SLOPE

Generally, it's difficult to have much patience with people involved in destructive relationships. Abusive behaviour is easy to describe and condemn, while attraction is complex, irrational and impossible to explain.

The relationship between French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine began with an exchange of letters and poems, and when the pair met in person the latter swiftly become so besotted than he deserted his wife and child to run away with his teenage protege.

Pamela Carter's SLOPE, presented as a co-production between Untitled Projects and Tramway, begins with this meeting and covers an explosive period in Verlaine's life that imagines him slapped, punched, kicked and even bitten by the man he loved.

Explicit sex scenes and endless drinking sessions paint a raw, visceral picture of the pair's scandalous time together, but what's missing is the very thing that first drew them together: poetry.

While Sam Swainsbury's Arthur has the confidence, charisma and youthful good looks to convince as a very successful manipulator, it's easy to forget that his character was also an outstanding, ground-breaking poet ' and that this was what first attracted Verlaine (Robin Laing).

The pair are only seen writing together for a few moments, shortly before one of many explosive clashes, and they don't read their poems aloud. For the audience, it's a frustrating experience not dissimilar to reading newspaper reports about the relentlessly self-destructive antics of Pete Docherty (from whom the production's costume designer must surely have taken inspiration) without ever having heard any of his songs.

A giant ramp has been installed in Tramway 2, leading up to a set below ground level into which the audience peers. The idea is that the design provides 'equal access for all' but the result is equally awkward and uncomfortable for all, with the audience required to lean over a ledge - and at times stand up - in order to see what's going on.

SLOPE is a bold production featuring committed performances from its two leads, but separating the artists from their art reduces a complex relationship to sex, drugs and squalor. What sticks in the mind afterwards is not a great line of poetry, but the sound of a flushing toilet.