Moving statues and guilty consciences: the timeless stuff of drama. It's an old story, and Moliere's version relishes the hypocrisy and venality of the philanderer, Don Juan, whose exploits have been recounted in verse, drama and opera since the 17th century. For the 21st Galway Arts Festival, the France-based troupe of travelling players, Footsbarn Theatre, have added their own comic flourishes, as well as music and unaccompanied singing.

Played in the round and staged with great simplicity, the production relied on the traditional elements of farce to communicate to the audience. Performing in French, the players used exaggerated, declamatory tones and expansive gestures to ensure that the text was comprehensible. It was, thanks also to the fact that many of the performers were not native French speakers, but the lack of variation in tone began to pall after a while.

From the swaggering, strutting rake, Don Juan, to his loyal, bemused valet, Sganarelle, his jilted wife, Dona Elvira, the peasant women he seduces (two at a time) and the debtors he evades, these are stock characters, portrayed in broad brushstrokes, in the burlesque style. Despite moments of great charm, the piece became desultory, lacking the energy needed to propel us to the great finale in which Don Juan is cast into the inferno. Although Rod Goodall (a veteran of Footsbarn and Macnas) plays the role with roguish charm, he lacks the dangerous allure, the glittering eroticism that makes this character so enduring. Galway has seen more exciting work from Footsbarn in the past.

Continues tonight and tomorrow night. To book, telephone: 1890-575655.