Battered brotherhood taken to extremes

Trish Edelstein's new play Lipstick and Muscles at the Granary takes as its theme the contrasting, but oddly accommodating, fates…

Trish Edelstein's new play Lipstick and Muscles at the Granary takes as its theme the contrasting, but oddly accommodating, fates of two brothers. Both have been sent (by voices off) as children to an orphanage in which they encounter many of the cruelties now accepted as part of that environment; both adapt to these circumstances through the shared imagination sustained by their brotherhood. But that background is a kind of therapeutic corset which shapes their eventual adulthood - the child Jedi-Warrior becoming a fierce peace-keeping soldier, the child Marilyn Monroe enjoying life as a bi-sexual windowdresser with a spare-time cabaret act.

The weight of the theme over-balances Trish Edelstein's directorial style, something for which Boomerang is now renowned. Good performances from Conor Collins, Gavin Logue and Caitriona McLoughlin disguise the lapses in sequence and likelihood, but the battering-ram use of soundtrack as punctuation can't hide the casual structure.

Plays until Saturday (booking at 021- 904275)

Mary Leland

Mary Leland is a contributor to The Irish Times specialising in culture