Nuns have more fun. Or at least they must have had in the 17th century, judging from this satirical farce by Sor Juana Inés de Cruz who took the veil in Mexico in 1669. Like a Spanish golden age Ray Cooney farce, it is an evening where you have to keep your wits about you as labyrinthine affairs of the heart come to light as brother and sister Don Pedro and Dona Ana plot to get their hearts' desires: Dona Leonor and Don Carlo who, unfortunately for the scheming siblings, are in love with each other. In Nancy Meckler's spirited production, bright light serves as a blackout and the protagonists stumble about in the dark seeking each other in something akin to a demented game of blind man's bluff.
It is fun, but maybe not always quite as much fun as it thinks it is. This is RSC in full-throttle romp mode and there are times when all the mugging, gagging and manic comic business make you long for a darkened room, a cold compress and a really gloomy tragedy. The excesses are illustrated by the performance of Simon Trinder. He plays Don Carlos' servant Castano, who gets himself up as a woman and tricks Don Pedro into believing he is Leonor. Trinder is a fantastic clown, but the (cross) dressing up drags on for a full 10 minutes. Some judicious cutting here and elsewhere would make for a tighter, funnier, more pointedly subversive evening.
In the end all the comic add-ons suggest that the RSC know this is no masterpiece. Whether it is a curio you want to collect will depend entirely on whether you want to see more men in frocks so soon after the end of the panto season.
· Until March 26. Box office: 0870 060 6631.
