Carmen is the world's most familiar Gypsy tale, yet also the least authentic. Theater Pralipe's production is a radical act of re-appropriation. Founded in Macedonia over 30 years ago, Pralipe is Europe's premier Romany theatre ensemble, and director Rahim Burhan has mixed Merimé's original tale with elements of Bizet's opera to create a version shorn of picturesque Sevillian cliche that attempts to reclaim Carmen for the Gypsies.
If it does not quite come off, it is because Carmen was never wholly a Gypsy in the first place. The image of the coquettish cigarette maker comes not from Romany lore, but the salacious imagination of a French bureaucrat who was openly hostile towards Gypsies. It makes Pralipe's enterprise seem as bizarre as a troupe of Kabuki masters doing the Mikado.
Pralipe's strident, visceral style of rough theatre - performed in the company's travelling tent - is never less than engaging, however; and Newcastle-Gateshead's enterprising Gypsy festival is significantly enhanced by these exclusive UK performances.
Pralipe's style is pacey, direct and does not appear to waste words: though, as the words were in Romany, it is difficult to be a precise judge of that. The company's real strength is the universal language of melodrama, however, and one pressing reason to see this production is for the contribution of Pralipe's outstanding musical ensemble, Les Manouches, alone.
The six virtuoso Gypsy musicians of Les Manouches pump out some bizarre but beguiling mutations of Bizet, while the actors tap directly into the story's timeless themes of seduction, sexual obsession and jealousy.
Silivia Pinku dominates with an incendiary performance in the title role. She looks as if she has stepped straight out of a Goya painting, and behaves as if prowling the tables of a Soho men's establishment. At one point she torments Eduard Bajram's smitten Don Jose with a piece of forbidden fruit in a truly lascivious manner. You may never look at a toffee-apple in quite the same way again.
· Until Saturday. Box office: 0191-230 5151.
