Maybe it's something in the gull-packed, soothing air of Bath. Peter Hall's season there has produced decent but thoroughly uninspired bits of new writing from two authors, both of whom can offer more.

Simon Gray's Little Nell, was an MOR play with MOR subject matter - the life of Charles Dickens.

This one, from South Africa's greatest playwright, Athol Fugard, has not that excuse. Its theme is the broken dream of post-apartheid South Africa. Victoria, a black girl named in tribute to Nelson Mandela's release, returns to the beautiful, book-stacked home of the liberal whites who named her - this time to rob them.

In tow is her black friend Freddie, a local hoodlum whose only motivating force is to get rich doing over the whites he still blames for his poverty. Walking in on the burglary is Lionel, the widower house owner distraught to see the daughter of his beloved housekeeper turned to crime.

It's a set-up of classic dramatic potential. Perhaps this is why there's not a surprise to be had. Decent Lionel, compromised by apartheid, and the wild, deprived Freddie repeat their positions at the poles of the argument. Vicky drifts between them.

Fine performances make the stasis more than bearable. Richard Johnson has a lovely, sad gravity as Lionel. Reece Ritchie nails Freddie's quick, unstable mind. Yet Fugard fails to make any of these individuals come to full life. Lionel is too much the paragon - a teacher with a love of Tolstoy and his dead wife. Freddie is bad-ass, but for no other reason than that he is poor. That point is banged home.

Fugard's best plays probed apartheid's corners, finding personal stories in the smaller realities of a vast unjust system. Here the story is less provocative fable than direct allegory.

At one point, having made a successful grab for a gun, Freddie whoops with delight, then fear gradually comes over his face as he realises the responsibility of the situation. At another, he pretends to be master of the house, brazenly ordering Vicky around. The message is immediate, the drama less so.

• Until 25 August (01225 448844, www.theatreroyal.org.uk).