Deirdre Kinahan's first play, Be Carna, has drawn on a very authentic source.

A support group seeking to provide alternatives to women working in prostitution asked her to run a series of theatre workshops.

She writes in celebration of the humanity, dignity and resilience of the women she met.

On the plus side, there is not a hint of voyeurism in her play, written as a series of monologues delivered by five women.

Four are prostitutes; one is the administrator of an escort service. They tell their stories simply and directly, without excessive emotion, and do not seek to dignify their trade. The administrator, on the other hand, is an odd creation. She is a middle-aged widow and fantasist, who has turned with some enthusiasm to her unorthodox job.

When the media expose the agency and publish her photo, her prosperous siblings are not best pleased, and disown her.

Her kooky personality and sad history do not sit easily with the grittiness of the others.

Behind each of the other women's drift into what they call the game, is a common factor; man.

A young single mother needs the money. An older woman with a family background of alcohol and violence escaped into a rackety marriage, and now finds herself trapped by her past. A beautiful girl with the escort agency suffered years of incestuous abuse by her father. Drugs and men undermine another.

There is, at the end, a sense of insufficiency. We have not learned enough about the women as individuals, the why and how of it all.

It is a short play, about 80 minutes, and the time and structure leave inadequate space for an in-depth understanding of the characters and their situations.

Director Gerry Morgan manoeuvres his cast - Evan Holton, Roisin Kearney, Victoria Monkhouse, Maureen Collender and Eithne McGuinness - to some advantage; but these bones, the title, notwithstanding, need more flesh.