A middle-aged mother sets out on a redemptive crusade to save a young woman who is about to have her baby brutally aborted by her lesbian lover. Another unhappy female escapes rape, only to fall to her death from a crane. A serial killer seduces and murders a girl, then sets off on a gore-spattered joyride. Around them, unlikely angels and worm-faced demons cavort in the course of one Dublin night.
Mark O’Rowe’s three-handed verse play, first produced at Ireland’s Abbey Theatre in 2007, is a lurid verbal cartoon whose vivid, over-ripe language is offset by the author’s own stark production. Delivered by three figures named only as A, B and C, it’s unexcitingly constructed from linked monologues, spoken in a black void, characterless but for some shards of mirror.
There’s a relish in the grotesque violence that feels puerile and gratuitous, and is insufficiently elevated by the religious imagery. The performances, from Olwen Fouéré, Catherine Walker and Declan Conlon, are assured. But this is a heartless, linguistic show-off of a play.