A group of people sit and tell stories. The first is about a woman who realises her marriage is a mistake but stays, colluding with her husband in living a public lie while wreaking damage and violence behind closed doors. In the second a Dunblane type massacre has occurred; in the third the couple's child from the first piece is locked in a tower while outside violence apparently rages.
Who are these storytellers? Actors performing a play? Executives at a script conference? Where do these stories come from? In the age of Hollywood and 24-hour news coverage is it possible to have any authentic response to events in world around us or even to the emotional upheavals of our own lives?
With our imaginations colonised by the constant stream of images - and in the case of major violent events by the stream of speculative psychobabble that accompanies them - is it any wonder that we self-consciously "act" our way through reality, the movie of our lives rolling continuously in our heads with ourselves cast in the starring role and every response mediated through the scriptwriter and camera's eye?
It is a subject very much centre stage at the moment, with Mark Ravenhill's recent Product viciously dissecting the Hollywood dream machine, and now a triptych of vicious modern fairy tales from Martin Crimp that bring the nightmare right back home and stab you through the soul. Crimp's grim tales are even more terrifying because they are grounded so precisely in middle class affluence where the veneer of civilisation hides the hollowness and rage within, where happiness is sacrificed for a nice handmade table, truth for easy lies and we lock our children up when the real horror is really within. James Macdonald's tightly controlled production takes no prisoners and does its job so well you won't stomach a cosy chattering supper afterwards.
· Until October 1. Box office: 020-7565 5000.
