Abbey Theatre, Dublin 7.30pm Various prices Until Sep 19 (Sat mat 2pm) 01 8787222

There’s something both endlessly amusing and slightly unnerving about watching the excellent Marty Rea, as the tortured swain Faulkland, fretting himself into stasis over the distrusted affections of his intended, Julia (Alison McKenna), in the Abbey’s summer show. Faulkland, like Lydia Languish, Mrs Malaprop or Captain Absolute, is written to flesh out a surname more than a character, and while his subplot does prove that no man is an island, his predicament is also that of Patrick Mason’s production; one that yearns to move forward but is ultimately quite content to go around in circles.

There is plenty to enjoy on Joe Vanek’s minimalist stage (including his maximalist costumes) but where each individual performance is considered, bright and amusingly brash, few of them actually gel, as though rivalry had extended from the competing lovers of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s comedy of manners into the dressing room – here presented onstage, in one of many self-reflexive and anachronistic gestures. With a new prologue (written by the director) and several props filched from our time, there seems little reason not to have modernised the play entirely. As it is, the show counts as a mitigated, slightly confused success, a high-spirited duel where nobody really gets hurt.

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