Sodome, My Love

A lot of the time this new show from Rough Magic almost feels like an art installation – and that’s not a complaint, because it is quite wonderful to look at. Starting with a blacked out stage, the curtain is slowly cranked up to reveal a mesmerising structure of angled mirrors, dark but for the swirling of headlights as a silent city speeds by. And in the middle of it all a solitary figure, at first barely there, but slowly beginning to speak, then move a little, gradually gaining strength and stature as she comes back to life to unravel the myth and ultimately wreak her revenge. She is the last daughter of Sodome, the ancient city of joy and excess long since destroyed by treachery and disease, and her story is fascinating, told in a language that is richly poetic and bursting with imagery.

This is a powerful, absorbing and deeply affecting performance from Olwen Fouere, whose commanding stage presence never falters, holding the audience spellbound while around her the lighting and reflections slowly change as the mood of her tale grows darker. All the more surprising then that the ending is so unsatisfactory, the portrayal of her revenge – a surfeit of hedonistic celebrity – so shallow and unsubtle. A pity, given the many-layered possibilities of all that has gone before. Until Sat 27 March www.projectartscentre.ie