Boomerang is one of eight arts organisations across Europe that were invited to devise a theatrical interpretation of Ashmael Kadare's text Song Of Europe. The performance of Lost Baggage at the Firkin Crane last Thursday followed the premiere at the St Petersburg State Theatre for Young Spectators in Russia a few days earlier.
If this company, and these performers, represent any kind of cultural embassy for the Republic, then we can be proud.
Although Kadare's commission from EU-netArt, a network of youth arts organisations, resulted in an apparently complex thesis on society's addiction to repeating the mistakes of the past, Boomerang's exploration of the theme is uncomplicated.
Four young people, four suitcases, a dancer, a potent lighting plot and music for harp and flute composed and played by Jean Kelly and Evelyn Grant: it couldn't be more simple.
The originality of this piece is in its conception and in the direction by Trish Edelstein. The little monologues and exchanges do not reveal any startling new observations of life - which is more or less the point.
Each white suitcase contains a single white blanket that does duty as a bed, surfboard, baby, wimple, screen. Everything else is black, except for the soft costume of the dancer and choreographer Ursula Laubli.
She travels through the narrative like a guiding, or saving, spirit; and as each character moves into the freedom of dance there is a warm sense of assertion and liberation as the blankets are hung on a line and the suitcases left behind.
It is difficult to say why this is so poignant, except that even those members of the cast who are not dancers somehow at last do dance, and that the continuo of music, both in its playing and its composition, is a delight, and that the lighting from Paul McCarthy is integral to the fusion achieved by this calm, optimistic and beautiful piece of work.
It is a pity, however, that the Firkin Crane is not a properly soundproofed theatre; during the performance, the considerable noise from the foyer could be heard in the otherwise spellbound auditorium.
