"It is easier getting out of this house than it is getting in." Ruth should know. Fifteen years after leaving her Derry home to start a successful Irish-linen business in Philadelphia, she is back in the family home that she never wanted to leave. But while Ruth's mother insists on laying on the fatted calf for her vegetarian daughter, this is hardly a happy homecoming.
Ruth has run out on her fiance just a few weeks before the wedding. Her grandmother's mind is drifting between the present and a past of painful secrets; her younger sister Aileen's small-town life - an existence Ruth has idealised and coveted - is going wrong. And Ma doesn't seem at all pleased to have her daughter home.
Morna Regan's immensely promising first play is a rich brew of family relationships, exploring how our history shapes our futures more than we might realise. Warm, funny and perceptive, it is also over-plotted and strangely elusive.
Regan sets about the play as if it were an intricate piece of embroidery in which the patterns of one half must match the other, but as the whole gradually emerges, the less sense it makes. The motivations of Ma, in particular, are clearly spelled out but never seem entirely credible. Much the same can be said for a production that is uneven in casting and tone and never packs the emotional punch that the drama demands.
Until August 25. Box office: 0131-228 1404.
