In 1920s Poland, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz was considered paranoid, and his avant-garde plays were thought incomprehensible. Associating with such a radical was likely to invite unwanted attention from the authorities. The playwright was considered mad and dangerous to know.
This is an apt description of the protagonist in what seems almost an autobiographical play, written in 1923 and reinterpreted by Danse Macabre, a new company. Set in an asylum where doctors are in the grip of Freudian psychoanalysis, Sister Anna is encouraged to "look after" Walpurg, a straitjacketed poet, in his secure cell. "Behave quite naturally," encourages Dave Nolan's Dr Bidell, straining through the irony of a playwright who deplored naturalism on the stage.
Conversations between the all-too-lucid madman and the swiftly seduced nun move quickly from barely veiled artistic treatises to other obsessions of the writer - sex, drugs, suicide and absurdity.
The strength of Nicole Wiley's production is that it respectfully meets Witkiewicz's stringent artistic demands while infusing the play with a style of its own. Lights and sound alter and dissolve at will, seemingly dictated by shifts in mood. This is a small-scale rendition of the "pure form" that Witkiewicz strove for, creating a backdrop to the increasing irrationality of the plot.
A young cast deliver solid performances, with Pβdraic Delaney commanding as Walpurg, if a little too consistently relaxed and reasonable for such a furious creative genius. Laragh Cullen is assured as the twisted Sister, and fresh-faced Emmet Kirwin clearly enjoys his amusing Austrian caricature.
Witkiewicz, a troubled artist who was ahead of his time, held up a shattered mirror to society. Wiley's playful, skewed update of his irreverent denouements makes this production arrestingly fragmented.
Runs until August 25th; bookings at 01-6713387
