Scenes From Family Life
Kildare Youth Theatre
*
A Vampire Story
Hertfordshire County Youth Theatre
***

Amateur teenage actors who long to become professionals now have a chance to display their talents in high places. They are performing in 10 works written for them by leading dramatists: the National's annual New Connections Festival is now upon us.

Mark Ravenhill, who made a powerful impression in earlier seasons with his socially agitating plays Citizenship and Totally Over You, disappoints with Scenes From Family Life. This dreary, hour-long, fairy tale or psychological fantasy feels, in Keith Burke's stylised production, as if Ravenhill had dashed it off in a rush, without much thought about where the play was going or why. The original intention was, perhaps, to convey the sense of upheaval, insecurity and existential change that attends a couple during pregnancy and following birth. Sadly no illuminations are achieved, despite the talented Kildare Youth Theatre of Ireland actors.

Ravenhill concentrates attention upon Jack and Lisa, eagerly awaiting their baby's arrival. Unfortunately, though, Lisa keeps vanishing before our eyes and Jack's - only to return moments later. Their pregnant friend Stacy and everyone else shares this facility for disappearing into thin air. Soon no one is left except for horrified Jack and Stacy, marooned in a martial law world. Ravenhill makes little of this nightmare scenario or of the sudden, arbitrary return to normality when Jack takes time to recuperate.

By fortunate contrast, Moira Buffini manages something far more imaginative, complex and bloodily amusing in A Vampire Story. It is set in a weird world that teeters between dream and reality, shifting between the 19th century, Byzantium and today, while raising questions about its heroine's true identity. The set consists of receding proscenium frames, emphasising the theatricality of a play transmitted through an enigmatic narrator. The possibly vampiric Eleanor and Claire, who may be sisters,or daughter and mother, arrive in a town where geekish, Frank Stein - or is it Frankenstein? - beautifully played by Ben Boskovic - becomes quickly smitten. Hertfordshire County Youth Theatre perform with confidence and gusto.

New Connections runs until 8 July (020 7452 3000, www.nationaltheatre. org.uk/newconnections).