The Portland World Theatre company resides in a tiny red house way out near SE Foster at 82nd. Inside, the hallways are narrow and low-ceilinged. The actual stage is a converted living room, perhaps 15-feet across at its widest point, enough to accommodate approximately five actors at once, but more like two if they actually plan on moving.

If the nearly brand new World Theatre had spread their latest production, A Visit From William Butler Yeats out a bit, instead of cramming it into the ridiculously tiny corner of a ridiculously tiny room, they might really have had something. Perhaps a multi-room evolving/interactive theatrical installation à la Liminal (Faust(Faust)) or Sojourn (Seven Great Loves), or at least the knocking down of a wall or two to give the cast some room to breathe. But the poor performers in Yeats can't even do a proper cross, let alone execute any sort of compelling physical dynamic whatsoever.

In a word, Portland World Theatre, as it stands, is stifled. If the company is going to grow at all, they are going to have to make some serious physical changes. They also need to start finding some interesting plays. Yeats, God love him, was one of the greatest poets ever, but these four Yeats penned one-acts stink. Each one is a meditation on madness, usually with some sort of ghostly/ supernatural twist at the end. But they feel like exercises, not plays; perhaps character studies Yeats did to prepare for his true calling, poetry. The actors here do what they can with the tedious dialogue and claustrophobic conditions, but are ultimately overwhelmed. It is nice, however, to see Don Sky onstage again. The screechy-voiced, pop-eyed, lovable old man is one of Portland's most endearing actors. His role as a crazy guy who kills a boy in the third play of the evening, "Purgatory," is a highlight, though this might be due to the fact that Sky resembles an elf, and so actually looks comfortable within World Theatre's Oompa Loompa-sized corridors. The other, more human-looking actors, do not. JUSTIN WESCOAT SANDERS