"FOR plastic," says Morewood, "I'd rip open my stomach and fry you a kidney!" Thus do we enter Ian Rowlands's essay on the politics of the surface and love in post rhodem age. Like a by Baudrillard in the programme he explores the torment of texture in a world depth. "Words mean nothing," laments Gina, the actress in love with lies, "they are the currency of men."

Harold, the bubble boy who spends his life in a space suit, is in love with Gina's fading glamour. However, he must first overcome Gina's agent, who is in love with all the good things Gina's success can provide for him, and isn't willing to sacrifice his gravy train to anything as intangible as an emotion. Of all the protagonists though, it is Morewood, the restaurateur who dreams of escape to the right side of the tracks, who knows that standing on the edge of the present, with nothing but the past behind you and the abyss of the future ahead it is only the fear of the fall that inhibits progress.

Despite Gina's insistence that words are irrelevant Rowlands' script hinges everything on a word, a phrase or a delicious non sequitur. As all four characters try to avoid the dust of human interaction Rowlands slowly spins a synthetic web of deceit culminating in a terrifying climax where none but the guilty go free.

This, Theatr Y Byd from Wales, who perform the play, proclaim, is the ultimate agony of communication in a world where guilt is probably the only honest position to take. In their capable hands, Love in Plastic is both a devastating polemic and compelling theatre.