1987 Productions Presents as its second offering of the year The Rape of Lucrece. Shakespeare's tragic poem The Rape of Lucrece, a terrible tale of lust, rape and politics, is both beautiful and violent. A political chronicle to sexual thriller.

The Rape of Lucrece as published by Shakespeare in 1594, and written to be read rather than performed. In this tale of lust and betrayal, not a fully fledged theatre piece but a performance with songs, they serve their purpose. Inspired by Livy and Ovid, Shakespeare's poem tells of Lucrece, the wife of a Roman officer, Collatine, who in boasting of his beautiful wife's chastity to his fellow officers - including the dissolute Tarquin, son of the king - seals her fate. Tarquin creeps into Lucrece's bedroom and rapes her. Unable to bear the shame, Lucrece kills herself, an act that leads to Tarquin's banishment, the collapse of the royal family and the establishment of the Roman republic.

Not one of the Bards well known pieces 1987 will blow the dust off this 1,855-line epic - and, most importantly, give the wronged Lucrece a voice, through spoken word and song. And what a voice it is: cracked with sorrow, bristling with quiet rage. It is the founding voice of a democracy, perhaps also of all women who have been rendered speechless by the acts of men.

Running for a limited season