Alan Stanford's production of his new adaptation offers stark proof that playing Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel as straight-up epic melodrama simply doesn't work any more. It's arguable whether such proof was needed: generations of critics and novelists, and more recently the innovative dramatic work of Polly Teale and Shared Experience, have amply argued that the real interest lies in the metaphors of repressed female imagination and colonialism that course through Jane's story. And yet, in the pursuit of family-friendly Christmas entertainment, Stanford and his collaborators here serve up Jane as feisty underdog heroine whose life changes for ever when Rochester lands in front of her - quite literally, in this case, as Stanford's awkward, but inadvertently amusing, solution to the problem of how to represent Rochester falling off his horse involves actor Stephen Brennan flinging himself in front of Dawn Bradfield's Jane from an offstage height.
The overall approach is bare-stage story theatre: Susan FitzGerald narrates from the sidelines as Older Jane, and the company of adult and child actors play multiple roles. The problems start to materialise with the appearance of Bertha Rochester in red rags from the attic: the burst of nervous laughter from schoolgirls in the audience was a clear indication that more interpretation and inflection were necessary to make sense of this metaphorically laden character.
Stanford's top-heavy adaptation - the first act ends with Jane not yet having discovered Rochester's secret - forces an unfortunate rush through the latter parts of her story; one would have liked more of Robert Price's intense St John. Overall it is excellent acting that saves the evening: Bradfield is wonderful as Jane (too pretty, in keeping with Stanford's fairy-tale approach), emotionally present at every moment. Too much of the action, however, takes place with the actors' faces in darkness; lighting designer Rupert Murray is not on form.
· Until February 14. Details: 00 353 1 874 4045.
