GUNA Nua has built a reputation on sharp, sassy theatrical productions and the staging of its most recent devised work is no different. This is important, as David Parnell's direction helps to create a slick, clever (almost self-consciously clever) piece of work, while masking a certain slightness at its heart.

Thesis is inspired by . . . rather than based on . . . James Joyce's Ulysses. Set in the staid, although ruthlessly competitive world of academia, it features a brilliant young post-doctoral student, Stephen; his professor, Boyle (Bloom of the original); and Boyle's wife Penny (Molly Bloom, who was herself based on Homer's Penelope). Parnell and his creative collaborators, Gerry Dukes and Paul Meade, have re-imagined this relationship as a tangled-up love triangle, with Stephen's interplay with Boyle (who encourages and ultimately filches Stephen's radical thesis on the importance of Arthur Balfour to Joyce's work) being almost as important as his feelings for Penny, who has become his lover.

The narrative works, but only in part, and is much better viewed as a vehicle for allowing the company to produce some strikingly good theatrical scenes.

The best of these are in various airports, as Stephen is sent on a whirlwind journey to a US university in Vermont and back again . . . all in the one day. Here, the sterile atmosphere of airplanes and waiting rooms, and the wandering mind of a sleep-deprived Stephen, give rise to some hallucinogenic sequences involving video technology, melodrama and the odd TS Eliot/Shakespeare-inspired soliloquy.

It's a neat trick, echoing the Joycean penchant for incorporating the surreal and the banal, and it keeps the work turning interesting corners throughout much of the first half. The drama also mirrors Ulysses in other ways, by having Stephen bump into various characters on his journey, such as the one-eyed, loud-mouthed, racist New York taxi driver (the Citizen).

The focus on the creation of sequences and passages of text, rather than an overall narrative, becomes more pronounced in the second half, making it harder to disguise the shallowness of the storyline. This is not to take from the acting: Emma Colohan and Anthony Brophy, who play a host of different characters, have great fun turning themselves from air hostesses into dinner ladies and from irritating American exchange students into a drunk with a message at his heart, while Adam Fergus (Stephen), David Heap (Boyle) and Karen Ardiff (Penny) create realistic characters throughout.

Nonetheless, nicely played exchanges and comic interludes do not a drama make, and if this production burns brightly at first, it cannot sustain the flame until the end. A richness of texture, hinted at and sometimes achieved in the first part of the show, disappears by the end, and all we are left with is the rather dull thud of the everyday, and a story that never quite decided where it was that it needed to go.

Crock of Gold Currently touring the country Part fairytale, part philosophical musing, part affectionate parody, James Stephens' story of love and learning is beautifully realised in Storytellers enigmatic, inventive and gently wondrous production. Although originally published in the early 20th century, Stephens' work . . . in its humane view of life . . . has an equal relevance today. The world he creates . . . a mixture of philosophers, leprechauns, tinkers and policeman . . . is a mish-mash of characters with one theme: what is important in life?

So for the lecherous god, Pan, it is the pursuit of pleasure, whereas for the philosopher at the centre of the story it is the pursuit of abstract learning. When the leprechauns' crock of gold is stolen, this world is turned upside down and its characters are forced to reconsider their priorities.

Director Fiona Buffini manages to create a production that is a fairytale with a difference, a parable with a message at its heart. She does so by keeping things simple, staging a variety of scenes against the backdrop of a single set into which various props are lowered. This provides a rich vehicle for the imagination of set and costume designer Kathy Strachan, and for the creative talents of composer Conor Linehan and sound designer Denis Clohessy. If at times the story tends to drag, feeling somewhat overlong in total, this does not take from the simple joy of the production itself, which weaves its way through caverns, over mountains and hilltops, from city to country, in simple, fluid fashion.

Of the large cast, only Carrie Crowley (playing the thin woman) and Bosco Hogan (playing her philosopher husband) remain in character throughout.

The rest . . . Janet Moran, Ronan Conlon, Vincent Higgins, Joseph Kelly, Karen Scully and Aidan Turner . . . whip through a host of roles, with Moran, in particular, proving once again what a light and easy presence she is on the stage.