Here we go again with another piece of Sylvia Plath necrophilia and more picking over old bones. Why do we prefer poets to their poetry? And why do we like them most when they are female, unhappy and - best of all - dead? Paul Alexander's clumsily constructed script barely gives you a taste of Plath's pungent poetic genius, preferring to rake around the already well documented innards of her relationship with her pushy mother, and the father she perceived as having abandoned her by dying when she was eight. Most of all, Alexander hones in on her disastrous marriage to fellow poet Ted Hughes. Hughes isn't just a husband in the wrong here; he makes Satan seem like an all-round nice guy.
The problem with one-person shows is that you only get one point of view. Certainly, that is the case here as Alexander has Plath deliver a 100-minute suicide note full of canker and bile prior to popping her head in the oven. Some of the brilliance of Plath's poetry (and its appeal to generations of teenage girls) is the fact that it is reflected through the cracked mirror of her own distorted sense of self. As a reader, you are aware of this. On stage, though, when there is only one person providing the narrative, it is difficult to separate truth from vengeful ramblings. Alexander's Sylvia is a most unreliable narrator, but he fashions his script in such a way that, unless you know something of her life, you would take every word she says as gospel.
What saves the evening is Angelica Torn's performance: not pretty but touchingly brave. Initially, the fast, flat, monotone delivery - like someone delivering very bad news as speedily as possible - is slightly irritating. After a while, though, it takes on a distinct emotional power. But it can't rescue an evening that panders to the view that Plath is better dead than read.
· Until January 31. Box office: 020-7794 0022.
