The Dogstone and Nasty, Brutish and Short

'If you sit in the front row, you'll get wet in the second act.' So warn the ushers when the audience walks into Traverse 1 for the latest installment of the National Theatre of Scotland's Debuts season.

And they aren't kidding, for the staging of the second half ensures that water gets sloshed about the space, hitting people in the first few rows. And what's sad is that the threat of getting soaked is the strongest prospect this production has to offer.

The evening is split between two one-acts. They are each written by first-time playwrights, produced by NTS and directed by the Traverse's new Artistic Director, Dominic Hill. Other than that, they have absolutely nothing in common. Paradoxically, each script's strengths are the other's weaknesses.

First up is Kenny Lindsay's The Dogstone. The action alternates focus between father Danskin (Andy Gray) and son Lorn (Scott Fletcher). The art of storytelling acts as a cornerstone, with Lorn telling stories to exorcise a painful past and Danskin telling colourful tales about local culture and folklore (both real and imaginary) as a way of justifying his present.

The Dogstone is a competent piece of theatre. Fletcher and Gray are very good in their roles and successful in creating both interesting characters and a believable bond with each other. The direction and design are functional, carrying the story forward but adding little. And Lindsay's script is very literate, which is a double-edged sword. It is well-written and has good lines but contains very little drama. It also feels a bit overwritten, at times playing both stale and repetitive.

The title of Andy Duffy's play, Nasty, Brutish and Short, seems like a warning. The play follows two brothers. Younger brother Luke was recently incarcerated, has neither a job nor a home, is seeing a young woman named Mary Jane and carries a knife. Older brother Jim is a bit of a thug, offering inadequate shelter and criminal work to Luke, and carries a gun.

One doesn't need a map to see where this play is going. However, for all of its obviousness, Duffy's script has one thing going for it that most new scripts lack: a noticeable, pulsating energy. There is an urgency to the piece, and it has a far more modern touch than most productions. It is a shame that Duffy couldn't harness that energy into a better constructed plot or more symphathetic characters.

Hill's direction doesn't helped matters; his use of water becomes more of a trick to keep the audience engaged than a functional aspect of the production. As it is, the piece is heavy on style and shock value and light on substance.

Both plays are filled with promise but come nowhere near realising their full potential, even though they contain uniformly great performances. Both writers have obvious talent and may well write plays that will be worthy of Traverse 1 in the future, but neither piece is truly ready for the attention the NTS is now giving it, and they would have been better suited in an experimental studio setting than one of Britain's premiere stages. The end result is an unfortunate disappointment.