B(r)itches

Project Cube

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The secret of performance is sincerity: If you can fake that, you’ve got it made. Here, two young actors are guided through exercises in artifice by a seemingly omniscient flip chart: Be men talking about women. Give your best audition. Hit her. (No, really hit her.)

Playing out like a well-scripted improv class (Dylan Coburn Gray is "scriptor"), this comedic investigation into craft has a light, clever touch, where even thin routines return later with an arch purpose. Still, however much actors Claire Galvin and Leah Minto reveal – their portrayal of sex scenes or whether they'd do a laxative commercial – they always seem ersatz. "Are you a good actor?" they ask each other at intervals. The point is most brilliantly seized when the command "Do Shakespeare" replays an earlier conversation in dazzlingly witty iambs.

Aiming, finally, for the shock of reality contains a neat point about the exploitation of performance, but uneven pacing and the aura of a showcase doesn’t quite earn it. When you’re this self-aware, it’s hard to act naturally. Ends Sep 20