THEATRE / FRINGE: Travels in small-town life: Sarah Hemming on Impassioned Embraces and Widowers' Houses (CORRECTED)

CORRECTION (PUBLISHED 11 AUGUST 1993) APPENDED TO THIS ARTICLE

'WE LIVE lives of quiet desperation,' says a character at one point in Impassioned Embraces at the King's Head, Islington. This could stand as a motto for the show, except that much of the desperation is anything but quiet. From the first moment, when a crazed youth bursts through the door bawling 'Sex and death] Sex and death]' these 14 sketches by John Pielmeier take us on a witty, oblique and, above all, energetic, tour of peculiar and perverted corners of American urban life.

In form, the show is most like a revue - acerbic sketch following upon acerbic sketch - with the difference that they sometimes merge into one another, they don't always have punch lines and the cast often blur the edges between the act and reality. At first, for instance, we take the distressed youth to be a genuine shell-shocked war vet, as he regales us with his horrifying story about being turned on by holding a dying solider, until a man from the audience suddenly shouts 'This is shit]'. The youth turns out to be an actor and the angry man his director, bent on pummelling the confidence of his protege until he is in such a downtrodden state that he delivers a performance of sufficient despair. It's a nifty idea, playing with the notion of depicting violence and sadism in art. In another sketch an actor bangs his head on a pipe in the dressing-room and forgets his lines - or does he? He points out that we will never know: his ramblings could be nonsense or a perfectly learnt script.

The best sketches are those that use this element of surprise and subversion cleverly. The show switchbacks somewhat: some scenes are limp and come to a full-stop, rather than making a point (most notably one sketch about sexual jealousy and frog dissection), while some are funny, pointed and well performed.

David Gilliam (the 'forgetful' actor) and Nancy Gair stand out - and one of the best scenes combines both of them as a sexually harassed secretary executing brilliant revenge on her erstwhile boss - but the acting is uniformly sharp, strong and punchy, and the evening (directed by Steve Shill) has humour and bite.

We're led behind the facade of respectability to seedy behaviour and principles again in Widowers' Houses at the Chelsea Centre, London SW10. This time, though, it's Victorian England, rather than urban America, and the critical eye is that of Bernard Shaw. Sharon Maughan's respectable production offers an interesting twist to Shaw's first, rather ponderous play by turning the central character, Sartorius, into a woman.

Here, when Harry Trench, wooing young Blanche Sartorius, discovers to his horror that his intended's mother has made her fortune as a slum landlord, the revelation is the more shocking because the hard-headed extortionist is, herself, a mother. And, in Lisa Farrow's compelling peformance, Mrs Sartorius is an interesting character - an apparent rod of iron, ruled in her turn by her stupendously selfish daughter (Kate Issit). Lisa Farrow portrays her as a woman on her own, whose ruthless behaviour is partly a survival technique. It's a performance that adds to Shaw's gleeful expose of the internecine injustices and false fronts of Victorian society.

Meanwhile Daniel Finlay, as Trench, moves convincingly from the moral high ground to embittered despair as he discovers how his own life and status depend irrevocably upon the social status quo and how his own income is tangled up in exploitation of the poor.

Lunchtime shows can often be regarded as poor relations, but at the King's Head, De Musset and Co offer a jaunty, entertaining lunchtime version of Farquhar's The Beaux Stratagem.

Tailored to fit a 50-minute slot, Adrian Brown's production rattles through the story in rhyming couplets, employing a cast of five - the two lovers, plus a narrator (David Gilbrook) who plays all the other parts, pausing to offer the occasional aside about the difficulties of his lot: 'This to display I'm forced to change my sex, No wonder actors all are mental wrecks.' Unpretentious, intelligent fun.

'Impassioned Embraces' runs until 7 August (Booking: 071-837 7816); 'Widowers' Houses' until 14 August (Booking: 071-352 1967); and 'The Beaux' Stratagem' until 7 August (Booking: 071-226 1916).

CORRECTION

Apologies to Lisa Harrow, who was mistakenly referred to as Lisa Farrow in last week's review.