Sean O'Casey's first major Dublin play is a playboy of the tenements set during the 1920s war of independence. It satirises how a motly working-class community convince themselves that a poet in their midst is actually an IRA gunrunner.
Showing the romance and the reality behind militant Irish nationalism, in today's Belfast, the play couldn't be more topical. But Fiona Buffini's production lacks a consistent tone or take on the material, so any contemporary resonance is lost.
Ivan Birthistle and Vincent Doherty's backdrop of constant street noise, and Carol Betera's detailed set - rows of washing hanging above the grotty room shared by poet Donal and activist Seumas - create a potent atmosphere. But the lead actors do not provide credible readings of their characters, or of the relationships between them.
Donal, O'Casey's stand-in, is written as self-involved and slightly callow, but Michael Patric performs so colourlessly that the other characters seem plain stupid for believing in him.
Karl Shiels plays the educated, underemployed nationalist Seumas as a comic moaner, which means that his constant complaints about the Irish people's lack of character lose irony and force.
The crucial love scene between Donal and the spirited Minnie Powell is rushed and devoid of charisma. Marcella Plunkett, looking uncomfortable in an ill-fitting, too-modern cardigan, delivers Minnie's idealistic lines without conviction, and there is no spark between her and Patric's Donal.
The two male leads play everything so close to the surface that Minnie's self-sacrifice in the second act - when she pretends that a stash of guns that has ended up in their possession is hers - comes across as random and foolhardy rather than heroic.
The evening is saved by some detailed character work from the supporting cast. Eleanor Methven as the desperately earnest Mrs Henderson, Frankie McCafferty as the bumbling Mr Gallagher, and Pauline Cadell as the hand-wringing Mrs Grigson.
· Until February 26. Box office: 028 9038 1081.
