Love Lies Bleeding

LOVE LIES BLEEDING

By Red Stitch Actors Theatre. Rear 2 Chapel St, St Kilda. Until Aug 16. $30-18. Tel: 9533 8083.

I've never rated novelist Don DeLillo's dialogue, which makes his occasional playwriting forays problematic. Not that he can't write credible conversation - it's just that every one of his characters speaks in the same dry, disconnected kind of New York patter that turns every line into a limp statement on the human condition. They do this. This is a thing that they do. Love Lies Bleeding's dialogue isn't the only thing to fall short of satisfying, just the most noticeable. An exploration of euthanasia and the value of life, it sees a dying artist's fate decided by his son and two ex-wives as they gather in his remote desert home. Some strong drama occasionally surfaces but the scenario is hobbled by stretches of unconvincing, circular talk and a sense that the theme of death is more interesting to the writer than its reality. Red Stitch newcomer Tim Potter seems to get the rhythms required by DeLillo's writing, though Christine Mahoney delivers the most emotionally effective moment near the play's conclusion. This is - eventually - a reasonably rewarding production, but one created despite, not by, its illustrious author.