Written barely a year after A Streetcar Named Desire , yet rarely performed, Summer and Smoke echoes its more infamous sibling in a number of ways. It too centres on a modest Southern woman with bourgeois affectations, and explores what happens when sexual energies are repressed. It isn't as focused as its predecessor, and there aren't as many dramatic climaxes, but then, very few plays ratchet up tension in the way that Streetcar does. Summer and Smoke , as its title suggests, opts for smouldering melancholy over burning passion, a mood that this Oxford School of Drama production maintains wistfully and satisfyingly throughout.

At its centre is the relationship between Alma (Catherine Potter) and John (Jack Hughes), which constantly flickers between flirtatious and fraught. From the outset it is clear that Alma is no Blanche Dubois; she may suffer from fits of hysteria, but we always sense that she knows their cause. Potter does love-struck very well, always teetering on the brink of submission to her feelings; it's difficult to appear constantly distracted without seeming ditzy, but this performance never reduces the character to a stereotype.

Similarly, John is no Stanley Kowalski, but an irresistible young doctor fresh from college with an unabashed approach to seduction. Jack Hughes effortlessly bewitches all the women around him, with a boyish twinkle in his eyes and a manly grip around their waists. Yet he is never smug; his wry smile is as much an expression of bemusement at his sexual power as it is self-congratulatory. Both the leads make the most of their contrasting body languages, Potter endlessly fiddling with her ring as Hughes fans himself with his hat, the height of urbanity.

All the while, they are watched over by the water fountain, a meticulously carved angel which, with impressive lighting, takes on the illusion of white stone. Tonight the cover was nearly blown when an unfortunate brush of the shoulder threatened to reveal its fragility; but that's the drama of Tennessee Williams for you, always struggling to conceal the truth. And that's what this production manages to convey expertly, that outward niceties are but a thin veneer masking unexpressed instincts. Among the lesser characters, Antonia Windsor is particularly striking as Mrs Winemiller, whose ability to bypass polite chit-chat has come at the price of her sanity; and Nicola Moss, playing the role of John's Mexican lover Rosa, shows how living up to the racial stereotype of fiery Latin belle can lead to equally stereotypical, and violent consequences.

This is a fairly long play (a good two and a half hours) but well worth investigation. The Oxford School of Drama could have easily chosen The Glass Menagerie or Streetcar but instead of adding their interpretation to a thousand and one others, they have produced a unique and engrossing version of a little-known gem.

Andrew Blades 15/06/05