Youth flings

Youth is wasted on the young, it is often said. And the Vienna-born Ferdinand Bruckner would seem to agree with this portrayal of a precocious group of 1920s mittel-European medical students seeking thrills as a means of feeling alive.

Quite why they should exhibit their particular brand of nihilsm and a fascination with death is not made clear, but it is implied that the Great War and the subsequent years of hedonistic escapism have taken their toll on a generation that should personify optimism and potential.

Bruckner's characters certainly ring true, in that they possess a degree of self-absorption and articulacy about their plight that extends way beyond their emotional maturity (think of all those earnest freshers starting at university). There is infatuation, lust, jealousy, alcohol and drugs, all of which, allied to philosophical debate, turn this into a kind of intellectual soap opera.

A central triangle comprises Desiree, a sexually voracious and liberated runaway countess (a sultry Miranda Raison), the dissolute and provocative Freder (Mel Raido's stud has an off-putting touch of the neanderthal) and frumpy bluestocking Maria (Elaine Heathfield), who comes slowly undone at the wandering hands of the other two. It all, of course, ends in tears.

Katie Read's production, part of the James Menzies-Kitchin Memorial Trust Award showcase for young directors, certainly stokes all this up into a hot-house - literally, in the BAC's stifling Studio 2 space - of unbridled emotion. The cast works hard, though one questions the choice of play since Bruckner's morally diffuse piece is often shapeless and overwritten. Even with the insertion of rather modern oral-sex jokes, Simon Day's adaptation seems unable to penetrate the flannel. Ultimately, there is only so much precious histrionics you can take - these youths are indeed a bit of a pain.

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Pains Of Youth