Billed as the story of a 47-year-old clown in midlife crisis, Tanks a Lot! comes across as evidence of a larger creative impasse on the part of its producing company. Barabbas was at the heart of the early 1990s burst of creativity in Irish theatre. It was founded by three performers trained in clowning who examined and overturned many shibboleths of Irish life, and brought a new sense of physicality and invention to Irish theatre.
Since the departure of Mikel Murfi in 2001, the company's work started to lose steam and now, with co-artistic director Veronica Coburn apparently not involved in this devised production, Raymond Keane looks mighty alone on the big stage of Project Space Upstairs. This, on one level, seems intentional: aloneness is the hour-long show's starting premise. Keane is caught "unawares" on stage, an appealing scarecrow-like presence in a baggy blue suit and carrying a wooden briefcase. A little red flag hovers overhead, and the first 10 minutes involve Keane trying to grab it by climbing up a ladder. This is foiled by his desire to execute the action against a soundtrack, but the makeshift Victrola he creates out of things from the briefcase continually shorts out.
This is classic clown stuff - man vs technology - which becomes a central trope, though the show (directed by Judy Hegarty-Lovett) wavers between an "everything's invented before your eyes" approach and one that relies on the intervention of unseen technicians. Another rule that shifts concerns text: Keane initially communicates through gestures and grunts, but then starts to speak nearly coherent Irish-ese (including the title phrase) in a burst of business involving him marrying a broom. There's also a bit about barbecuing biscuits, and more pursuit of the red flag, which comes to represent companionship and love. Like the rest of the company's recent work, this is well performed, but slight, and too reliant on whimsy.
· Until June 11. Box office: 353 1 881 9613. Then touring.
