Irish companies dominate the otherwise uncontested market of automotive-centred theatrical innovation. Eight years ago, Corn Exchange had a hit with Car Show, which put audiences (maximum three) in the back seat while a specially-commissioned play was performed up front.
Now, Performance Corporation and Once-Off Productions take the concept a step further (and the maximum audience capacity is up to a whopping 56) with this cleverly conceived exercise in drive-in theatre, playing in a disused car park as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival.
Punters arrive by car, get a free windscreen clean, and instructions to tune their car radio to a certain frequency. The audience's cars line up to face three parked hot rods. Music, sound effects, and recorded narration come through the radio, as one of the cars revs up and does a squealing circuit, showing off its inch-from-the-ground suspension, sexy indoor lighting, and phat spoiler. But if only they had pimped the script as well as they have the rides.
Tom Swift's 25-minute text is a series of loosely connected scenes about boy-racer culture. The action takes place around the car park while the audience stay in their own vehicles, the dialogue relayed over the radio. Two men (Aidan Turner and Tom O'Suilleabhain) drink tea and talk with ironic pompousness about different car models. A sliver of a plot develops about a hot chick (Ailish Symons) who takes up with one of the blokes. There are a couple of glancing, in-joke references to "Gay" (Byrne, chatshow host and spokesman for road safety).
The simple, moving final moments bring home the tragic consequences of joyriding gone wrong. But is the company celebrating or condemning kid racers? It seems a shame that, having pulled off what is a quite amazing feat of directing (by Jo Mangan) and producing - in particular the radio-miking of the actors so that their live dialogue can be clearly understood - the company doesn't attempt to tell a more coherent story. Love the exterior, but there's not enough going on under the hood.
· Ends Saturday. Box office: (353 1) 677 851.
