I've heard. The three others, John, Sally, and Sam, played at full throttle by Peter Holmes, Aisling McLaughlin and Paul Roe, don't fail to add their own splashes of colour to the verbal limelight.

The juxtaposition of frivolity and seriousness is a little too close at times, to the point where there is overlap. This weakens the conviction in the final resolutions. The passionate tension between the four is also weakened a little by the fact that they're literally surrounded by free-loving homosexuals; so that they're in danger of being read as aberrations rather than representatives of the endless struggle between men and women. This gay side to the play, however necessary to the plot, does seem at odds with the genuine concerns of the characters. This play is substantial, in the way that Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee are substantial.

Without drawing trite conclusions Terrence McNally leaves us with a disturbing sense of love, tenacious in its fragility.

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