Stourbridge Glasshouse Theatre was packed out for their performance of Through Glass Darkly, a devised piece developed through free improvisation by a cast made up of both students from the Glasshouse college and professional actors - a process every bit as perilous and uncertain as working with molten glass drawn from the funace.

Jeremiah Harrington-Cage is the boss of a glass factory and his son Stuart is heir to the throne. Stuart, however, has fallen in love with Sarah, a friend of one of the glass-cutters. His father does not object to him playing around, but Stuart seems more serious about the girl. Nevertheless, there are matters of class and propriety to be considered. Jeremiah tells his son to break off the union.

Meanwhile, Sarah's cousin, Will Chalker (played by an excellent Harry Margolis) who shared a clandestine childhood friendship with Stuart - is working in the factory as an apprentice. Will's sense of justice and his belligerent refusal to accept the norms of class and of hierarchy within the workshop lead him first to a brutal punishment at the hands of his work-mates and then to a flight from the forces of law and order to join a troupe of actors. It is through the medium of drama, in the form of a play within a play, that the injustices of the glasshouse are eventually addressed, as Jeremiah suffers public revelations of his own past and Stuart and Will are reconciled.

As with the theatre's superb Peer Gynt of last year, this was a strikingly imaginative production dealing with big themes: class, technology, the myth of Prometheus, and the processes of creativity itself. The stage set was beautifully constructed and lit: in particular the glasshouse scenes were done with impressive economy and skill. With live music, puppetry, clowning and the use of masks to excellent effect, this was a demonstration again that here is a company willing to take risks.

It is true that, in some respects, Through Glass Darkly felt a little ragged at the edges in comparison with the unwieldy, but beautifully written, Peer Gynt. The language of the play often lurched from the contemporary and the colloquial to the more archaic. Some of the scenes seemed insuficciently developed whilst others were a little over-filled. But any deficiencies in literary polish were made up for by the sheer energy and imaginative verve of the production. With devised theatre, literary polish is not the point: too much of it is somehow suspicious, a betrayal of the process. If this play was a piece of glass, it would not be cut crystal, but something more elemental and strange, pulled out of the heat of the fire and fashioned with passion, energy and commitment.

You can catch the play again in Stourbridge at the International Festival of Glass at the end of August 2006.

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