Mary Leland reviews Romeo and Juliet at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork.

All 25 members of the audience have to be segregated before the Tiny Ninja Theatre Company production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet can begin at the Triskel Arts Centre: tall people at the back, less tall people at the front, and all are issued with opera glasses. The set consists of an ironing board, a first-aid box and a narrow table, with cardboard boxes unfolding to reveal a street scene or a ballroom glittering with reflective globes. Most of the large cast are perched on the visor of a baseball cap; the leading roles are portrayed by breakfast-cereal- and vending-machine-ninjas, with the chorus, a man of 100 voices, providing the lines.

This is not everybody's idea of Shakespeare, but it is Dov Weinstein's, and it ends just at the moment when novelty and innovation wear thin and the glasses lose their focus and Weinstein's contraction of the story is close to intolerable.

Nicely judged, then, both in terms of condensation and of audience acceptance. Weinstein has to assume that everyone knows the plot; the trouble is that those who do probably like it, so Weinstein has to woo us with his own vocal wizardry, originality and wit.

He pulls it off - even managing a little pathos, a little anger - but only by the skin of those tiny ninja teeth.

At the Triskel Arts Centre until tomorrow. Tel: 021-427 2022