The Myth of Prometheus
by John Bohannan
OUDS New Writing Festival winner
At the Old Fire Station until 3rd March

'Theatre isn't entertainment, it's war' blasts the producer of this recent winner of the Oxford New Writing Festival. Prometheus, stealer of fire from the Gods and victim of liver-pecking torture for his troubles, has inspired many a literary adaptation over the ages. But this performance - the myth transposed to the confines of a clinical white-cube ward - seems determined that no audience member should leave unscathed.

The story is the complex intermingling of hallucination and reality as experienced by a modern day 'prisoner of conscience', a manic David Smith, at the hands of the US military represented by Alex Burghart - the Bach-loving doctor who gradually transcends his stereotype into a sinister embodiment of "the purity of truth" - and Stephen Karam as the soldier who. no I won't give it away, go and see for yourself.

Drawing on contemporary sources such as Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden or Orwell's 1984 as well as layers of classical and mythological metaphors, an intriguing war of truth, memory, power and sadism is played out with finesse and occasional black humour. This piece relies on an intelligent script and strong performances, rather than any extravagant gestures, for its intensity. As torture, or rather its constant threat, hangs over the multiple truths of David's recollections, the audience is implicated in a war of information waged over the body.

This constant threat serves to avoid identifying with the loftier ideals of its justification. Better than a night in a Turkish jail, I'd say.

Andy Weir, 27 / 2 / 01