Compassion amidst war

This pair of timely short plays touch on the conflict in the Middle East and the effects of military occupation. Both melt your heart.

Thomas Crowe's 15-minute playlet Photos Of Religion and Naomi Wallace's more substantial A State Of Innocence both show people talking across huge gaps and connecting - if only for a moment. They cast a compassionate gaze on soldiers and civilians, the living and the dead alike.

Crowe's work is a response to the torture of Iraqis by American soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison. A shattered Iraqi victim sits alone in the desert, while a British officer interviews his wife.

The young playwright makes canny use of repetition and deploys some striking images: a tank resembles 'a sandcastle on wheels'. But it's Philip Arditti's performance as the solitary Iraqi that ignites Raz Shaw's production. His quietly despairing face and reddened eyes are transfixing.

Still, it's Wallace's piece - a fantastical meeting between an Israeli soldier, a Palestinian woman and a Zionist architect in the wreckage of a zoo in occupied Gaza - that really cuts deep.

The play, which combines wackiness and intensity, is about staying human in the zoo of war where pity keeps seeping through the hatred.

Until May 8, Theatre 503, 503 Battersea Park Road, SW11, Tues to Sat 8pm, Sun 5pm, £9, £6 concs. Tel: 020 7978 7040. www.theatre503.com. Rail: Clapham

Photos Of Religion & A State Of Innocence