Blue Raincoat's movement-theatre piece The Strange Voyage of Donald Crowhurst is based on the true story of the English amateur boatsman who disappeared in the mid-Atlantic eight months into a round-the-world race in 1968. He had apparently committed suicide. Logbooks revealed that his radioed claims earlier in the race to be nearing the Cape of Good Hope were false: having realised his rickety boat would not survive the voyage, he hid off the coast of Argentina and faked a heroic journey, then lost his nerve and perhaps his mind.
Playwright Malcom Hamilton and director Niall Henry have used this story as a jumping-off point for an existential meditation on madness - not just that of Crowhurst but also that of his wife Claire, back in England minding their four children and agonising over the well-being of her spouse.
On an otherwise bare stage, five actors - two men playing Crowhurst, and three women playing Claire - move around a wooden boat as a soundtrack of music, static and radio messages plays. The Claires rant to their imagined Donalds about the difficulty of living in information limbo, while the Donalds recite their ship's logs and wonder at their situation: "Has anyone seen a Donald Crowhurst lying around here?"
The production is beautiful to look at (although too dimly lit) and technically well executed; the physical prowess of the ensemble as they play out slow-motion, group-movement sequences is impressive. But anyone unfamiliar with Crowhurst's backstory is unlikely to make any sense of what is happening on stage. It's pretty, but cold and vapid.
· Until November 15. Box office: 00 353 1 878 7222. Then touring.
