Tales From The Vienna Woods

In his 1930 portrait of a doomed generation, the German playwright Odon Von Horvath captured a community caught precariously between the fraught hedonism of the past and the catastrophe of the future.

His Vienna, still clinging to the romanticism of 1920s Berlin, riven with internal petty squabbles and moral hypocrisies and blithely blind to political forces, may be Austria's answer to F Scott Fitzgerald's New York.

Richard Jones's cheerless production does little to leaven the chill of this unconsoling play. The impromptu parties and the deadpan band playing Strauss numbers compound the sense of enforced gaiety.

The cavernous stage, with huge, awkward postcards the only concession to set design, does suggest something of a society dangerously adrift from its moorings, but has the added problem of dissipating the drama. The result is a production that is sometimes hard to watch.

Nicola Walker gives a fine, tough performance as the spirited Marianne. Joe Duttine's callous Alfred and Francis Barber's vibrant, thought-provoking Valerie further emphasise Hov·rth's moral interest in a civilisation doomed as much from within as without. And the final scene powerfully brings it all together.

In rep until Nov 19, Olivier, National Theatre, South Bank SE1, evening performances

7.30pm, mats 2pm, £10 to £25. Tel: 020 7452

3000. www.nationaltheatre.org.uk Tube: Waterloo/Embankment

Tales From The Vienna Woods