Though relatively under-represented, Protestant culture has hardly gone unplumbed on contemporary Northern Irish and Irish stages: Stewart Parker, Marie Jones, Gary Mitchell, Michael West, and Tim Loane among others have used theatre to represent and investigate various aspects of the Irish Protestant, Ulster Protestant, and Unionist experiences.
Robert Welch casts his net wider in this new one-man show, a series of snapshots of Protestants across history and geography at moments of crisis or revelation: Elizabeth I, Martin Luther, an Ulster Scots Orangeman, a Corkman who witnessed Charles I's execution, a Mississippi evangelical who lifts snakes to purge himself of Satan.
Rachel O'Riordan directs Ransom Productions' follow-up to their hit debut show Hurricane in what is emerging as a company style: bravura, emotionally heightened acting in a contained performance space, here a small wooden amphitheatre. Paul Hickey is impressive and moving in a series of detailed performance miniatures; he and O'Riordan have done excellent work in finding a different physical and vocal quality for each character. One wonders, though, at the choice to have Hickey discard each carefully selected prop piece outside the playing area when he moves on to the next portrait: it sends a message that the play is trying on different definitions of Protestantism rather than layering impressions of it.
A contrary impression is given by an unfortunately didactic coda in which the actor takes on the playwright's voice and, addressing the audience directly, attempts a summing-up, saying that different Protestants are united through "belief", a desire for freedom, and a sense of being protestors. OK - but is that really an adequate summary of such a historically and culturally diverse set of faiths? While each snapshot is evocatively written and grippingly performed, this hour-long production is simply too brief to cover its subject matter. It's a great start, but could bear more development.
· Until May 9. Box office: 02890 233 332. Then touring.
