It is virtually impossible to judge Mark Ravenhill's epic cycle of 18 short plays about war on the basis of just a couple. Those following the Ravenhill treasure-trail around four different spaces assure me the plays make a cumulative impact, but the two I saw, though variable in quality, show Ravenhill using drama in Brechtian style to make a series of pungently instructional points.
The Mother, dealing with the gulf between military formality and inconsolable grief, struck me as exceptional. Two soldiers, male and female, arrive to inform a mother that her son has been killed in action. Pre-empting their announcement, the mother hurls volleys of abuse at these po-faced messengers of death: only after their departure do her true feelings burst forth. Lesley Manville's performance, in a production jointly directed by Max Stafford-Clark and Clare Lizzimore, is stunning in its progression from verbal and physical violence to wailing private emotion. Ravenhill is astute enough to allow a measure of sympathy for the military officials forced to follow inflexible rules.
I was less smitten by the more overtly satirical Birth of a Nation. The audience become the representatives of a devastated city being patronisingly addressed by a painter, writer, dancer and installation artist. The quartet exude liberal piety and explain how art, which has transformed their own lives, can heal and enrich a battered populace. A starry cast, including Megan Dodds, Monica Dolan, Toby Jones and Pearce Quigley, hit the right note of self-approving smugness under Ramin Gray's direction. But, while I take Ravenhill's point that art can never compensate for the horrors of aerial bombardment, I would argue that not all warzone visitors are colonising guilt-trippers: think of Susan Sontag staging Beckett in Sarajevo. But, whatever my doubts about this piece, I still admire Ravenhill's overall intention.
· Various venues until Sunday. Details: shootgettreasurerepeat.com.
