Marivaux is one of the few playwrights to be honoured with his own verb: marivauder, which implies fanning amorous badinage around a rococo salon. Thankfully, Braham Murray's production of Marivaux's The Triumph of Love, which appears to take place on an Edwardian putting green, is refreshingly free of flounce. But there are still the airy trifles of the dialogue to attend to, and Murray's new performing version, adapted in collaboration with Katherine Sand, suggests the playwright's verbal felicities are almost impossible to translate.
Marivaux's writing depends on the subtle manipulation of stock formulations: Princess Leonida adopts ornate drag to gain access to Prince Agis. Yet, for all the layers of disguise, Rae Hendrie's Leonida seems curiously exposed. The rapid gender shifts seem to prevent her ever alighting on a comfortable vocal range, while the absence of that most essential Marivauxian accessory - a fan - prompts her to flourish her hands in a flapping gesticulation that accompanies every line. Ultimately, the biggest laugh is claimed by a tumescent piece of topiary that extends suggestively at moments of excitement.
Voltaire disdained Marivaux for "knowing all the paths of the heart, but never finding the main road". A fitting epitaph, perhaps, for a production which so loses the thread that it veers off towards the hedgerow.
· Until May 19. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
