Southern tragedy lacks sex appeal

Orpheus Descending is a wordy piece of work. Hardly one of Tennessee Williams's best plays, but it does have a great part for a fine actress, and good directors find it a challenge. Peter Hall did a well-thought of production with Vanessa Redgrave as Lady Torrance 12 years ago; now it is Helen Mirren's turn, with Nicholas Hytner as the director.

Orpheus Descending is a wordy piece of work. Hardly one of Tennessee Williams's best plays, but it does have a great part for a fine actress, and good directors find it a challenge. Peter Hall did a well-thought of production with Vanessa Redgrave as Lady Torrance 12 years ago; now it is Helen Mirren's turn, with Nicholas Hytner as the director.

Williams has a clear idea of Lady Torrance, the immigrant daughter of "a wop from the old country" whose father dies in a fire set by the man she marries. He writes in a preface to the play that she is between 35 and 45, the victim of an emotional disaster in her youth, who verges on hysteria under strain. Her voice is often shrill, but "when in repose a girlish softness emerges again and she looks 10 years younger."

A young stud with a snake-skin jacket named Val Xavier arrives in a small town in the deep south where, in the 1940s, racism and murder are a way of life. Lady Torrance is running the local store because her husband is ill; they sleep apart, and she has not had "a good dream" in 15 years.

When Val and Lady become lovers, she says she is like a dead tree that has burst into life, and Val becomes the Orpheus who will take her away from this dreadful underworld. The plot is bursting with sex and significance, and since it is driven by Williams's exuberant language, it is not easy to keep under control.

Sexy is the single adjective that describes Mirren's work. Even when she is playing a Detective Superintendent on television she is sexy, and when she is Cleopatra - a role she has played three times - the best part of the world would kill to be cast as Antony. When she last played the 31-year-old Egyptian siren at the National almost two years ago, 30 years had passed since she had first appeared with the RSC in Stratford. Actresses cannot be deterred by age; but as time goes by, risks grow greater.

Vanessa Redgrave put on an Italian accent to show Lady Torrance's alienation from her surroundings. Mirren does not bother; indeed her southern accent is uncertain. Her personality is dictated by her behaviour: she is tough and decisive, emotion is ruthlessly suppressed. When she scents Val's sexuality ("boys like you don't ask," she says), she tells him there will be "no monkey business." But when the monkey business starts, she has initiated it. Their affair leads inevitably to her death (shot by her husband) and Val's castration - and presumably his own death - by means of a blow torch and a lynch mob.

An appalling fate, even by the standards of the old American south. But, by the standards of the Greek tragedy it aspires to, this Orpheus Descending is not at all cathartic. This is not the fault of Nicholas Hytner, who directs with a light touch, putting people in the right places and making sure they do not do anything daft. Bob Crowley's set is easy to work in, and the lighting by Hugh Vanstone heightens the emotions (blue on the back brick wall for desire; red for danger). The guitar (Keith Williams) sets the right mood. The small parts are all deftly played, especially by Saskia Reeves (poor little rich girl), William Hootkins (brutal sheriff), and Kristin Marks and Sandra Dickinson (gossips).

The leading actors are part of the problem. As Val, Stuart Townsend looks the part of the young stud, but it is very hard to smoulder, and Townsend's fire never really gets lit. He finds Lady different from anyone else he has met, and loves her, sort of, but it is rather as though he had discovered a mother rather than a lover. Mirren is perfectly good when Lady Torrance is under stress, but rather less convincing when the girlish softness ought to emerge again in the last act. Then she is not quite sexy enough. But the real fault lies with Williams, who let his play end, not as tragedy, but as melodrama.

There is a lot more sex in the RSC's Tales from Ovid, which is cleverly adapted by Tim Supple and Simon Reade from Ted Hughes's powerful poetic translation of great Greek myths. At the start we are told that nine-tenths of the pleasure of making love belongs to the woman; maybe, but most of the women in these 10 stories have a terrible time.

Semele bursts brilliantly into flame and dies. Because she bears her father's child, Myrrha turns into a tree. When she provokes Minerva, Arachne becomes all belly with a dot of a head.

Philomela has her tongue cut out after being raped by Tereus, though she does get her revenge by serving him a stew made from the flesh of his own son.

As in a good revue, there are 10 episodes, each showing a different aspect of the lifestyle of the gods - predominantly lust, pride, envy and greed. The work of a fine, athletic company is spoiled only by some excruciating vowels; Fergus O'Donnell is a notable Bacchus. Supple directs his text ingeniously on a simple copper floor surrounded by sand. There is, however, one curiosity. While the men appear naked, none of the women do. Is this a case of refusing to exploit female nudity, while taking balls-nakedness for granted? I suspect political correctness.

Silence is a palpable ingredient in the Royal Court's production of Sarah Kane's last play, 4.48 Psychosis. After their entrance, the three actors stand still, as if this were a minute's silence for Kane, who committed suicide in February 1999, shortly after her 28th birthday. The audience was rapt, and this creates a deep silence too. Since they were listening to Kane's suicide note, perhaps they felt like voyeurs. Although it is written mainly as a monologue, three actors - Daniel Evans, Jo MacInnes and Madeleine Potter - share the load. James Macdonald, the director, and the designer Jeremy Herbert cleverly deploy a mirror trick known as Pepper's Ghost - not that there is much danger of the audience's attention wandering.

It is only five years since Sarah Kane's debut at the Court with Blasted ("A Feast of Filth", said Jack Tinker). Cleansed, in 1998, which contained sex and violence that makes Titus Andronicus look like a primary school romp, was evidence of a deep black humour. This surfaces again in 4.48 Psychosis, which is a disturbed and disturbing work. 4.48 is "the happy hour" of her death which comes when she swallows every pill she's got. The last line is "please open the curtains" - she craves the light - and as the piece ends, the actors uncover the windows of the Theatre Upstairs onto Sloane Square, a view she would have seen through her working life. It is a unique obituary, compelling and macabre.

'Orpheus Descending': Donmar Warehouse, WC2 (020 7369 1732), to 19 Aug; 'Tales from Ovid': Young Vic, SE1 (020 7928 6363), to 22 July; '4.48 Psychosis': Royal Court, SW1 (020 7565 5000), to 15 July