LIES OF SILENCE

The Irish "troubles" inspire still more fiction. On the verge of leaving his wife for another woman, a poet manque is visited by the IRA, a confrontation that complicates and considerably shortens his life. Without ever crossing the line into overacting, Steven Crossley gives us a dramatic performance of this tense, slow-motion morality tale. With one exception, his characterizations are vivid. Unfortunately, the exception is the vascillating hero, whose dilemma of conscience centers the entire opus. Crossley, compounding the author's felony, fails to give us a good reason to care about this man. Indeed, there's no man there. Y.R. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: MAR/APR 98]