If anyone were under the illusion that they were going to see a traditional Swan Lake – as a few people were at the Sydney opening – Michael Keegan-Dolan’s production set them straight right from the get-go.

When the audience enters the theatre, there is a middle-aged man in white underpants on stage, tethered by a large rope around his neck to a concrete block. He paces around, bleating like an angry goat; later we will discover he is a man who has lost his humanity, a priest rendered beast-like by his abusive behaviour and a curse he has put on others.

^{Rachel Poirier in Swan Lake/Loch na hEala. Photograph © Prudence Upton}

Also on the open stage – which has been stripped back to the theatre’s bare brick walls – is an elderly woman in a wheelchair and a few props including four step-ladders of various sizes, each with a large pair of feathered wings. A traditional Swan Lake this is clearly not – but it is strangely beautiful, haunting work; a tough yet poetic retelling of the story that slowly draws you in emotionally, leaving you deeply moved.

Written, directed and...