Freak show with feeling

Imagine what it is like to be plunged into total darkness, before a tale of violent emotions and visual grotesquery assaults your ears. This extraordinary show deprives audience members of their eyesight in order to paint a vividly moving mental picture of the 19th century American Indian woman who was exhibited as The Ugliest Woman in the World.

It is a strangely synapse-tingling experience to sit down in a crowd, then suddenly to be isolated and vulnerable in the darkness. The urge is to be silent, while the ears go into overdrive, fastening on a footstep here, or a whispered word there, desperate for clues that will bring a new order out of the sudden sensory confusion.

Julia Pastrana suffered from an unattractive nose, and a condition known as hypertrichosis, which cursed her with excess body-hair, and provoked the alternative nickname Ape-Woman. The enjoyable irony of Shaun Prendergast's play is that the audience cannot judge her a freak because it is only sight that condemns her; instead, through her speech, her shuddering intakes of breath, and her screams of pain, listeners can experience her humanity and her suffering.

The clues are thrown from all angles. A voice in one corner of the room invites onlookers to visit a freak show which boasts parasitic twins, a girl with the face of a cat, and the ugliest woman in the world. A strident American asserts his dominance over Pastrana, demanding her hairy hand in marriage and hectoring her to develop skills that will make her a more interesting exhibit. Cloth is brushed against audience members' hands to evoke the shroud Pastrana never has.

Footsteps bring a picture of high-heeled dignity or dancing, while the rattle of a trolley evokes the grim journey to the morgue.

The BAC is no stranger to theatre in the dark - it has challenged audiences with its own successful Playing in the Dark festival, and in 2000 invited the company Primitive Science to stage Theatre Dream for senses other than sight. This latest production beautifully demonstrates that good theatre is all about kindling the imagination, rather than relying on the literal needs of the senses.

The True History Of The Tragic Life And Triumphant Death Of Julia Pastrana, The Ugliest Woman In The World