Damascus

David Greig's West-meets-Mid East play is set entirely in the Damascus hotel-lobby where Scottish TEFL book-writer Paul (Paul Higgins) blunders amiably into the lives of two people he fails utterly to comprehend: sexy feminist Syrian educationalist Muna (Nathalie Armin) and wide-eyed bellhop Zakaria (Khalid Laith). In the blandly luxurious foyer, footage of war and refugees plays mutely on the TV-monitor. And, up on a slanting platform the hotel pianist (a Christian-Marxist-ex-KGB-transsexual in an emerald ballgown) tinkles the ivories and narrates, like an all-knowing green goddess of transient persons and impossible relationships. Fascinating lines of conflict are drawn out in the long set-up, and Paul's mid-life crisis collides interestingly with Muna's own drama. But Greig's play can be too much of a textbook affair and slides, along with its main character Paul, into a slurry touristic night on the tiles. While mild unease pervades Philip Howard's production, some flat performances compound the emotional alienation and, when tragedy comes, it's from an oblique direction.