THERE is always a great sense of occasion when the Abbey and the Gate reveal their Christmas offerings and last week was no exception as both theatres launched their seasonal plays.

While the sense of occasion was underlined by guests showing up in droves in their finery for the opening nights, both theatres have veered away from the actual occasion in question here . . . Christmas.

The Abbey has at least offered a comedy of manners with The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, which bridges the gap between panto and highbrow.

The Gate, meanwhile, has plumped for the weightier Anna Karenina. This adaptation by Helen Edmundson has much to recommend it, not least the fact that Edmundson manages to keep it to under three hours, as Tolstoy's novel clocks in at over 600 pages.

The play tells the story of the eponymous Anna, a sophisticated woman, held in high regard in society, who embarks on a ruinous affair with Count Vronsky (Jonathan Forbes).

The play's content offers plenty to mull over and, I imagine, of the married couples who went to see it, many might spend the journey home in silence pondering the inevitable truths the play throws up about that institution.

Paris Jefferson is wonderful in the title role and performs beautifully, with tenderness and fragility, passion and feeling in all the right places. Peter Gowen plays Levin and along with Anna, is the driving force of the play. He acts as narrator as much as he acts his own part of inconsistent idealist in love with the young Kitty (played by rising star Lisa Lambe).

The stage design is stark: the setting, by necessity, is a train station, although with the use of just a couple of suitcases, some chairs and some inventive lighting the stage becomes variously a race track, a ballroom and a deathbed, amongst other things.

The staging of the play is fluid, with scenes crossing seamlessly over and melting in and out of one another, which drives the play at a nice pace.

Tolstoy's theme is, of course, the deadening influence of marriage and the constricting social mores of his time which could ruin a woman who dared to love and and commit the crime of adultery. The alternative experience seems to have been Dolly's, Anna's sister-inlaw, who has seen her body ravaged by childbirth and watched her husband cheat on her time and again whilst selling her inheritance to support his lifestyle.

The verdict on marriage is less than positive and does leave one a little subdued, not least because of the tragic ending. This is a sad story of loss and lessons learned the hard way. There is comedy in the marital observations, but the gloom pervades, with everything from the lighting to the rich, dark colours chosen for the sumptuous outfits adding to the sense of impending doom.

Anna Karenina is a fine play, well-executed, with the balance of comedy and tragedy wellmanaged, but there is no getting away from the fact that this was written by a Russian realist, and that makes for a troubling play at Christmas time.

School run The Abbey's choice for Christmas, Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School For Scandal, could not provide a greater contrast to the sombre Anna Karenina.

The play tells the story of two brothers, Joseph and Charles Surface, the former an insincere gold-digging dandy, the latter a spendthrift profligate with a heart of gold. Their rich uncle, Sir Oliver Surface, who has been abroad for 15 years, returns in disguise and reveals their true characters, which makes for some very humorous moments. It also tells the story of the likeable old bachelor Sir Peter Teazle, who marries late in life to a young, beautiful woman obsessed with fashion, spending her husband's money and gossiping, not to mention having some indecent fun with a certain Joseph Surface. Surface is leading Lady Teazle astray, whilst conning Sir Peter Teazle into believing that it is his brother Charles Surface who is playing around with Sir Teazle's wife. The complexity of the relations lead to delightful moments of pure comedy.

Walking into the theatre, you are struck instantly by the stage, which looks quite simply stunning.

Ferdia Murphy's set design has a surrealist feel. Using perspective to dizzying effect, it is reminiscent of something from a Lewis Carroll story. The set is completely white . . . white floor, walls and ceiling . . . with bold black outlines creating the effect of a two-dimensional drawing of a room.

The stark brightness and bareness of the set is the perfect backdrop to Leonore McDonagh's stunningly bright costumes. It also allows Paul Keogan to go crazy with the lighting, drenching the set alternatively in reds, purples and turquoises.

The play itself gets off to a lukewarm start with a lot of setting up the story before very much of interest happens. Lady Sneerwell and Snake's speeches wash over the audience in impenetrable strings of sentences, with very little in them to hold the attention.

The runaway star of the show is David Pearse playing Sir Benjamin Backbite, his simpering, prancing, overdone character matched with his striking hair and make-up makes him comic before he even opens his mouth and the audience adores him. And Tom Vaughan-Lawlor gives a hugely entertaining performance as the snivelling, conniving Joseph Surface.

Gemma Reeves, who brought a great sense of comedy to her role in Doubt at the Abbey earlier this year, gets a watery part this time round as Maria and fails to come to life on the stage. The School For Scandal is a much more light-hearted affair than Anna Karenina (as one might expect), and certainly one more suited to the spirit of Christmas, but neither suggests any of the Christmas spirit that past productions by both theatres have embodied. And more is the pity.