Well worth a standing ovation

It was never going to be an easy evening: an indigenous play from a different culture; an acting style discernibly different …

It was never going to be an easy evening: an indigenous play from a different culture; an acting style discernibly different from the styles familiar here; a wordy play in a language not understood and a distracting sub-title board to give us only the gist of what was being said not always quite co-ordinated with the speech on stage.

About one hour into the action there began the sound of seats being tipped up and steps moving to the exit and the small but steady stream of a departing audience. There was no interval in the 130 minutes of the performance, but many of the majority who had stayed to the end accorded it a prolonged and standing ovation, and they were right.

Alexander Galin's play is set at the time of the Moscow Olympics when, as the Olympic flame was to be carried through the streets, a group of prostitutes was confined in a ramshackle barracks that had been a mental hospital. They are as keen as any other citizens to see the flame but the authorities have decided they must not be seen on the streets of the Communist capital.

Alexei Porai-Koshits provides an admirably tacky setting and Galina Ivanova just about perfect costumes. Slowly we get to know the women as they banter and play about, often in racist and gender cliches, usually trivial but sometimes profound, among them selves and with their guardians. Two of them go out to meet some clients while two more stay in barracks to drink and one to try to make love to a hospital patient. The two who went out return beaten up and then the flame passes by and three climb out the windows on on to the roof to cheer it going past.

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One by one they leave the stage, captors and prisoners alike, each part of an indomitable humanity.

The acting is at once stylised and realistic and it is immensely physically and emotionally courageous and powerfully engaging. The company conveys a strong sense of ensemble yet each player also achieves an extraordinary sense of personal isolation.

The dialogue is difficult to assess (given the linguistic communication problems) but the power is impossible to escape. Here, for a Dublin audience, was a unique and unforgettable experience well worth its sustained standing ovation.

Running only tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m. Booking at (01) 677 1717 or (01) 874 8525.