Kebab - TNT

The Royal Court's International Playwrights season continues with this disappointing offering from Romania by Gianina Carbunariu. Its heart may be in the right place, but the narrative trajectory is far too predictable as it follows underage Madalina from Bucharest to Dublin where she joins her manipulative older boyfriend, Voicu. Needless to say, her low-waged job in a kebab shop doesn't last long and Voicu soon has other more lucrative plans to reap the rewards of living in the West. At first reluctantly - and then with distastefully eager compliance - he is helped by geeky post grad student Bogdan who, with his laptop and camera, sees in Madalina's on-line sexual violation a promising subject for his Visual Arts project.Matti Houghton's Madalina tolerates the sharing of her body with surprising equanimity, but Orla O'Loughlin's production blanches out such personality as Carbunariu invests in her characters and this account of disillusioned immigrants resorting to abusive exploitation proves creepy rather than convincing.
Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, Sloane Square, SW1 (020-7565 5000). Until November 3