The Young Baron at the Herald Theatre

By FRANCIS TILL

As a slightly dark romp of a loosely structured fairy tale and a paean to the naturalistic world, The Young Baron has much going for it. But as an adaptation of Italo Calvino's The Baron in the Trees it falls short.

Calvino is routinely celebrated as one of Italy's most important post-war writers, and rightly so.

His novella about a young baron who takes to living in the trees to escape parental authority is a complex masterwork that presents broad philosophical speculation in the context of a delightfully fabulous tale, much in the style of Voltaire.

To be fair, the production company, Theatre Stampede, says only that the play is "inspired" by Calvino's work, and it clearly is that, at least in broad structure and cast.

The text, however, presents a hodge-podge of conflicting metaphors as it tries to stuff the book's themes and much else besides into the 90-minute confines of a one-act play.

All of that might dissolve into pedantic nit-picking if the production worked well on other grounds, but it often flails about, wasting precious time and drifting from its perilously singular point (the Catholic church, personified by missionary Jesuits, is evil; the arboreal life is superior and brings one closer to God).

In the end, too much is borrowed haphazardly from too many sources: at its best the production is a string of glittering bits rather than a coherent whole.

An opening sequence that refers to another Calvino work, The Cloven Viscount, is clever, for example, but the yardage could be used better in the main story. Similarly, when the Count (Brett Stewart) and the lovely Inquisition refugee Viola (Miriama McDowell) become lovers, they strike a pose from Gustav Klimt to showcase the event.

The high point - and a must-see for the theatre season - is a particularly fine performance by Julie Nolan as a delightfully realised, achingly funny, nearly demonic Battista di Rondo.

Ben Barker's rendition of the Jesuit villain is strong if a bit erratic and opens with a powerful declamation in song that, unfortunately like so much else, comes from and goes nowhere.