Sam Shepard in a minor key is the best you can say of this double bill of fragments, the first created with the late Joseph Chaikin, and the second adapted by director Gemma Kerr from Shepard's autobiographical writings.
Shepard's heart is not always on view in his dramas, but it is clearly present in Savage/Love. It takes the form of a playful prose poem that may be far from Shepard's dramatic myth-making, but which explodes a few myths of its own as it ponders the self-consciousness of love, the presentation of self and the difference between being in love and acting being in love. There is the occasional moment when one is reminded of far better plays such as Sarah Kane's Crave, but the piece - although perfectly pleasant - is oddly without driving passion and even more curiously lacking in the savagery the title suggests. It is most notable for the fluidity of Anthony Biggs' production and for a fresh-faced cast who give refreshingly unguarded performances.
Savage/Love looks like a masterpiece alongside Motel Chronicles, a piece that was never intended for the stage and is ill-suited to it. Although it's a bonus that Motel Chronicles doesn't take itself too seriously, this is more the Shepard we know: the chronicler of landscapes where highways go on forever and the only place to take solace is in a cheap motel. Like Savage/Love, the theme is desire, but Kerr's direction never finds a way to pull the threads together, and although the cast look as if they are straight out of a Levi's advert, they never persuade us that they have ventured as far west as Bristol, let alone New Mexico.
· Until Saturday. Box office: 020-7978 7040.
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