The Making Of ’Tis Pity She’s A Whore

Project Arts Centre, Dublin Until Dec 17 8pm 25/20 (Sat mat 2.30pm 18) projectartscentre.ie 01-8819613

It's difficult to film a stage performance without making everything look flat. Like hearing a tired report of a very good joke, with theatre you just had to be there. Even thorough film adaptations of plays seem like faded copies, such as the recent The Deep Blue Seaand The Ides of March.

So what is director Selina Cartmell doing with the 1627(ish) play ' Tis Pity She's a Whore,an incest-revenge tragedy whose filmic qualities don't seem to extend further than a racy title? Or, given that the playwright, John Ford, shares his name with a film- maker, is this a case of mistaken identity? Now there's a thought.

Fresh from The Lulu House, a promenade production whose most arresting moments involved live performance in loosening sync with classic film sequences, Cartmell's Siren Productions here present a production about the filming of Ford's play. In short, a hall of mirrors. Everything from the media to the cast is doubled: Louis Lovett plays a film director whose actors begin to absorb Ford's dark fiction into their lives.

Film's record with adapting theatre is pretty patchy, but, from her staging of Festento The Lulu House, Cartmell knows how stunning the reverse angle can be.

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