Watching James Kerr's rare, intermittently impressive revival of Aeschylus's tragedy, staged in a new 200-seat venue off Wardour Street, it is impossible not to think of Beckett's Happy Days; the key difference is that where Beckett's Winnie keeps despair at bay through decorous, daily rituals, Aeschylus's manacled hero is a creature of pure suffering.
It is obviously unrealistic to criticise Aeschylus for not being Beckett. One also has to remember that this is only the first play of a lost trilogy. But what one misses in Aeschylus's play is much sense of irony. There is a good moment in Kerr's translation when the hero, nursing revenge on Zeus for chaining him to a rock, announces: "I have the time." Otherwise, what we see is Prometheus stoking his hate and rehearsing to a motley succession of visitors the reasons for his captivity: that he stole fire from the gods and thwarted Zeus's plans to destroy mankind. By definition, the play is static; it is also prey to a certain monotony of mood.
Kerr answers this by injecting as much action into proceedings as possible. He has the 10-strong female chorus, clad in sexy, black slips, roam the auditorium. He makes good use of live music and ominous sound effects. But, above all, he ensures that David Oyelowo's Prometheus struggles, both internally and externally, against his fate. The astonishing Oyelowo first seeks to break his chains like some imprisoned animal. He also lends the play much-needed emotional variety by moving from wounded pride ("I saved mankind and found suffering for myself") to vengeful satisfaction in the prospect of Zeus's fall.
Far from being a passive victim, Oyelowo becomes a heroically active force fighting strenuously against his captivity. And perhaps that, in the end, is where the play's real modernity lies: in its moving, Mandela-like image of the individual's power to resist oppression.
· Until September 10. Box office: 0870 890 0503
