Shackled by objects

A tableau of two women in underwear and bridal veils casting handfuls of black confetti in repetitive, mechanical gestures confronts the audience before a word has been uttered in 13 Objects.

Yes, it's a warm welcome back to the puzzling world of Howard Barker, a dramatic place in which emotion is permanently overwrought and the symbolism inherent in every action has to work so hard it ought to be paid overtime.

As a starting point for this piece, Barker, whose ghastly last offering Gertrude: The Cry also received a London run at the Riverside, couldn't have chosen better.

His theme is the everyday object and the significance, hope, fear and shackle that we find therein. Does, for example, a wedding ring signify that we are "owned" or "loved"? Via 13 short playlets, portentously subtitled Studies in Servitude, he sets out to pursue this argument.

Fight as he may against this, Barker is at his best here when he concentrates on the mundane. The monologues given by Victoria Wicks - gamely returning after Gertrude for another evening of gratuitously revealing costumes - and Sarah Belcher are the undoubted highlights, focusing as they do, via a cup and saucer and a postcard respectively, on love and its messy aftermath.

But this being Barker, we also have to wade through philosophers defying God (a bucket of water) and overloquacious Nazis commanding the digging of a grave (a spade).

A five-strong ensemble from The Wrestling School, the company dedicated to Barker's work, is once again directed by the man himself, so there is unfortunately no outside voice to suggest the occasional change of tone. The actors, caked in the obligatory lugubrious makeup, acquit themselves commendably on Tomas Leipzig's suitably non-naturalistic set, but it's hard to shake the feeling that Barker sees far more in his writing than any spectator ever will.

13 Objects