The set isn't the only thing that gets deconstructed in this intensely entertaining metaphysical vaudeville by the cheekily named National Theatre of the United States of America. Five performers act out shards of plot and character in a very literal series of theatrical frames: first a small, old-fashioned, clearly flimsy proscenium arch, and then (once the set has been stripped away halfway through) a decrepit gilt mirror frame suspended in the middle of the open playing space.
The group, performing here as part of the Dublin fringe festival, is a New York-based collective with some lineage in the work of Richard Foreman and Richard Maxwell. But what makes their work feel fresh is the foregrounding of their excess musical theatre skills. In between acted scenes, they perform cheesy Broadway-style dance routines, aggressively "selling it" to the audience with big smiles and direct eye contact. They come across as intellectual refugees from Fame Academy.
They also have impeccable timing: the show starts, after some fun entrance rituals involving cheap plonk in plastic cups and fake shrines, when the curtains part to reveal a tall man falling through the air. Boom, he's down, and then bounces up again, dancing with the rest of the group. Then the plot lines kick in, for what they're worth: David and Janet are a pretty couple who act out cliched scenes of tortured love, and Garvey and Superpants are existential wanderers locked in some weird love relationship, sometimes attended to by a hostile and distracted waiter.
The players are desperately engaged in what they're doing, but are constantly interrupted by entrances from other characters or an unexplained need to rush off and slam the door behind them. Halfway through the 90-minute show, the local Dublin band Eyes Closed take the stage and perform a deafening guitar rock song to cover the sound of drills as the walls come down. Those looking for coherence had best browse elsewhere, but the energy of this show blows most of what we see these days on bourgeois stages out of the water.
· Until October 12. Box office: 00 353 1 677 8511.
