Dante

In this contemporary reimagining of The Inferno, Dante—an urbane Manhattenite—watches helplessly as his great love, Beatrice, dies in a car accident. Overcome with grief, he is rescued by the deceased Roman poet Virgil who offers him the chance to bring her back. The only problem being that he must journey through nine circles of hell to do it.

Unfortunately, for all its ambition and its innovative—even beautiful—staging, as a piece of writing Dante is woefully underdeveloped. This is fatally true with regard to the central, driving relationship between Dante and Beatrice. It is so utterly neglected that one simply does not believe that, supposedly driven by love, this man would put himself, quite literally, through hell for her. Further, as the plot fizzles out towards its anticlimactic conclusion, it is left unexplained why Virgil—a man of honour and heroism alone among a sea of condemned souls—is so unselfishly protective of Dante and unswerving in his quest to reunite him with Beatrice.

These issues, moreover, aren't helped by the poor accoustics in the cavernous EICC venue, which make it rather difficult at times to make out exactly what the performers are saying. This is exacerbated by some rather poor acting: clunky lines aren't projected so much as shouted in a monotonous drone, a sin of which the whole cast is guilty.

But these, ultimately, are flaws that could, to some extent, be overlooked were the characterisation up to scratch. It is, after all, perfectly competent in its choreography. That a production set in the fiery pits of hell should leave you this cold is entirely the fault of the inadequate writing.