He was vain, arrogant, and lousy to women. He was also a good painter. McAvera, however, is less interested in Picasso's ability as an artist, except as a tired metaphor for his abilities as a lover. And so, for two-and-a-half hours, we get rambling anecdotes and memories from three of the women in Picasso's life, recounting how he pursued them, seduced them, loved them and, in two of the three cases, discarded them.

Between these three women, and the others referenced in the text (these are just three of a cycle of eight such monologues, about eight such women), it becomes difficult to distinguish the stories. Pablo, it appears, could barely go out for a tapa without corrupting some young starlet. The three characters on stage are distinguished by the facts of their stories . . . one modelled for Picasso, one married him, and the third had just a brief affair. But emotionally, the distinctions are marginal. Unlike Brian Friel's Faith Healer, which bears a superficial structural similarity in also being three monologues, narrated from the afterlife, the monologues here do not reflect on and refract through each other. The only conflict in the women's insights appears to be as to whether Picasso was any good in bed; for the rest, he emerges, relentlessly, as a womanising boor. That might make for good biography, but it makes for lousy theatre.

Theatrically, the whole piece is a tired cliche. The women speak to us from some sort of netherworld in the afterlife. They pretend to address the audience, asking questions that they then pretend to hear answered, and they address Picasso, whom they expect to be hanging around in this netherworld as well. As they recall scenes, they sort-of re-enact them on stage . . . if they tell us that they walked into Pablo's studio, they walk across the stage, pretending to look at paintings on the wall. The effect is a kind of doublewhammy of dull, undramatic detail.

Drama requires conflict, and there is almost none here: the characters on stage are angry at the absent Picasso; and what with him being absent, and them all being dead, there's not much they can do about it.

The final piece is something of the exception: the writing seems more sensitive, and director Joe Devlin allows Barbara Dempsey, as Gaby, who loved Picasso and left him, relax and simply tell us Gaby's story. Her performance is truer and more arresting for it, though the meandering structure and its excessive length undermine her. The other two monologues are performed by Aisling McLaughlin and Cathy White and directed, respectively, by Brian McAvera and Mary Moynihan. Despite gutsy performances, both are theatrically staid and awkwardly directed.

Last word to the New Theatre, which showed insight and respect for its audience when putting in fewer seats than it could during its redevelopment last year.

It is a wonderfully intimate and comfortable space.