A matter of life and death

The experimental American playwright Harry Kondoleon knew he was dying of Aids when he wrote this, his final play. A brittle, humorous, postmodern love letter to the theatre, it consists of a play within a play, in which a group of actors constantly break from rehearsing a script about two cousins to ruminate on their own lives instead.

Each actor is in some way preoccupied with their own mortality - one has cancer; another heart disease - while abortions, miscarriages and adoption are recurring motifs. As the actors slip back and forth between the two realities, the whole enterprise takes on a Pirandello-like quality in which the role of theatre as a hall of mirrors of illusion and delusion becomes the focal point of debate.

It takes a talented cast and deft direction to pull off this tricksy play, and there are plenty of times in which Andrea Kantor's production struggles to articulate its multiple dimensions.

A few key narrative elements are shoddily treated - the story of Karen and Vincent, cousins engaged in a sexual relationship, is supposed to take place over 30 years, but there is nothing to indicate this. This production strains to achieve the potent mediation on life and death, reality and fantasy that the play intends. Still, there are some fine moments of comedy.

Until Sun, BAC, 176 Lavender Hill SW11, Tue to Sat 8pm, Sun 6pm. £10, £6 concs. Tel: 020 7223 2223. www.bac.org.uk. Rail: Clapham Junction

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